Beginner Advice please.

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Roy Newport
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i have the smaller canon flash ,the latest model 430ext111 -rt and I'm seriously thinking of its big brother,can anyone tell me what I will gain by upgrading?and is it worth it,thank you.
 
Power.

You'd be better off buying a radio trigger for your current flash, which would open up a world of other possibilities.
 
In what way Phil.I have captur?
 
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Quick look at a review of yours tells me it will act as a master unit, so as Phil says probably just more power. Earlier models rated around 400 tended to be slave only.
Matt
 
Captur to use the flash off camera remotely.

I couldn't find 'captur' with a simple google search, is it a radio trigger? Does it allow full control from the camera position? Does it have an AF assist beam?
 
Yep that's the one,still trying to understand why a remote would be better than a larger flash?
 
Yep that's the one,still trying to understand why a remote would be better than a larger flash?

How many times have you run out of power?

The bigger flash is less than a stop more powerful than your current flash, or to put it practically, dropping the ISO to 640 instead of 800 for similar performance.

Those Hahnel dumb triggers are very expensive for what they do. A Yongnuo Yn e3 would allow you to control off camera flash either manually or Ettl from the camera position.

Why is a trigger more use?

On camera flash provides very little creative control over the light, off camera a flash can be used for loads of different effects, with different modifiers, softboxes, beauty dishes, brollies etc all create a different 'look'.
 
i have the smaller canon flash ,the latest model 430ext111 -rt and I'm seriously thinking of its big brother,can anyone tell me what I will gain by upgrading?and is it worth it,thank you.

To start this off another way, what do you actually want to do?
 
I've got to photograph a 10 k evening run ,been out in the garden at 8-30 pm uk time with a camera setting around 1/500 f2.8 I'm using 2000 plus ISO I was thing about using my flash to brighten the finishing line up and lowering the ISO? If that makes sense.
 
I've got to photograph a 10 k evening run ,been out in the garden at 8-30 pm uk time with a camera setting around 1/500 f2.8 I'm using 2000 plus ISO I was thing about using my flash to brighten the finishing line up and lowering the ISO? If that makes sense.

And what problems are you getting? What camera, lens, and distance to subject?

If the problem is simply that the flash isn't bright enough, that may be because you're at 1/500sec meaning that the flash is firing in HSS mode. This reduces maximum brightness very substantially so it will run out of power at distance. Use 1/250sec (max x-sync speed on a Canon 7D2) or longer, then if you want to balance the flash with the fading daylight, drop the shutter speed to stop the background going too dark - the flash will freeze subject movement. With moving subjects, second-curtain sync can be handy but it only works at shutter speeds below 1/30sec and is only really effective at longer than that.

Flash is very sensitive to distance and brightness falls off more quickly than you might expect. This means that a) you may run out of power if you're too far away and/or recycle times will get too long (use Eneloop batteries), and b) if you're too close there's a danger that subjects near to the camera will be over-exposed while those just a few feet further away will be under-exposed. Try to keep all important subjects roughly the same distance from the camera.

I would switch flash to manual (with camera in Av to automatically balance with fading ambient light) because I'd guess that the runners will all be wearing different tops - white/coloured/black/whatever - and this will throw the auto exposure. Just keep the subject distance the same and all should be well.
 
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