Anyone used a YN600 flash yet?

admirable

admirable

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Had a short play with one today but it failed after 15mins?
 
Yup, had two delivered yesterday. Seem to be from one of the latest production runs (dated 25/12 in the firmware info menu).

So far no major concerns, had about a half-hour play and no failures (yet!). Few observations:
  • Damn, a fully-functioning, almost-a-600EX-RT for ~£110 each. Can't complain too much.
  • Generally feel well-built and acceptable quality for a shameless knockoff. A definite step up in materials and copying-ambition from my YN468II.
  • Hotshoe mounts are a little slack but I don't feel there's any risk of them coming off. No apparent problems with loss of contact, I believe that was fixed after the first batch?
  • Battery drain does still seem to be an issue. Left a set of fully charged Eneloops in one for a few hours without use and found the battery meter to read about 2/3rds when switched on.
  • Radio link seems reliable (using one as on-camera master and other as slave... YN-E3-RT arriving next week) - links virtually instantly and haven't had a single non-fire during playing. Not tried with any significant range though.
  • By default they annoyingly seem to beep after every flash (not just to warn when recycle time needed), but this can be disabled
  • Firmware update software doesn't work on 64-bit Windows
  • Heads have a slight wobble to them and make a 'sticky adhesive' noise as they are wobbled (exactly the same as my previous Yongnuo!)
  • One thing that has thrown me a few times is that the test-flash button fires a very underpowered flash on the first press, followed by the expected power on the second press. Not sure if something to worry about?
  • Flash sync with my 6D is fine... saw some people were reporting poor sync with dark frame-bottoms, but no problems with mine at 1/160 non-HSS and 1/4000 HSS.
But all in all, fairly happy. For the same money you can have one Canon stuck to your hotshoe and be smug that you have the real-deal, or you can have three almost-as-good Yongnuo's ready to wirelessly sync (and if one breaks or gets smashed, its not the end of the world).
 
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Is it possible to adjust the settings from the camera?
 
Yup, on my 6D I can control most (or all?) of the same settings from the camera than I would be able to with a Canon speedlite, including mode, power / TTL compensation, zoom, shutter sync and flash CFns (though the YN600 lacks some of the CFns of the actual 600).

From playing around now it would also seem that some of the RT functions are available to control through the camera, though I've heard some of the group controls aren't available from the camera? Don't have time to fully test now, but the on-flash controls for the wireless are fairly good anyway and so this isn't really a dealbreaker if it turns out not to work.
 
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Hi Matt, would you be interested in doing a mini review for us all.? I'd be very interested myself and I'm sure there would be a few members to.
 
Been waiting to pull the trigger for a many months, but the battery drain problems have put me off. They are only £100 on fleabay at the moment.

I'll wait till YN have them in the official YN store before buying mine.
 
On the subject of battery life, the guy who owned the YN600's also had the battery pack too but he was also sending that back as it kept making a high pitched whining noise when re charging the flash. He'd had a few complaints during weddings about the noise.

Has anyone else had noise issues with the YN battery pack?
 
Not got the Yongnuo-branded battery pack, but been using mine with a 'Shoot' battery pack (cheap ebay job) with no problems or funny noises.

The cheap battery packs probably skimp on protection circuitry and can get quite hot, but so long as you're careful and not machine-gunning with full power then you should be fine (mine came with a warning not to do 50 in a row).

Bit tight on time at the moment, but might do a quick review at the weekend.
 
admirable said:
Has anyone else had noise issues with the YN battery pack?
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Yes. I have three YN 8 AA cell battery packs in total.

Two were bought at the same time, and one whines on charging and the other doesn't. I did enquire, but was told that it was nothing to worry about. This must have been two or three years ago, and apart from the noise it has worked perfectly ever since.

The whine is noticeable, but mine isn't so loud as to receive any complaints.
 
Is this a Yongnuo equivalent of the Canon CP-E4? Didn't realise they made them.
 
Vertigo1 said:
Is this a Yongnuo equivalent of the Canon CP-E4? Didn't realise they made them.
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Yep it is, I think the noise level is dependent on age. The guy I was with was under 25 are thought it was loud but I didn't think it was too bad.
 
The SF-18? So when does it whine exactly - in use when the flash is recharging?
 
Done a very quick video (complete with cheesy music) that should give a brief impression of build and handling.

Couldn't really assess actual flash performance in the video, will try and post some stills at the weekend.

 
Hmm, that could be quite annoying.
 
Kris said:
"Auto zoom doesn't appear to work when on an APS-C body."

