Dedicated flash units?

[Coyotepsych]

Hello everyone! I am brand spankin new to this group, but am excited about joining. I have a digital Canon EOS XT. I mostly take photos of my kids, and did one photo shoot of my neighbor girl for her dad before he went overseas, but like to do the occasional bit of still subject matter as well. I've usually done any "serious" pictures (ones I am doing for granparent gifts or with the thought of framing) of my kids outdoors or near windows, etc, for better light, but am thinking about using flash. I watched the little YouTube video on making a "better bounce card" and would like to try it. I have noooooo idea what kind of flash unit to buy for my camera, though. I hopped on ebay and noticed that I can get a dedicated flash unit for around $40 and then others (EF unit?) for around $80, and on up to $300. What can folks tell me about various flash units? What is bare minimum need, what is "nice to have" and what is extravagent and not needed? Also, has anyone tried the foam flash card? They make softboxes for flash units too. Any preferences? Thanks for your thoughts!!

[mdwsta4]

if you're going to use on camera flash i would stick with canon. i, personally, have a canon 430ex which i think runs around $250 or so. i also have radio transmitters so i can use the flash off camera as well. in addition, i have an old vivitar flash on order that i got for abour $30-50 which will only be used off camera. downside is most aftermarket flashes must be used in manual mode w/ canon and not in ETTL, but it's not that big of a issue.

i made a homemade diffuser as well. pictures should be in this thread: http://digital-photography-school.com/forum/showthread.php?t=550

[Coyotepsych]

Thanks! I'll check those out online and at my local camera shop.

[smc1377]

I bought a cheapie unit from eBay for about $75 shipped. It's made by Bower and promised full ETTL-II compatability. The Bower unit I purchased featured full tilt and zoom capabilities as well.

I haven't ever used a canon speedlight so I can't compare the two directly. All I know is that I've been very happy with the cheapie unit though I haven't used it much. I've used it to do some on-the-fly product shots where I don't have the liberty to set up a nice lighting setup and at indoor events.

I'm not trying to discourage you from buying the real deal, I'm just providing some input on the cheapie units you inquired about. For my needs, I only wanted to get a cheapie unit cause I knew I would hardly ever use it so I didn't want to spend a good chunk of change on it. I suspect that if I didn't already own a $700 studio lighting kit, I'd probably gone for a real canon branded product.

As far as build quality, you can pretty much consider the old saying "you get what you pay for" applies. Not that I feel the cheapie unit is going to fall apart, the plastic feels and sounds cheap, if that makes sense. Almost like it's one good drop away from shattering apart. Again, I have no idea how the real canon speedlights feel like, but I suspect they don't feel cheap like this.