Flash start-up

Hey y'all. This is my first venture to this exact thread, and not really my style of photography. But I am interested in slowly getting into portraits, but I don't have any flashes (my old one is broke now). What would you recommend for someone to get for a Canon that is good, but not a wallet killer -- as I am still interested in getting a new lens or body in the near future also. Thanks!

Used 430/580 EX? As long as you can bounce/rotate, has manual adjustability you should be good; additional features like high speed sync, zoom, master/slave functionality, ETTL, etc are certainly nice to haves, as well.

Either of those two should have most of those features and be available for a couple hundred or so.

Thanks I will look into that. I have used something similar (but old school version from long time ago). Thanks Eric!

Sure. I'm partial to the Canon parts, myself, but you should also look in to Sigma/Metz/Yongnuo flashes, as well. They tend to not have things like full ETTL support, etc...but for manual control, budget and whatnot they are quite popular.

Personally, I really like Nissin. To be honest, I think they are well ahead of Canon.

The Nissin Di866 Mark II, is IHO the best choice out there at the moment. And the price is not bad either.