Canon 430EX vs Canon 430EX II

photogreen

Here is a short comparison article: Canon Speedlite 430EX vs. Canon Speedlite 430EX II
Hope this helps

ziggy53

photogreen wrote:

Here is a short comparison article:
http://photo.greenlightstreet.com/www/index.php?/publisher/articleview/frmArticleID/8/
Hope this helps

Good find. Thanks for sharing.

photogreen

here is just a picture from that article:

cerpintor

I bought one of these a month or so ago. I've only played with it a bit. It's the first "dedicated" flash I've used so comparisons are impossible, but it certainly has opened up a whole load of new possibilities for me.

One thing I love about it is that in low light conditions in which the camera's auto focus wouldn't be able to fix on anything, I can use the flashgun's focus assist beam to get good focus on my subject. If I don't actually want a big flash burst, I can set the flashgun's power to minimum and turn it around so it has no effect on the exposure but I can still focus sharply in the dark.

One question I have though for other users. Twice now while I've had the flashgun mounted on the camera, it's let of a sudden burst of rapid stroboscopic flashes. Both times this has happened the camera has been in my hands and is switched on, but I've not actually been touching any buttons on the camera or the flashgun.

Any ideas what causes this?

grapejape

cerpintor wrote:

I bought one of these a month or so ago. I've only played with it a bit. It's the first "dedicated" flash I've used so comparisons are impossible, but it certainly has opened up a whole load of new possibilities for me.

One thing I love about it is that in low light conditions in which the camera's auto focus wouldn't be able to fix on anything, I can use the flashgun's focus assist beam to get good focus on my subject. If I don't actually want a big flash burst, I can set the flashgun's power to minimum and turn it around so it has no effect on the exposure but I can still focus sharply in the dark.

One question I have though for other users. Twice now while I've had the flashgun mounted on the camera, it's let of a sudden burst of rapid stroboscopic flashes. Both times this has happened the camera has been in my hands and is switched on, but I've not actually been touching any buttons on the camera or the flashgun.

Any ideas what causes this?

Are you sure that you didn't accidentally press the DOF preview button (lower left of the lens if you have the camera up to your eye) - it will fire a modeling flash that pretty much lights up the whole world. Many folks don't even know that the button exists, and it's not very prominent on the camera.

If that's what is happening, and you want to prevent it from happening again, you can disable the modeling flash via the Speedlight CFn settings.



- Jason

cerpintor

grapejape wrote:

Are you sure that you didn't accidentally press the DOF preview button (lower left of the lens if you have the camera up to your eye) - it will fire a modeling flash that pretty much lights up the whole world. Many folks don't even know that the button exists, and it's not very prominent on the camera.

If that's what is happening, and you want to prevent it from happening again, you can disable the modeling flash via the Speedlight CFn settings.

Nice one Jason. Yes, you've solved my little mystery. I've just tested it out and am now half blind!!

I'm aware of the DOF preview button but rarely use it, and stuck down there where it is I suppose I must have often pressed it without realising it in the past while handling the camera - it's just that until I got a flashgun I wasn't given a rather bright signal that I was doing so.

I had meant to say in my earlier post that I'd looked through the manual to see if it gave an explanation of what caused the burst of flash and couldn't find anything. So, armed with your explanation I've just looked again in the manual and I have to say it's still not particularly clear to me from reading it. There's no explanation of how the function works. Your explanation was much more useful than the manual. There's a reference to Modeling Flash in the table of custom functions but no explanation of what that means (maybe I'm showing my ignorance here) and a footnote saying it is "convenient when you want to use the DOF preview button to check the DOF" but again, no explanation of what it actually does to help you check it.

Anyway, I'm glad to know it's not a malfunction. Cheers.