Canon Speedlite 580EX II

I’m finally getting what I was wishing for in the past few months. Okay, okay, one of the many wishes hahahah. It’s a Canon Speedlite 580EX II. And since I’m cheapskate, I just got YL Camera to bring a used one in. Me knowing them well and being their regular, they bring these requests in within a week. Smae thing happened for the 70-200mm and 10-22mm.

I’ve always wanted to be a strobist, exploring portraiture in depth. Of course, I won’te rely too much on the flashgun. That would be overkill. Available light photography is a separate challenge to explore. I want the flash more than another lens because it’ll definitely expand my creativity. I’ll have to learn how to read the light, including from the flashgun itself, like how to bounce it and all. Bouncing it would be awesome.

Flashes, to most people are very simple to use, especially in point and shoots, because it’s all automated. You just point and shoot, like the name says. But it gives very harsh direct light and bad shadows, which is not nice. With professional-standard flashes like this Canon and Metz guns, those can be avoided and instead turn photos into flattering softly-lit ones. It works simple but effective. Bounce the light from the flash onto a ceiling or wall in such a manner that your subject will get the inderect flash from the ceiling, which has just reflected the light. You’ll get nice evenly lit photos.

Photo from Wikipedia

All this doesn’t come in cheap. When I first told dad about it, he was like “Wth why so expensive. Just a bulb what.” This thing is technologically advanced. It communicates with your camera. Auto and manual exposure is available. There’s no aperture or shutter priority. This one also has a secret behind how it exposes for zoom lenses. The flash head has an element for zooming to match the lens as well. Amazing, eh? The zooming is done automatically, so you can take photos and not fiddle with it. It’s also smart, because it detects your camera model and factors in the crop factor of your sensor into the focal length.

My pop-up internal flash on the 400D is quite powerful but it hasn’t been released and used for ages now. Because I hate direct flash. And that it creates a little lightning when assisting the lens to focus. The 580EX II doesn’t. See that red transparent part on its body? That sends out infrared light to focus so the main flash will not irritate by doing so.

It’s got so many features you can go wireless. Which is the reason why I want this and not the 430EX II. It can be a commander. The 430 can only be a slave. Which means you can use the 580EX II to command other flashes, like the 430EX II or other 580EX IIs which are wirelessly set-up. A 430 can only listen to a 580EX II to trigger itself wirelessly while the 580EX II can do both. So, why not Metz or other high-end 3rd party flashes? The only other choice I had was the Metz Mecablitz AF 58-1 flash which is actually very good but if I’m going to use the 10-22mm for flash shots, the Metz doesn’t get wide enough, to 16mm (after crop factor) as it only goes down to 18mm. The Canon goes to 14mm. Metz will cast a shadow at 10mm on the 10-22mm in other words.

There are so many things it can do. Which I’m very sure will improve my photos. But there are also a lot of other things I will need for strobing. A Gary Fong Whale Tail Reporter/Studio diffuser, mini softbox which can be carried around and reflectors. Probably one or two cheaper or 3rd party flashes for wireless usage. Of course, Sanyo Eneloop AA batteries for it along with a charger are already included in my list. Oh, and the Canon OC-E3 cable for off-shoe usage. That OC-E3 and that Whale Tail Reporter will be awesome for wedding shots. I don’t mind shooting my relatives’ ones for experience. HAHAHAH. I can process and burn them into discs, but not print softcopies because I don’t have a photo printer worthy of such work, one like the Canon Pixma Pro 9500 produces great prints.

Till then. Still have to blog about the Nuang hillwalk. The ShutterAsia gang have yet to post up their images on the forum. I’ve alread processed mine, so I’ll just have to resize and add watermarks to post them here