Really, I haven't heard this problem mentioned before?
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Auto zoom works, but doesn't appear to account for crop factor. E.g. for 50mm focal length, flash could/should zoom to ~80mm and still cover entire frame. Just a bit less efficient, and only really matters when used on camera with direct flash.
 
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From what I remember, Canon's Speedlites don't adjust for crop factor either when zooming the flash head.

I guess they just can't be bothered as the framed area will still be covered by the flash, it'll just be covering more area than it needs to so maximum power will be reduced a bit.
 
Vertigo1 said:
From what I remember, Canon's Speedlites don't adjust for crop factor either when zooming the flash head.

I guess they just can't be bothered as the framed area will still be covered by the flash, it'll just be covering more area than it needs to so maximum power will be reduced a bit.
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The EXII ones do. They also give WB information if the flash duration is likely to effect the shot.

But of course, neither of those things really make a significant difference in real life*, they're great marketing points though for people who don't ask 'why'.

*most photographers would never use a direct camera mounted speedlight as a primary light source, so the zoom angle is moot and as we bounce off 'found' surfaces, the colour of the light is too.
 
Interesting, never knew that nor noticed it with my 7D and 580EXII. Am FF now with a couple of 600EXs so a moot point anyway but you're right about the OCF and bouncing :)
 
My Canon 580EX Mk1 guns will zoom according to crop-factor. It's enabled in custom functions, don't know about earlier models.

I use the zoom feature quite a lot, though not for direct on-camera flash so the automatic feature is irrelevant. It changes the spread of light with modifiers, generally used around the wide end, and I quite often zoom to max focal length when bouncing off a wall or ceiling, especially a high ceiling - makes a big difference.
 
One of the more significant improvements with the 600EX was the almost doubling of max zoom to 200mm - presumably the YN600EXs are the same?
 
Vertigo1 said:
One of the more significant improvements with the 600EX was the almost doubling of max zoom to 200mm - presumably the YN600EXs are the same?
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I don't think they do, but it's a bit of a crock anyway, the 200mm focal length is of little use to the photographer, but looks great on the spec sheet for 'improving' the power if the flash.
 
HoppyUK said:
My Canon 580EX Mk1 guns will zoom according to crop-factor. It's enabled in custom functions, don't know about earlier models.

I use the zoom feature quite a lot, though not for direct on-camera flash so the automatic feature is irrelevant. It changes the spread of light with modifiers, generally used around the wide end, and I quite often zoom to max focal length when bouncing off a wall or ceiling, especially a high ceiling - makes a big difference.
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Oops, I think the original 430ex did too, it's the 'designed for ETTL2' guns where the change was made.
 
Phil V said:
I don't think they do, but it's a bit of a crock anyway, the 200mm focal length is of little use to the photographer, but looks great on the spec sheet for 'improving' the power if the flash.
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Can't say I've tried it myself yet but I figured it might allow a bit of a "spot light" effect without the use of a snoot or grid?
 
Nah, 200mm is pretty worthless to me.

If you want a spot effect, just use a snoot. The difference between 105 and 200 when inside a snoot is probably unnoticeable.
 
Kris said:
Been waiting to pull the trigger for a many months, but the battery drain problems have put me off. They are only £100 on fleabay at the moment.

I'll wait till YN have them in the official YN store before buying mine.
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Yongnuo "now" have these in stock on their eBay shop, is this a good indication that the battery drain issue has been resolved?

Anyone know the current position? as I too have been thinking about trying these out mainly for the convenience of not having to use the YN622's etc - viz all contained in the one unit, which is better for storage / less batteries to worry about.
 
Having used mine more, I'm now convinced that I'm not having battery drain. (Units dated 25/12/14)

Left a set of partially used batteries in since the weekend: just checked and still reporting approx same charge.
 
It sounds like you have the latest model, other issues were the waterproof rubber support around the shoe coming loose and the minimum recycle time was poor compared to the Canon version
 
MR92 said:
Having used mine more, I'm now convinced that I'm not having battery drain. (Units dated 25/12/14)

Left a set of partially used batteries in since the weekend: just checked and still reporting approx same charge.
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Thanks for the update - strange why you thought / it appeared to be draining the batteries initially? although I don't always get the same lifespan out of batteries in various bits of kit.
 
lostsoulal2 said:
Thanks for the update - strange why you thought / it appeared to be draining the batteries initially? although I don't always get the same lifespan out of batteries in various bits of kit.
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I don't know either! I think when I first got them I must have been doing lots of experimentation and fiddling but only intermittently looking at the battery meters so perceived some kind of constant drain. Now I'm leaving them unused for periods of days and finding that the batteries do stay charged between
 
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