My budget is $200 or less, unless if you have a compelling reason to step out of that boundary. If I can keep it $100 or less, then I'd feel amazing about that. (Camera = D5200)

The smaller the flash head, the better (performance comes first).

I won't be working with commander, however I will be using a wire to keep the flash head off of the body. I won't ever have commander until I move to a new camera body, and that's not any time soon. I *might* get a wireless trigger for manual flash work, and being able to have a multi-flash choice for this might be interesting (I do intend to do some family portrait work this year and will be picking up a couple umbrellas cheaply, etc).

I want to use the flash with my 16-85, as well as primes. If I could use it with a 70-300, that would be very interesting, but it's not something I expect out of a basic flash.

I want it to perform well with bounce flash, diffused flash, etc. Basically I want it to be a one-trick pony.

I've had suggestions in a previous thread on jsp, but I still don't know what to look at. Google isn't helping a whole ton since I get results from '08, '11, etc... and I'm flooded with opinion after opinion.

TLDR: I want a flash head, cheap = good, but quality = must. I want to know what I should be looking at.

To anyone thinking I'm spending out of my ass: I want to learn more about photography. Flash photography and lighting are the next step here.

This post was edited by Canadian_Man on Aug 25 2013 06:15pm

Im also interested in the same. Ive been thinking about the SB-700 but I would love something I bit cheaper.
Although I seem to recall seeing a site that had them close to $200 (idk how legit it was though)

The SB-700 would be pretty sweet at $200

It's on sale right now locally for $315, but I don't know if that's really justifiable, considering I don't know how often I'd use it (probably a lot, but possibly not).

YONGNUO yn-568ex
the best flash under $200 for sure
imo its better than the sb700 and canon equivalent, and it has way more features
I have and use a few yongnuos, never once had a problem
the did have a few issues years ago on their early products, but now they are near perfect

I'll do some research, but at that price it looks pretty nice.

It seems to be about $180. That's a $130 difference between it at the SB-700.

Which would you go for if you had a D5200, one day want to move to FX, and are sticking it out with the D5200 for 1-2 years until funds match a nice FX camera body release.

I'm guessing "it's better" means go with it over the SB-700.

This post was edited by Canadian_Man on Aug 25 2013 11:34pm

On a related note, does anyone know if this would work to control an older canon flash with my D3200?
If I could setup my Canon 277T as a manual remote flash for cheap that would hold me over for a while.
http://www.amazon.com/Yongnuo-Wireless-Trigger-Shutter-Transceiver/dp/B004YW79F4/ref=pd_bxgy_p_img_y

What do you need a flash for?

If you want to learn more, slow down and try giving natural light a go first.

I've shot thousands of natural light shots, and I will continue to do so. But I've been going full-speed and been doing a lot.

I've found a lot of situations where flash would be very nice. While I can work around spots where I need flash, I'd like to be able to work through them as well

definitely the YONGNUO (personally if I was spending the money of the sb-700 etc, I would get 2 yongnuo's)



yeah that will work
I use them



just don't over-power every shot with flash

So if I order a Yongnuo off of Amazon.ca... are there any issues with getting "fakes" or anything?

Also, if I get a wireless flash trigger (not commander) for the Yongnuo, will I have to control it manually by hand on the flash itself? Or will the wireless trigger communicate with the camera and act almost like commander?

Finally, I don't have commander... I could get the SB-700 for $310 versus $185 for the Yongnuo... it's basically a $120 jump... just want to think it over? I'm not buying at the moment, but I'm figuring it out.

This post was edited by Canadian_Man on Aug 29 2013 02:44pm