What flash for a keen amateur?

It should be obvious I'm an amateur as I'm on here asking this question! I have an A57 and am primarily interested in wildlife and nature photography with some dabbling in landscapes although I don't have the ideal lenses for that yet. In the future when I have more experience I'd like to get into pet portraits so with this in mind I've begun a college course to get myself a little more formal advice and training. I'll be honest, I have zero interest in taking shots of people so I've had the luxury of avoiding buying a flash until I was more experienced. I am aware flash has a part to play in freezing motion but I've buried my head in the sand and worked around that until now. As I have become much more secure in how my camera performs I am aware of a glaring lack of knowledge about flashes and their applications. I can't put it off any longer. If I am to get the best from my photography course and break out of this strange 'anti-flash' mind set I've developed then I need to start playing with the technique and admit it's not just for taking snaps of posing people!

In short, what can people recommend as a suitable unit for an a57? My budget isn't great, I'm not really wanting to go over £150 at the absolute maximum. If I'm honest I still don't want to commit to learning flash (no idea why, just can't get excited about it!) so I'm only pushing myself into this because Christmas is coming and I know I should sort it out!

Thanks for any advice/info.

Kally

Hi Kally and ouch on the budget.

Normally I'd suggest the F43 or second hand F42 to start with, preferably two. Full compatibility, wireless etc. But even getting mine during sales, still took just shy of £300 for the two F42.

However, http://www.premier-ink.co.uk/photog...e-flash-gun-sony-gn-44m-at-iso100-p-4005.html

may fill the void - within budget and seemingly able to work wirelessly (not had any hands on use of it mind).



Carl

Thanks for the quick response. I'm aware my budget isn't going to allow much flexibility in the Sony range so I was hoping for some advice on some decent 3rd party options?

Second hand Minolta 3600HD flash - example on Ebay. <£90

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Minolta-3...ories_CameraFlashUnits_JN&hash=item3a7bc4332d

Mine that I've had for many years still works OK and wirelessly too. You sometimes need to reduce the strength of the flash which is easy to do.

The other thing to get is one of these to redirect daylight

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Translucent...VKAE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1353274704&sr=8-3

I would second the other poster who mentioned Minolta HSD 3600. When looking at older Minolta flashes, the only two models to look at are the HSD 3600 and HSD 5600, if you want to benefit from TTL flash and wireless flash.

You should be able to use your cameras inbuilt flash to trigger either or both of the above. This gives you lots of creative options.

Depending on what you think you might be doing with flash, for your budget you should be able to get 2 x HSD 3600, or 1x HSD 5600, all secondhand of course. I have both models to use on my A900, but at the moment I also have a Sony HVL 58, as the A900 doesn't have an inbuilt flash that can act as controller to trigger the others.

Given your budget, the Minolta HSD 5600, would be my choice. It's a terrific flash, very capable, with lots of creative options.

I was anti-flash for probably 20 years, but the Sony/Minolta flash options are superb.

If you do look at older Minolta units, don't buy "HS", make sure you get "HSD"! The HS units are not compatible.

Whatever you choose, I wish you well.

Not so sure I'd go for the 3600/F36. Had one, sold it as soon as my first F42 came along. I could not cope with having no control over the flash power level and that would prove limiting.



http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Nissin-Di...ories_CameraFlashUnits_JN&hash=item2c69cea67d

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sony-Alph...ories_CameraFlashUnits_JN&hash=item43b5c7cb51

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/METZ-50-A...ories_CameraFlashUnits_JN&hash=item2c69e48327

Before spending money on a budget-priced flash that may or may not satisfy your needs, I would suggest ordering and downloading Gary Friedman's excellent A57 ebook (see link below) and reading his sections on using flash. That will give you a better idea of how using an external flash--either on or wirelessly off your A57--can improve your photography and under what circumstances. Then you'll be in a much better position to choose a flash that meets your needs.

http://www.friedmanarchives.com/alpha57/index.htm

If budget were not a consideration, I would recommend the Sony HVL-F43AM, which is what I use most of the time on my A57, although I also have the larger HVL-F58AM. Metz also makes some excellent flash units. Perhaps someone who uses a Metz can make some recommendations.

Having spent the night researching and trawling round review sites I'm seeing the sense in spending a little more to get something that, A:gives results I'd actually want and, B:will grow with me as I learn more. Assuming I can wangle some pennies towards it as a Christmas present I'm currently looking at getting an F43 and just topping up the financial deficit myself. It seems to have the advantage over the F42 without attracting the scary price of the F58. What are people's experiences with it?

