Top critical review
2.0 out of 5 starsNot meant for professional photography
Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2017
This review is only relevant to professional photographers, especially wedding or event photographers. If you're only buying this only for personal use or doing photography as a hobby, this flash will work just fine. However, if you're doing this professionally (especially if shooting weddings) I would highly recommend going with the bigger 600 ex-rt as opposed to this one. I bought this as an addition to my collection of 600's because the radio trigger works interchangeably. I figured I'll just use this as sort of a "trigger" on my 5D since it is cheaper, smaller and less weight to carry than the 600 ex-rt, and better than an actual radio trigger since I'd have the added benefit of having a flash on the camera ready to fire on the go in case I need bounce light or if I move away from my off camera flashes.
Well, I found out the hard way that this is not a good idea. 430 overheats very, very quickly. I don't even shoot TTL, and was using only 1/16th of power in manual mode and after about 8 or 10 consecutive rapid fires it overheated and stopped working. Even worse, the radio function stopped working when the unit overheated, so basically none of your flashes would fire.
Throughout the night it kept overheating, and each time it seemed the number of consecutive shots needed to make it go crazy would decrease. Overall it was a very disappointing experience.
