Canon 430EX II vs YongNuo YN-468

[Johninbigd]

I bought my first speedlite last weekend, a Canon 430EX II, but I want to get at least one or two more. Today, I found out about the YongNuo YN-468 speedlites and I'm wondering if those would be sufficient for my needs. I'm a noob hobbyist at the moment. I have a Canon 60D camera that can act as a master for my 430EX II. I wonder if I can easily supplement that speedlite with one or two of tne YN-468s. If I could, that would be a lot less expensive!

I'm new to speedlites, so I don't know which features I'll ultimately want, nor do I really know which features are missing in the YongNuo product.

Do any of you have any input on this?

Thanks!

[inkista]

The YN-468 is probably not the way you want to go, if you want eTTL wireless slaves that you can trigger with the 60D's pop-up flash master. The YN-468's only do eTTL on-camera through the hotshoe. Their "slave" modes are "dumb optical" (see a flash burst, fire a flash) triggering modes that would require you to use the 430EX on-camera or the pop-up flash in Manual mode. No eTTL, no high-speed sync, no remote commanding, no control from the camera menu.

Mixing wireless eTTL with other forms of wireless triggering can be a serious PITA.

You'd probably be better off with a YN-560 for Strobist all-manual work with radio triggers. Or possibly see how the YN-565 turns out, as that does have eTTL wireless slave capability.

Your best bets, though, are the Nissin or Metz eTTL flashes, but they are, of course, more expensive than the YN cheapies, and at that point you may want to consider future compatibility and functionality, and just go with Canon EXs instead.

What do you want to do with all these additional flashes, though? My first thought would be just stick with your 430EX and learn it thorougly until you run past its limits. At that point, you'll know what features you like on the 430EX, which ones you think are missing, and what you want in your next speedlight a little more thoroughly. It's like lenses: you really want to buy just one at a time, learn it thoroughly, and then think about the next one.

Some flash features are about on-camera use; some for off-camera. These are two very different shooting scenarios. The first things you need to figure out is how to shoot with your flash on-camera, to use it as fill flash, and how to bounce it. After that, you learn to go off-camera with various triggering methods, and which one is going to work best for you at a price point you can afford. Most of us end up with all-manual cheap radio triggers, which do NOT communicate eTTL signalling, as the bang for the buck tends to be very high.

[Johninbigd]

I just got my flash last week and used it off-camera. I haven't even tried it on-camera, yet. I suppose I should try it out, but I've never been a fan of the way on-camera flash looks. On the other hand, I'm a total noob, so I should learn how to use it because there will be times when I need to.

It sounds like sticking with Canon is the way to go for now. I'll probably pick up one more 430EX II in the very near future, then.

I've heard of Strobist before and I've read a couple of articles on there, but what do people mean when they refer to it as a style? Does that site have a particular approach that they advocate? I've heard people refer to strobist-style flash use a couple of times today, but I wasn't sure what they specifically meant.

Thanks for the help!
John

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Johninbigd

I just got my flash last week and used it off-camera. I haven't even tried it on-camera, yet. I suppose I should try it out, but I've never been a fan of the way on-camera flash looks.

What you probably don't like is the look of direct on-axis light. You can bounce. The website to go to first, imho, is Neil van Niekerk's Tangents blog.

It sounds like sticking with Canon is the way to go for now. I'll probably pick up one more 430EX II in the very near future, then.

No. I'd say hold off on getting a second flash. Trust me. You don't know enough to know what you want, yet. Chances are good in a few months you'll probably regret having gotten a second 430EX II. It sucks in some ways for off-camera work. No sync port, less power, No dumb optical slave. No thyristor mode. And in some ways it also sucks for on-camera work only 270° swivel, less power. You may want something with more power (AlienBee); you may want something that's better for bouncing (580EXII). You may want something cheaper that's all manual (YN-560, LP160) so you can get multiple units.

Hold off and educate yourself a bit more before rushing off to buy more gear. The paths open to you for off-camera flash are a lot larger than they were just three years ago.

I've heard of Strobist before and I've read a couple of articles on there, but what do people mean when they refer to it as a style? Does that site have a particular approach that they advocate?...

It's not a particular style, other than using off-camera lighting. But the main Strobist style is to use speedlights off-camera with a cheapish/DIY mindset that's made for the starving students/engineering hobbyists that seem to gather at the Strobist Flickr group and blog. The most common set up is to use all manual speedlights (like the Lumopro LP-160, YN-560, or Vivitar 285HV) with cheap radio triggers (say, Cactus V5s or Yongnuo RF-602s), with lightstands and modifiers (typically umbrellas to start with).

