fbpx
Features

Three Flashes For the Strobist on a Budget

Chris Gampat
No Comments
07/23/2013
3 Mins read

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Essentials for th Strobist Street Photographer (2 of 9)ISO 1001-200 sec at f - 3.5

Strobists typically love to work with their lights manually vs using TTL; and one of the excellent things about that is that it enables manufacturers to make the flashes at a more affordable price. Those savings could mean that you can purchase more than one flash if you want: heck, you could even go for modifiers and all after that! In our endless search for the light, we’ve rounded up and curated three key flashes that make our eyes sparkle.

And here’s our recommended list.

 

Yongnuo 560 III

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Yongnuo 560 III product photos (7 of 9)ISO 2001-30 sec at f - 7.1

We’ve rated the Yongnuo 560 III very highly in our recent review of the product–and we saw that a lot of you seem to be smitten with it as well. With full manual controls built in, the 560 III has something particularly awesome: built in radio triggering. By using one of Yongnuo’s RF-602 or RF-603 transmitters, you can set this flash off with ease. As with all the others on this list, there is no TTL capabilities built in despite the fact that Yongnuo tries to make RF transmitters for each TTL system.

The flash has a pretty damned good build quality to it for a cheap, Chinese flash. It also has all the normal ports that one has come to expect with flashes.

Pro Tip: Don't have a light modifier? Zoom the flash head manually to a wider focal length. It can sometimes trick the camera into thinking that you're using a larger light source.
Pro Tip: Don’t have a light modifier? Zoom the flash head manually to a wider focal length. It can sometimes trick the camera into thinking that you’re using a larger light source.

The only thing is that we wish that the head snapped into place better, but for the price we’re not complaining.

Buy Now: Amazon

Vivitar 285 HV

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Vivitar 285HV flash product photos (5 of 5)

Though now replaced by the newer 286; that flash incorporates TTL transmission when connected to the appropriate hot shoe. However, the Vivitar 285HV is a beast of a flash with lots of output and some pretty awesome controls. To control it, the flash uses color codes for different power output levels. Those colors are correlated to a set ISO and an according aperture setting.

This flash is ancient, and while it was originally designed to be used in the hot shoe of medium format event shooters, that doesn’t mean that it still isn’t used often.

To get the most of this flash though, we recommend using it with PocketWizard Plus III or Plus X triggers and connecting them via the PC port. For a very long time, this flash was used to capture many of the product photos on this website.

Buy Now: Amazon

LumoPro LP-180

LP180OfficialImage1-web

Though we haven’t held one of these units at the time of publishing this piece, we’ve known about its existence for a while. Once again, it also doesn’t have TTL integration but it has a couple of other cool tricks behind it instead. First off, there is also a 1/4 20 tripod slot to mount it easily to almost anything: especially GorillaPods. This flash also has a 3.5mm sound jack built in for easier triggering via lots of radio transmitters. The unit also comes with pre-cut Rosco gels, all the other normal sync options, and what reviewers are already saying is some stellar build quality.

Buy Now: Amazon

Please Support The Phoblographer

We love to bring you guys the latest and greatest news and gear related stuff. However, we can’t keep doing that unless we have your continued support. If you would like to purchase any of the items mentioned, please do so by clicking our links first and then purchasing the items as we then get a small portion of the sale to help run the website.

Also, please follow us on Facebook, Flickr and Twitter.

285HV best flashes lp180 Lumopro strobist vivitar yongnuo
Shares
Written by

Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
You might also like
Screen Shot 2017-08-28 at 12.07.13 PM
Features

Opinion: Please Stop Wearing a Photo Vest if You Don’t Need to Be Wearing a Photo Vest

4 Mins read
07/09/2018

When I got into this industry years ago, one thing really confused me almost as much as how much certain older photographers tend to treat the younger generation of us: photo vests. I’m completely positive that you’ve all seen them: a photographer of a certain distinguishment (or trying to show off without having said distinguishment) wearing their vests that look a lot like safari vests. You know, almost as if they’re going to go out on an African safari at all times without being anywhere near something like a safari. Walking down the streets doing street photography? You’ll see a photo vest. In the studio? Photo vest! Hiking? Yup, A Photo vest!

Chris Gampat The Phoblographer Canon RF 24-105mm f4 L IS USM review product images Canon EOS R
Features

Did Canon Miss the Memo That Says Mirrorless Lenses Are Meant to Be Smaller?

3 Mins read
12/26/2018

When Canon introduced their new Mirrorless cameras earlier on this year (The EOS R) one of the stand out features was that the lens mount was so huge. While other manufacturers like Sony have made all things Mirrorless smaller, the late comer to the Mirrorless party seems to have decided that bigger is better. In a recently released interview, Canon engineers seem to be having a sly dig at Sony by saying that lenses with smaller mounts are far less capable than those with larger mounts. Read on after the break to find out more about what the Canon engineers are wafting on about.

5.01
Features

What is Kodak Aerochrome? A Beginner’s Guide to The Confusion of Lomochrome Purple

3 Mins read
01/30/2013

Today’s exciting announcement from Lomography about Lomochrome Purple is bound to get some people excited and others totally confused. First off, know that it is based off of Kodak Aerochrome–an old infrared film developed for government surveillance. Since it is infrared, that means that there are no real purple fields in the Congo. So we’re here to answer a couple of big questions that you may have about the new film. Check out more information after the jump.