Yongnuo YN560 Flash for Canon 550d
 

Hi all, has anybody bought one of these flash gun for a Canon 550d. I have found it on ebay.

As long as you understand that what you're buying doesn't have ttl and also has a pretty poor reliability record, and as long as it's cheap enough, then it's worth a go.
You can buy a new one on Amazon for about GBP60 and it will have a 12 month guarantee which Amazon will honour. So, a s/h one on eBay with no such guarantee can't be worth more than 1/2 the new price.
It works, is fairly powerful and is certainly very cheap.
I bought one about 18 months ago for a particular purpose and because it was a risky situation that I didn't want to put the SB-900 through - but it survived and is still working.

I have two of the Yongnuo 460Mk II for over a year and had no issues, they have been very reliable and used with a 350D and a 40D off camera using the RF602 trigger/receivers.

I've not used the YN560 guns so cannot comment on them

I would however recommend the Yongnuo YN565EX flash guns. I have two and I'm over the moon with them. Good build quality ETTL, work flawlessly with the 7D/60D wireless transmitter.

The only downside is they will not work as Master and have no HSS.
Coupled with the with the RF-603c triggers I consider them to be an excellent addition to my photographic kit. An additional benifit of these triggers is they will act as remote camera release. I've not checked the maximum working distance, but I've used them at 7-10 metres.

I can recommend this Ebay company as I've bought a number of items from them.

[URL="http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330669426497&ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:GB:1123"]http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=330669426497&ssPageName=ADME:L:OU:GB:1123[/URL]

Harry

another good cheap flashis the nissin di622 easy to use and powerful

I have two Yongnuo YN560's for Nikon. Excellent value for money at under £50 a pop on eBay. Very straightforward to operate both the power and zoom functions on them. Build quality is as good as if not better than my £250 Metz 58 AF-1. I actually prefer the interface of the YN560 flashes, to the convoluted LCD menu system of the Metz.

As Jet_Kit mentions, these aren't E-TTL flashes, so don't expect accurate exposures on the fly. For controlled conditions like a studio or posed portraiture (in or outdoor), they are perfectly acceptable. Only thing I would say is, before you buy, contact the seller and ask if they have a metal foot plate. The older ones with a plastic foot had an issue with the electronics (cannot remember what now). The issue was fixed in the latter version with the metal foot. I've had mine since January and they've had fairly regular use. Not had any problems with them thus far.