What flashgun to get for canon 450d

[Angelhales]

Hi there everyone,

Just looking for a bit of advice. Looking to spend as little as possible on a flashgun. I mainly shoot portraits and still life but am also covering a christening. Ideally dont want something to bulky or complicated.

If anyone has any suggestions I would be very grateful.

Thanks.

[chris-p]

Hi there, and welcome to the forum

The cheapest Canon compatible flashguns are the Sunpak PF30X, the Metz AF 36-4C and the Nissin Di 466. They're all under £100 and they're all relatively small. The Sunpak RD2000 is the smallest fully Canon compatible one I can see on a quick hunt around.

If you're after simplicity, I would suggest that whatever you buy is fully Canon E-TTL compatible. It means that it will work in fully automatic mode so you don't have to worry about manual flash settings if you don't want to.

[Angelhales]

Ok thats cool!

So sounding rather dumb here, I'm afraid flashguns arent my forte, are there various modes for flash guns then that you can use? If I was to get one that wasnt a canon compatible would it be harder to use it in other words?

Would these be good for covering christening shots, of people outside church, casual shots etc?

Sorry sounding really daft here arent I!

[chris-p]

Originally Posted by Angelhales

Ok thats cool!

So sounding rather dumb here, I'm afraid flashguns arent my forte, are there various modes for flash guns then that you can use? If I was to get one that wasnt a canon compatible would it be harder to use it in other words?

Would these be good for covering christening shots, of people outside church, casual shots etc?

Sorry sounding really daft here arent I!

It's OK, flash isn't my thing either - I've never owned a flash gun anyway.

Basically, with a proper flash gun you can control it manually. You can change the flash power, you can change the way the light is directed and you can change the sync.

If the camera and the flash can talk to eachother, the camera can work out if it should use the flash and what sort of power it should use etc. Then it can control the flash to do what the camera wants. It's sort of the same as using the camera in full auto mode when it decides everything for you, but with flash.

Canons system for flash control and communication is called E-TTL (Electronic - Through The Lens). If you buy an E-TTL flash you can use it in automatic modes and let the camera do the thinking and the controlling. If it's a manual flash (or one that doesn't do Canon-speak) you'd have to do it yourself.

[Angelhales]

Right cool I think I get that more now!
So I'm looking at this one http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-...canon/p1519626 which says its ETLL compatable. I often shoot in Av, M, Tv modes, does this mean I would need to be manually setting the flash?

[ianpinion]

Originally Posted by Angelhales

Right cool I think I get that more now!
So I'm looking at this one http://www.warehouseexpress.com/buy-...canon/p1519626 which says its ETLL compatable. I often shoot in Av, M, Tv modes, does this mean I would need to be manually setting the flash?

No, you would still be able to use the E-TTL in any of these modes. It simply means that the camera instructs your flashgun how much power it would need to properly expose the image, based on what ISO, aperture, shutterspeed, focal length and white balance values have been set to in the camera.

[chris-p]

What Ian said!

[ianpinion]

Sorry Chris, did I beat you to it again?

[chris-p]

Originally Posted by ianpinion

Sorry Chris, did I beat you to it again?

Yup, but thats what I get for taking a night off work and going out for a curry!

Edit: "Spending the night working" could also read as "a night with Chris sat at his PC trying to work, getting frustrated and ending up on the forum and YouTube"

[Angelhales]

Awesome! Thanks very much for the help guys! Much appreciated!!