Got 430EX, better than expected

mrk · 7 Jul 2006 at 19:54

Had the Sigma 500 before and was very happy with it but it was a bit big and also cheap feeling, the battery door "fell" off many times when changing batteries and I freaked each time but managed to wedge it back into place

Cost only £150 and immediately was surprised by the build quality, the stand quality, the pouch..they all felt really good...

Seems to expose colours much more naturally than the sigma too, the sigma I had for both nikon and canon bodies (500 DG ST mkII) and on both systems exposed a more bluey toned image, the 430EX seems to give warmer tones when bounced off the white ceiling - both using ettl-ii and ittl for the nikon. I also prefer the vertical AF assist IR beam instead of the sigmas central beam which can miss subjects when you are really close.

Sample:

Room has a daylight energy bulb, this is where the sigma would give a much more blue tone and give more saturation to yelow areas, not the case on this! it's as natural as I have seen straight from the camera

Now for some lenses...

mrk · 7 Jul 2006 at 20:04

I trie dout manual power levels and at 1/1 it seems to pack some power in there, in low light it overexposed half the room and it's a big room so I think this flash will do me for the majority of things if not everything :cool:

mrk · 7 Jul 2006 at 20:33

Agreed there

For portraits and weddings this is going to totally rock!

mrk · 7 Jul 2006 at 22:05

Ah but I bet I got it first

mrk · 7 Jul 2006 at 23:28

Just get the one you will use the most

mrk · 7 Mar 2007 at 12:45

scoop said:
Two quick questions:

i) What' the recycle time like in "real" use on the 430EX
ii) Can it do stroboscopic flash at all, i.e. multiple flash bursts per exposure?

i) On decent batteries it's very fast, i have never times it but then again i've never thought "oh that's not fast enough" and decided to time it to find out how long it it

ii) do you mean curtain sync flash? it does do that among some other things

mrk · 7 Mar 2007 at 14:50

rpstewart said:
I don't think that's the question.

On the 550EX you can setup the flash to fire at a set frequency - 5Hz for example. If you then use a 1s exposure you get 5 bursts of flash during the exposure so the resultant image has 5 superimposed views of the scene.

I think scoop's wondering if you can do that on the 430EX.

Ah that you cannot do but what Raymond says you can do