I would agree with carljervis that the HSD3600 is limited, but you had a budget and I also said my choice in your budget would be the HSD 5600. BTW, HSD 3600 = F36 and HSD 5600 = F56. The Sony version is just a rebadged Minolta, but the prices for older Minolta units are usually significantly better.

That said, if you're going to up the budget, then F43 is a superb option and can also act as wireless controller on A850/A900, should you ever be tempted to go full frame on a budget. F58 is obviously better if you can stretch. I won mine on eBay for about £230 and am very happy with it.

Fuzzwang said:

Fuzzwang wrote:

It should be obvious I'm an amateur as I'm on here asking this question! I have an A57 and am primarily interested in wildlife and nature photography with some dabbling in landscapes although I don't have the ideal lenses for that yet. In the future when I have more experience I'd like to get into pet portraits so with this in mind I've begun a college course to get myself a little more formal advice and training. I'll be honest, I have zero interest in taking shots of people so I've had the luxury of avoiding buying a flash until I was more experienced. I am aware flash has a part to play in freezing motion but I've buried my head in the sand and worked around that until now. As I have become much more secure in how my camera performs I am aware of a glaring lack of knowledge about flashes and their applications. I can't put it off any longer. If I am to get the best from my photography course and break out of this strange 'anti-flash' mind set I've developed then I need to start playing with the technique and admit it's not just for taking snaps of posing people!

In short, what can people recommend as a suitable unit for an a57? My budget isn't great, I'm not really wanting to go over £150 at the absolute maximum. If I'm honest I still don't want to commit to learning flash (no idea why, just can't get excited about it!) so I'm only pushing myself into this because Christmas is coming and I know I should sort it out!

Thanks for any advice/info.

Kally

Click to expand...

You dont need flash to freeze motion in good light.

If you are going to buy a flash I would recommend getting over your hesitation and not be looking for some cheap one. Buy the biggest one you can get. The 58 or the 60. Both have a great head and if your serious about portraiture your going to be often either using the flash off camera or bouncing it or using it for fill.

Under most these conditions you will need the power of the full sized flash or be dealing with atrocious recycle times.

If you want an external flash, consider what you think your budget is... then add 100 dollars, and over ten years its an extra ten dollars a year, and that extra 100 dollars will make you much happier than the disappointment you will get from a flash that is 100 dollars less.

I'm copying what I wrote for another thread on this forum. It talks about A55, where you get dark viewfinder with non-dedicated flash in the hot-shoe, but you may find it useful anyway. Add a couple of light modifiers (at least softbox and omnibounce), and you are set as an amateur for general-purpose photography.

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I have an arrangement to connect a non-dedicated flash to EVF cameras - used on A55 and NEX-C3.

I do not connect the flash or trigger directly to a camera even when possible - cameras with Minolta hot shoe don't detect standard flashes. Instead, I raise the built-in flash (on the SLR) or attach the accessory flash (on the NEX), and then use properly adjusted Seagull SYK 5 "digital" optical-slave trigger to fire whatever device I want - either radio trigger or the standard flash. In order to block the built-in flash light from reaching anything but the trigger sensor, I put a small carboard box on it - open only on the side where the slave sensor is located. This way the camera assumes it's able to light the scene by the built-in flash, and the LCD/EVF works as a regular viewfinder - without exposure preview.

I must say I was unable to use radio triggers this way - the flash fired, but out-of-sync; maybe others are more lucky. Works realy fine with a flash attached directly to SYK-5. But of course it's limited to a single flash when used this way.

For me the primary reason of switching to non-dedicated flash was the desire to have real-time metering. Old-school auto-thyristor flash copes better with my dog running towards me than a much more expensive dedicated Sony flash. This is because the latter relies on preflash and thus isn't so good for moving subjects.

If you want to try, the whole setup could be had for less than 100$ - you need a flash (40-90$), SYK5 (12-15$), and a flash bracket.

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Regards,

Oleg.

It's small, light & cheap (often found less than $100). It's my first flash when I started with A350, and I am still using it for A99 now. Aside from it's "weak" power, it's main strength are:

1) compact, yet can be raised up high to avoid lens shadow (common problem for built-in flash when long zoom lens is mounted).

2) can be used as wireless trigger for other off-camera flash.

I am not big into flash but I always keep F20AM and F58AM. You can get a used F58 for less than $300 that's a better buy than other smaller flash in full retail price.