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I had been holding off on purchasing an external flash for my XTI for months, making up all sorts of excuses as to why I shouldn't own one. It's too big, I'll never use it, $200+ for a flash of light is obscene and on and on the excuses went. My wife surprised me by getting me one for my birthday and after using it for 6 months I couldn't be happier. How did I ever live without this thing?
I take a lot of pictures indoors of my son. He's a 9 month old boy that's not quite ready to be outside all the time. I've got the 50mm 1.8 but it just isn't fast enough in the dim lighting of our home and the on camera flash is worthless. Ever since I got this flash I'd say that 80% of the pictures I take indoors and outdoors are taken with this flash. Below is a list of all of the pro's and cons I could come up with.
Pros:
Fast recycle time. I can take several burst shots in 1 second and the flash fires each time. You won't miss many pictures because the flash isn't ready (like with the built in flash).
TTL is awesome. This flash is much smarter than I'll ever be. Shots are almost always perfectly exposed.
Lots of manual controls, easy to override TTL.
Very powerful.
On rechargeable double A's I get 400-500 shots easy without recharging.
High speed sync lets you take pics at any shutter speed with a flash (although the distance the flash travels is greatly reduced).
Tilt 90 degrees /Turn 180 degrees lets you bounce of ceilings or off a wall behind you.
AF assist is much less invasive than the horrible on camera flash assist and it really helps you focus in low light. Just a red light is send out instead of the crazy electricity storm the XTI sends out for AF assist.
Well built. Sturdy metal foot, nice locking mechanism.
Rear sync lets me get sharp pictures indoors with any lens I own at 1/30 of a second or even less at times.
Cons:
The buttons are hard to push if you have big fingers.
It's big and adds weight to the camera.
It can't control any other flashes you may own. This flash can only act as a slave.
Flashes are addictive, I wish I had a second or a third...
If you're thinking about the 580exII:
The 580ex II can act as a master flash over other canon flashes without losing TTL.
It's more powerful(58m vs 43m at ISO 100).
The batteries last from 100-700 pics.
It can swivel 180 degrees both ways instead of just one way and it can tilt downwards slightly.
It's dust and water resistant
Included bounce tab (you can just use an index card).
I'm sure there's other things I'm missing...
It's a lot more expensive.
It's a little bigger and heavier.
Since getting this flash and taking around 10,000 pictures with it I can honestly say it's been the single best investment I've made towards improving my photography to date. The uses for a flash are endless. Even outdoors you'll start seeing shadows you never noticed before that you'd like to lighten up with a flash. Oh and I'm not kidding about wanting to own more than 1. After getting an umbrella and a radio trigger you quickly realize how nice it would be to have a second or even third flash to make things just perfect. Stop procrastinating and just get it. You'll be happy you did.
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