Which speedlight for Strobist?

TMR Design wrote in post #5721442
My understanding of the strobist concept is that it's fundamentally focused on being able to do high quality, professional looking lighting 'on the cheap' and to demonstrate how inexpensive older, manual flashes suddenly became a powerful tool and could be used to build a kit for little to no money.

TMR, you've got this totally wrong, Dave used to have a huge inventory on SB-24, 26 and 28s and he wanted to drive up the prices before selling it off on the ebay The prices of those things doubled since he started the strobist blog .

On a serious note I think the ideal strobist type setup for canon is
1) AB400 (for studio work as main light, great with light modifiers), $230
2) 580EX II (fill/backlight in studio, E-TTL if ever needed, outdoor off camera flash), $380
3) vivitar 285 (fill/backlight, cheap). $90

I cannot believe sunpaks have jumped in price so much. Would the sb-24 be the best deal now?

Sunpak 383 or 430EX. I like the sunpak because of the sync port, and the 430 for power and control.
Nick

bimmeracer3 wrote in post #5979686
I cannot believe sunpaks have jumped in price so much. Would the sb-24 be the best deal now?

Nope. Used SB-24's go for over $100 on eBay now...

The Fox wrote in post #5979753
Sunpak 383 or 430EX. I like the sunpak because of the sync port, and the 430 for power and control.
Nick

The Sunpak 383 is as powerful as the 580EX, it just doesn't have the zoom feature.

Rudi wrote in post #5981067
The Sunpak 383 is as powerful as the 580EX, it just doesn't have the zoom feature.

Power is a very subjective thing - the inability to zoom the head to get the coverage you need will mean that a lot of the Sunpaks' power will be wasted for many applications.

Hermes wrote in post #5981107
Power is a very subjective thing - the inability to zoom the head to get the coverage you need will mean that a lot of the Sunpaks' power will be wasted for many applications.

Sure! But a silver snoot will get a lot of that back...

Rudi wrote in post #5981114
Sure! But a silver snoot will get a lot of that back...

Depends... I like using a small silver reflective umbrella to get nice crisp lighting. I don't think I could fill it with the Sunpaks without a lot of light spilling over the edges. Same goes for diffusion panels and bouncing off small areas.

Hermes wrote in post #5981277
Depends... I like using a small silver reflective umbrella to get nice crisp lighting. I don't think I could fill it with the Sunpaks without a lot of light spilling over the edges. Same goes for diffusion panels and bouncing off small areas.

Have you tried it? The Sunpaks actually have a nice, controlled beam at somewhat wider than 35mm coverage. I have to move a 43" umbrella all the way out to almost cover it, it would not be hard to move the light closer to a small silver umbrella to prevent spill.

I have a 580EX and a bunch of 540EZ's, love all of them!

splitslim wrote in post #5981623
I have a 580EX and a bunch of 540EZ's, love all of them!

How do you tigger the 540EZs? And how many do you have?

NSWESP wrote in post #5981634
How do you tigger the 540EZs? And how many do you have?

I usually add sync ports to mine, or use a hotshoe adapter. Trigger them either optically or with my Skyports.

I have a 430ex and the Digital Concepts will arrive at my door on Monday... I sure hope I'll like it!

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