Creative Light Equipment?

[natil0ve]

I'm looking to buy good but not too expensive lighting equipment. I read a bit on Creative Light. I would like to know if any of you out there own some of those products and weather you think they are good or not. If not, then what would you recommend?
Thank you all very much.

[OsmosisStudios]

This depends seriously on what you'll be shooting, where and with what system

[inkista]

The Creative Light System (CLS) is Nikon. You're a Canon shooter. You have something similar, but in some ways, it can differ a lot from the Nikon system, and it's pretty freaking expensive on either side, especially with an entry-level camera where you have to purchase a separate master/commander unit. If you're on a really tight budget, what you probably want to look into is not CLS, but the Strobist.

And before you do that, you'd probably just want to learn what using a flash on-camera and bouncing is like.

The usual advice for a first flash that you're likely to use both on and off camera would be just to cave, blow the money, and get a Canon EX speedlight. Either a used 430EX, 550EX, or 580EX, or a new 430EX II, or 580EX II, depending on your budget. If you plan on using the flash off-camera at all, do not contemplate any of the other modes (420EX, 430EZ, 220EX, etc.) because they do not offer full manual control over the power level of the camera off-camera.

If you only want to use a flash off-camera, without eTTL capability, then a manual-only flash, like the LumoPro LP120 might be more the ticket. Far less expensive, but far less function on-camera. Different function off-camera.

My personal advice to anyone looking to get into flash photography is be sure that you're really comfortably shooting in full manual mode and mentally swapping stops among iso, aperture, and shutter speed before you start messing about with flash, because it's just going to get more tangled and complicated from there: you'll be throwing flash distance and flash power into the list of factors you have to juggle, as well as worrying about the direction and quality of the light and balancing your ambient and your flash. You really want to be thoroughly grounded in ambient exposure before picking up lights.