DPReview: CP+ 2016: Nissin Stand Report

CP+ 2016: Nissin Stand Report

Flash manufacturer Nissin offers some compelling alternatives to on-brand flashes, and they've recently updated their lineup with the announcement of the i60A, pictured in the middle here. The i60A features a Guide No. of 60 at at 200mm (ISO 100), which is more powerful than the company's flagship Di700A, which has a GN of 54 under the same conditions. Impressive, given the flash's overall smaller size. It also features High Speed Sync (HSS).

Possibly the most compelling feature of the i60A (and the flagship Di700A)? Integrated 2.4GHz radio wireless control in conjunction with the Air 1 commander and Di700A flash. Off-camera event flash photography's best friend. They're ergonomically fantastic as well. Read on as we dig a little deeper into these products.

CP+ 2016: Nissin Stand Report

The i60A is significantly smaller than the Di700A (illustrated in grey here) - Nissin's flagship and the flash that introduced the 2.4GHz radio wireless control system. At only 98mm tall, the i60A is significantly smaller than the 140mm tall Di700A. It's lighter too: 300g (without batteries) vs. the Di700A's 380g. And yet it provides brighter flash output. Nice.

CP+ 2016: Nissin Stand Report

The i60A is Nissin's second flash to work with the company's 2.4 GHz radio wireless control system, meaning you can trigger it off-camera with the Air 1 commander (on right) or Di700A flash on-camera. It can even act as a radio trigger itself in commander mode. Radio triggering can be essential for fast-paced, unpredictable scenarios, like at a wedding reception or dance floor where objects might momentarily block off-camera flashes triggered optically or via infrared.

While Canon has had their own solution in the 600EX-RT flash and ST-E3-RT emitter, Nikon has only just recently announced their radio solution, and Sony has no such solution at all. Given the intuitive on-board control of manual power or auto TTL flash exposure bias on both the Air 1 commander and any flash units, the Nissin solution is quite attractive, even mandatory if you're looking for radio-triggered flash on a Sony system.

CP+ 2016: Nissin Stand Report

So you've seen the Air R in a couple of photos now and are probably wondering what it is. It's a receiver for Nissin's 2.4GHz radio wireless control system, meaning you can attach it to flashes without radio control to have them join Nissin's system. There are versions for Nissin, Canon, and Nikon flashes.

CP+ 2016: Nissin Stand Report

The Nissin i60A has a tiltable, rotatable head, capable of rotating up and down 90°, and left and right 180° in either direction. This is great for creating a softer bounce flash effect, either on or off-camera. The flash is powered by 4 AA batteries, which should provide 220 full power bursts.

Every version of the i60A helpfully comes with the ability to act as a Canon, Nikon, or Sony radio slave, triggered by an Air 1 commander. That means that you can have a Canon version of the Air 1, mounted to a Canon body, fire a Nikon version of the i60A off-camera. Cool.

CP+ 2016: Nissin Stand Report

Pictured here is the i60A in comparison to the Di700A. As we've said before, the i60A is significantly smaller. The downside? The i60A is missing the red AF assist beam. It does, however, have a small LED light that can be used for AF assist, though its far more annoying to subjects than a red assist beam.

Speaking of AF assist, it's important to note that the Sony versions of these flashes can only fire AF assist beams on Sony Alpha SLT cameras, not Sony E-mount cameras. That means the assist beams are useless on the popular a7 and a6000-series cameras. We confirmed with Nissin that this is due to Sony E-mount cameras failing to send a signal over the hot-shoe connection when the shutter button is half-depressed. That's a shame, because pros need focus ability in extremely low light conditions - the dance floor of a wedding reception, for example. I told Nissin we'd stress this with Sony, and their response was 'please, please do'.

Sony: your move.

CP+ 2016: Nissin Stand Report

We mentioned favorable ergonomics earlier on, and here's why. Take a look at the user interface of the Air 1 commander. You've got visual indicators for manual power and flash exposure compensation (TTL), for each group. It's simple to use the dial to bias these. No menu digging. The Di700A has a similar display, though the i60A's truncated display means it can't show quite as much information. 

from Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com) http://ift.tt/1TdgoLi
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