Top critical review
3.0 out of 5 starsIt's a good first step! Limited compatibility...
Reviewed in the United States on June 24, 2018
So I'm starting out with photography nothing fancy just a low -mid tier eos camera and a pocket "bridge" camera for now. This breaks the review into the quality, how it works for both and a summary of my thoughts and recommendations.
Build quality is good. It's made in china if you care about those things. But feels like good solid plastics. The rotating motor is smooth, quick and if you move it around manually (and yes its designed for it) it hold steady in place. The range sensors are in the flash itself, it only has optical slave mode (no rf or master mode). But I doubt this was intended for that purpose, this was meant for a starting out photographer or an adnavce on at very high dynamic events (i.e. weddings) not someone with 4 additional flashes in a light box room. It also has a feature where it goes back to the neutral (forward facing position) when you turn it back on. Can be kind of annoying because if you change batteries it loses your setting.
For the eos cameras, keep it mind that it's meant for camras after 2014 (I think). Works very well with mine initially. It can only be automatic for ceiling bounce though so if you want to do wall bounce you can use the semi auto mode or manual mode. Does a pretty good job of calculating the distance and the results from ceiling bounces are as good as I can get them, sometimes better with my limited experiance. But the photos always looks a little flat. There's nothing that canon could do about it, it's just the limitations of the downward direction of using a ceiling bounce. Now I meantioned worked well initially but after a few days I had this issue where all the submenus would be locked out. If you take the batteries out and wait 5-10mins it goes back to normal.
Now this camera wasn't meant for anything other then the eos line but I had a g1x mark iii and wanted to see what it could do with that. Surprisingly the semi auto mode works in terms of the direction but the distance adjustment does not (cant do it automatically or manually). I find this incredible odd (more on this later). Its useful to set the place you want to bounce the flash off of and that is pretty much all it can do. All the submenus were locked (even in manual mode) but not sure if that's just this specific flash as I had the problem with the eos camera also.
If I could I would give it 3.5 stars. I dont fault it for the issues I had with the menus locking in the eos camera, I feel that was either a defect in this individual flash or a software issue and I'm sure canon would replace it or release a firmware fix in the future. My gripe is more with the intended user (minus one star) and the comaptability (minus 1/2 a star). For what you are paying the flash cost about 80 dollars less then canons top end flash the 600 ex rtii, it has more comparability, longer range, brighter lights, and has the rf master/slave capability. The only this this has over that is the automatic ceiling bounce which seems more like a gimmick. Dont get me wrong it's great for a starting out photographer but the price is so high that it may put off these people and for the professional ones the capabilities are too limited.
In terms of compatibility, given the the sensor and CPU for the calculations are all supposedly in the flash itself, I dont see why this can't be used for any canon with a hot shoe. I really dont understand either how the distance adjustment for the flash doesn't work either as that can just be linked to the zoom lever on the camera. It really feels like this us a software issue and if canon updates it, they would reach a much wider audiance, like the upper end power shot cameras with hot shoes. It's really a shame because I really do like the idea of this flash and I think it has a lot of potential. If any canon reps are looking at this, here is my recommendations if you do a mark ii or a follow up to this product.
Expand the compatabilty and drop the price of this model so you can reach a wider amateur market group that would really benefit from the automatic bounce feature.
Raise the price and expand the capabilities. Honestly I would much rather pay 700-800 if I felt this were a truly capable future proof tool. What I would like to see on that model would be:
-Range and features more on par with the 600 exrtii
-wider compatibility with other canon lines because come on that's just a software issue
-ability to set automatic wall bounce (although this is not definite as I can understand the increased difficult as the walls are more likely to be a color besides white, but hey if you add color metering and compensation that be awesome)
- aa lithium battery compatibility, to allow li and aa battery back ups
- touch screen interface (a guy can dream right)
Looking forward to the Canon 670 exii ai rt li ts!
