I want to buy a flash for my Canon EOS 50.

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Hi,

I would like to buy a flash for my Canon EOS50. Which one should I choose? 540EZ or 420EX or 550EX? I know 550Ex is more expensive than 420Ex but does it worth the extra money? Could you recommend a good 3rd party flash for portrait?

Thanks.

-- Tang Song Kean (songkean.tang@motorola.com), November 06, 2001

Answers

It depends on how you want to use it. For the majority of users, the 420EX is enough - it's reasonably powerful, it tilts and swivels, and it has all the techno goodies for metering and stuff.

The 550EX has somewhat more power, a few more features that most people wouldn't use (like stroboscopic flash and the ability to be a master in a multiple-flash configuration), and all kinds of manual overrides. But to be honest, how often do most people need to set manual power output (most people prefer to let the camera's metering system do this, and are glad to be rid of the manual flash days) or to set the unit's zoom position to something other than the one that matches the lens they're using, or things like that? Not very often for most of us.

The only reason I can see to buy a 540EZ for use with an EOS 50 is if you need more than 420EX but can't afford a 550EX. The 550EX has all the same features and manual overrides that the 540EZ does, plus some additional stuff, plus it does E-TTL metering (the 540EZ only does A-TTL).

-- Steve Dunn (steved@ussinc.com), November 07, 2001.


I'd rule out the 540EZ since it doesn't do E-TTL Flash Exposure Lock and High Speed Sync. Either of the EX series will do all this. I bought the 550EX because I need manual control for some on-location portrait work. But Steve's right, the 420EX is more than enough for most people.

-- Jim Strutz (j.strutz@gci.net), November 07, 2001.

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