[FarcicalFiend]

I'm looking at this as a budget solution to getting a Canon Speedlite. It is cheaper than the Canon 430 EX II, claims to offer TTL metering, and, important to me, it has lots of output controls so I can more carefully control the output levels.

But I am also a HUGE amateur, so feedback would be greatly appreciated from anyone with experience with these flashes.

[DustNlens]

I use YN 560s for "Strobist" work. They are manual only so I can not speak about the ETTL models but I will say that for the price I'm very impressed with these Speedlites. I use Canon flashes when I mount a flash on cam and use it in ETTL.

I also use YONGNUO radio triggers. Very cheap and they work fine.

[ethermac56]

FarcicalFiend, on 16 August 2012 - 11:46 PM, said:

I'm looking at this as a budget solution to getting a Canon Speedlite. It is cheaper than the Canon 430 EX II, claims to offer TTL metering, and, important to me, it has lots of output controls so I can more carefully control the output levels.

But I am also a HUGE amateur, so feedback would be greatly appreciated from anyone with experience with these flashes.

I have Yongnuo RF-602s and they are rock solid as far as distance and reliability. Just the odd sized battery for the trasnmitter that is a pain. they have a new trigger that goes for about$150 for a transmitter and two rec that gets complete eTTL for Canon flashes and their flashes...way cheaper than Radiopoppers as a way to be able to have HSS and shoot wide open and sorta overpower the sun with just speedlites.

I would def go for the Yongnuo flash because you can buy three for the price of one Canon.

PW has learned from the Chinese copycats as their new trigger is much more affordable that the older ones.

[Dave W]

I dunno.
Dave Hobby did a glowing review that he later modified to say Avoid them....
http://strobist.blog...nuo-yn-560.html

Here's beginning text:


Test Drive: Yongnuo YN-560
UPDATE: AVOID. IT'S A DOG.

Six months in, there have been enough reports of dead or dodgy YN-560s that I cannot in good faith recommend this flash. IMO, if they would put $5 more into build quality and tweak the interface, they could have (or, could have had) a real winner.

Here is a direct quote, from a retailer who sold them in the UK:

"I had piles of dead ones out of the hundreds we bought. We sold them off as dead in batches of 10 for $10 a piece. Other than a fail as soon as we tested before shipping, some were brand new. But YongNuo offer resellers only a 30 day warranty, and it has to get to them inside the 30 days. That's two weeks shipping from them, 2-3 weeks to return = no warranty."