Canon Speedlite 580EX

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Price Paid:  $250.00 from EBay

Summary:
This is NOT a studio strobe pack. This IS a strobe which fits to a Canon camera and is easily portable.
I have read the reviews and obviously this product is either the bees knees or some other part of its anatomy. Mine luckily is the best addon strobe that I have ever come across.
quite simply mind blowing.

Strengths:
Reliable. Fast, Accurate, Light weight. Adaptable and versatile.
In spite of the price tag , this is great value for money. It performs what I had previously thought to be miricals.. You may have guessed this already, I like this one.

Weaknesses:
These are not given away free to all people whose initials are T.H.

Similar Products Used:
Minolta , Panasonic and Canon strobes (Electronic and "Flash Bulb") over the last 35 years or so.

Customer Service:
Not needed yet.

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 2 of 5

Used product for
More than 1 year

Visitors rate this review
1.00 of 5,
3 votes

Price Paid:  $379.00 from B&H Photo

Summary:
I purchased this flash more than a year ago in what I thought was an upgrade move from my Sunpak 555 and boy was I wrong. This piece of junk was so poor,
inconsistent and unpredictable in its performance, that at one point I considered
selling all my Canon gear and return to Nikon. I read the instructions several times and I applied all the posible settings. Belive me it was almost impossible to shoot two properly exposed pictures in sequence. Some were under some were
over just a few were right. I had to do so much work in Photoshop that finally
I had to give up. The only way the flash could be use was in manual mode but then again that was my 555 was for. I had run into other colleagues with other
Canon camea models, mine is D Mark II some have the 20D others the same as mine and those using the 580 have similar experience.

Strengths:
very powerful, fast recycling time, good on batteries

Weaknesses:
very inconsistent, poor performence for this price range

Overall Rating
 2 of 5

Value Rating
 1 of 5

Used product for
3 Months to 1 year

Visitors rate this review
3.00 of 5,
4 votes

Price Paid:  $480.00

Summary:
This has got to be the worst fast ever made buy Canon. At the studio I work at they bought two of the 580 flash units. One of the flashes started to act up buy underexposing some of the images. Not a big deal at first, but a few weeks later it got worse! It seemed that 1/3 of the images would be under exposed. The unit was sent off to Canon who found nothing wrong with it. But the flash started to act up the day it got back from the shop. So we started to use it as a backup for our old 550s.
Then a month or two later, Our other 580 fried on one of the photographers. This story gets worse! In order to do a gig we needed to replace the fried one so we rented one; since no one in town had one of the units for sale. That unit took a crap on us too!!!

Strengths:
Max guide number of 190, But our lab could only get 160 @ 10feet.

Weaknesses:
Weak ratchets in head. Not dependable. Not for the pros. 100% plastic.

Similar Products Used:
550ex, 420ex, 540ez, sunpak PZ5000

Customer Service:
No help to use this time. Usually the best!

Rick_R

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 5 of 5

Used product for
1 to 3 months

Visitors rate this review
1.00 of 5,
1 votes

Price Paid:  $320.00 from ebay

Summary:
This is the best flash Canon currently sells and it seamlessly works with all the ETTL and ETTL II flash systems. The ability to have fast flash sync really helps in fast moving sports (Downhill MTB Races). The zooming flash head allows the flash to use only the amount of flash that is needed. A very useful add-on is the additional battery pack which cuts the recycle time to almost nothing.

Strengths:
Fast recycle times, ability to sync at faster shutter speeds,

Weaknesses:
Noisy zoom motor (just being picky)

Similar Products Used:
Canon 550 Flash

Customer Service:
Unneeded

don85259

Overall Rating
 5 of 5

Value Rating
 4 of 5

Used product for
Less than 1 month

Visitors rate this review
3.00 of 5,
11 votes

Price Paid:  $599.00 from Ritz Cameras

Summary:
Excellent flash unit, integrates seamlessly with Canon 20d, ETTL-II metering seems to work like a charm most of the time. Expensive but worth it if you want the best integration.

Strengths:
Excellent portait exposures, very little over or underexposure with this flash. Much superior to pop-up flash on camera.

Weaknesses:
Still can't quite fill a room - need independent lighting for that.

Similar Products Used:
Only stock flash units in cameras (pop-up flash).

Customer Service:
N/a - not needed so far.