Best manual flashes for pocket wizards?

I am about to buy a 580EX II for my main flash to be used on camera, but I would like to pick up a few extra flashes for off camera. Since these will be used strictly off camera with PWs, I don't see the need of buying multiple overly expensive eTTL flashes when they can only be used manually.

What the your favorite/best/most used manual flash? Why? Even though I want a few cheap flashes, I would still like to have a good range of manual control and a some good power behind them.

I've read a little bit about Vivitar 285HV and Sunpack 383, but not sure about the differences. Does one work better with PWs for one reason or another?

Thanks for any advice!

New 383 and the 285HV flash units would both be good performance/cost choices.

Personally I think the 383 is a slightly better choice.
Over the 283HV it has:

• Swivel head (but no zoom)
  
• One more manual power setting (1/8th power)
  
• More compact
  
• And it does not seem to have the out of box failure issues of the 285HV.
  

I just looked at some sb-26 and sb-28 flashes on ebay and they sell used for not much more than a sunpack 383 does new. Since I'm new to flash, it seems like the screen on the back of the nikons would make them a little easier to get used to controlling. Would there be any other advantages of going this route for off-camera use?

I think the flash head will bounce, rotate and zoom on the Nikons. Search Google and read up on them. I think the SB-26 has a built optical slave that might be usefull at some point.
Mike

I have a SB-26, It works great with Pocket Wizards. Most of the time I use it as a slave. The slave sensor works quite well. It has a full swivel head, it moves around the same as the 580EX or 430EX would. Good flash for the money.

My 285s have been serving me very well. Great flashes.

Not sure about the Nikons manual settings(how many) but the sunpack has five settings for manual use :full ,1/2 ,1/4, 1/8, 1/16.
Mike

Well, I've decided on getting two SB-28 flashes... thanks Lon for pointing these out to me! Claybuster- I found that the SB-28 has seven manual settings up to 1/64, so I hope these will be pretty flexible for me.

From my bit of research, it looks like these Nikons come with a PC sync built-in that can be used with the cable that comes with the PWs. Can someone confirm this?? I'm not familiar with Nikon gear and it's the first time I've purchased anything other than Canon, so I just want to make sure I don't need any other adapters or cables.

Thanks for the help!

SB -24s work well also. You can pick them up quite cheaply on eBay.

Metolius81 wrote in post #4746179
From my bit of research, it looks like these Nikons come with a PC sync built-in that can be used with the cable that comes with the PWs. Can someone confirm this?? I'm not familiar with Nikon gear and it's the first time I've purchased anything other than Canon, so I just want to make sure I don't need any other adapters or cables.

This is true, but be sure to consider the SB-26 as well. Strictly speaking, the SB-28 is a better flash: more power, faster recycles, smaller size. It doesn't, however, have the built-in optical slaves that the SB-26's do, which can come in immensely handy (I use two SBs with only two PWs, my 26 usually gets optical slaved)

[QUOTE=bieber;4746425]​This is true, but be sure to consider the SB-26 as well. Strictly speaking, the SB-28 is a better flash: more power, faster recycles, smaller size. It doesn't, however, have the built-in optical slaves that the SB-26's do, which can come in immensely handy (I use two SBs with only two PWs, my 26 usually gets optical slaved)[/qu

Thanks! I was originally thinking I would get the SB-26 because of that reason, but I have found that they are really hard to come by. Even on ebay, the SB-26 goes for more than the SB-28 and there's only a small amount of them. And on Adorama and BH's used sections, the SB-26 doesn't even exist, but there's plenty of SB-28s to choose from. This is probably telling me that I should wait to find an SB-26 and I'm going to regret it later! But since I'm going to drop the cash for the PWs anyways, it shouldn't be too bad.

Yeah, when I'm in the market I just keep an eye on B&H's used listings, they pop up every now and then, expect to pay $90-$120, depending on condition.