For the price of a 580EX II, you could get two AlienBee studio monolights, or a full Strobist three light setup complete with stands, umbrellas, swivels, and radio triggers.

Which is why you want to figure out what you want, first. How important is eTTL to you? Or speedlight portability vs. monolight power? Speedlights are fine, but not the only way, and not even necessarily the cheapest.

[Johninbigd]

That is all excellent advice! I really have no idea what I even need, yet. I want to start shooting people and I'm worried that I would need at least one more flash to get good results, but that probably all depends on how I use the one I've got.

I'm pretty new to photography, so it's hard to say which direction I'll go in. Right now, I'm really enjoying nature, landscapes and architecture, but learning to light and shoot people is a huge goal of mine.

Thanks again! I will stick with one speedlite for now until I have enough experience to know what I want. No sense being over-exuberant and spending money before thoroughly understanding what I even want to accomplish.

[GreggObst]

I can vouch for the YN-560. I bought one recently as a test, just to see what all the excitement was about since all the "cool kids" in the strobist community seem to like that flash. I think I paid $70 on Amazon, got it in three days and it was everything advertised. A really good, powerful, manual flash. I threw it in a Saber Strip with a cheap Cowboy Studio radio trigger and got results just as good as I had gotten with a Nikon SB80DX (also a manual flash) in the same Saber Strip. I may get another one and use those as background lights for white seamless setups instead of using SB-900s.

[GreggObst]

Originally Posted by Johninbigd

That is all excellent advice! I really have no idea what I even need, yet. I want to start shooting people and I'm worried that I would need at least one more flash to get good results, but that probably all depends on how I use the one I've got.

I'm pretty new to photography, so it's hard to say which direction I'll go in. Right now, I'm really enjoying nature, landscapes and architecture, but learning to light and shoot people is a huge goal of mine.

Thanks again! I will stick with one speedlite for now until I have enough experience to know what I want. No sense being over-exuberant and spending money before thoroughly understanding what I even want to accomplish.

You sound like you would get a ton of help from Zack Arias's One Light Workshop DVD. He just dropped the price by $100, so it's now $150. It's packed with information that was extremely eye opening for me and created a lot of "ahha that's how it's done" moments. He takes you through the whole exposure fomula (shutter speed controls ambient light, aperture controls flash exposure, how ISO plays into things, how flash to subject distance plays into things, etc). Then he starts out in a simple empty bedroom with 8 foot ceilings and distracting objects like outlets and crappy looking baseboards and he shows how to work all those elements during a portrait with a single light in an umbrella. He shows how to work the umbrella in reflective, shoot through and partially collapsed/pseudo softbox mode. Then he moves to outdoor portraits, again with one light either in an umbrella or a 28" Appollo Softbox. Then he moves out to an area where he has a sunset to contend with and shows a single Alien Bees strobe in a 50" Apollo softbox and all the ways you can control and enhance ambient light to your advantage.

I can't recommend that DVD enough for people trying to crack the mystery of a one light setup with off camera flash.

OneLight DVD • Photography By Zack Arias ? ATL ? 404-939-2263 ? studio@zackarias.com

[Johninbigd]

Originally Posted by GreggObst

You sound like you would get a ton of help from Zack Arias's One Light Workshop DVD. He just dropped the price by $100, so it's now $150. It's packed with information that was extremely eye opening for me and created a lot of "ahha that's how it's done" moments. He takes you through the whole exposure fomula (shutter speed controls ambient light, aperture controls flash exposure, how ISO plays into things, how flash to subject distance plays into things, etc). Then he starts out in a simple empty bedroom with 8 foot ceilings and distracting objects like outlets and crappy looking baseboards and he shows how to work all those elements during a portrait with a single light in an umbrella. He shows how to work the umbrella in reflective, shoot through and partially collapsed/pseudo softbox mode. Then he moves to outdoor portraits, again with one light either in an umbrella or a 28" Appollo Softbox. Then he moves out to an area where he has a sunset to contend with and shows a single Alien Bees strobe in a 50" Apollo softbox and all the ways you can control and enhance ambient light to your advantage.

I can't recommend that DVD enough for people trying to crack the mystery of a one light setup with off camera flash.

OneLight DVD • Photography By Zack Arias ? ATL ? 404-939-2263 ? studio@zackarias.com

That sounds like EXACTLY the sort of thing I'm looking for. I'll definitely be getting that. Thanks!