What is the Right Flash??

Question

I'm going to buy a Nikon D80 or a D60, havent decided yet, but anyways, I need a good affordable flash, Anyone can Recommend anything good?? I will use this mostly for portraits, concerts and maybe even weddings. So any advice?

Answer 1

Things to look for in a flash:

1. Tilt and swivel head so that you can bounce flash off ceiling and walls

2. High guide number for further reach and more bouncing options (because when you bounce - you lose a couple of stops of light, so you need a powerful unit for that).

There are three kinds of flashes: TTL, Automatic and manual.

TTL is the kind of flash that "talks" to your camera and decides together with it how to fire. It measures the light through the lens (that's what TTL abbreviation stands for). This is the easiest one to use. In your budget you can get Nikon Speedlite SB-400. It has decent guide of 100 but no tilt or swivel - only straight in your face flash shots, which is not very attractive.

Manual, as name suggest - full manual control. You use the tables/calculators or flash meters to calculate the power. Only useful in studio settings.

Finally Automatic. This is a flash that has onboard light meter. It is set to one of a few automatic modes and use a table or calculator on back of a flash to calculate needed aperture for your ISO. Then as flash is fired it will detect the returning light and flash at power needed for correct exposure. The problem with this kind of flash is if you want to use it as fill flash outside. You have to make sure whatever you do the shutter speed is not faster than 1/200 for D80, which is its max flash sync speed.

With your budget you can get a basic TTL flash or an excellent Automatic flash. If you choose this route - I can suggest Sunpak 383 Super flash. I use one of these for over 6 years and can't praise it high enough. It costs about $90 or so, and I've used it on several cameras with excellent results. Those automatic flashes have an extra advantage - no pre-flash. I hate TTL flashes little flash before the exposure (you can observe it with built-in flash, which is also TTL). I noticed, that there are some talented subjects who manage to blink on pre-flash perfectly timed to get closed eyes on main flash.... Just my opinion though...

One more concern when buying third party flashes - trigger voltage. Make sure one you get has a low trigger voltage, or else it can fry your camera's electronics. Some cheap and/or old flashes sometimes sends thousands of volts into the camera. It worked for fully manual cameras, where flash trigger was mechanical. Not good for digital. So check them out first. You'll be safe with Sunpak 383 though. Works great on my D80.

LEM.