Anthony M
*** Cliffs Notes (for those with limited time, read this one paragraph then skip to the bottom!) This is an excellent unit for novice to semi-pro shooters. It has most of the settings youd want in an extremely compact form-factor - ETTL, Full manual, A:B ratio settings for each side, etc. Its small, its well built, bright, extremely consistent and fast. For those looking to test the waters without a huge investment, this is worth a look. Its also a great little unit for other uses, such as flash fill, or in use with multiple off camera flashes. I have several flashes including 2 Canon 600EX-RTs, and YN-E3-RT. The purpose of this flash was to have a compact, flexible and easy to use on-camera solution for macro photography. And now to the review! Personal Issues I have no problems laying out money for photography. If youve read any of my diatribes/reviews, youll see I vacillate between bargain gear and the very best. By bargain gear I mean high quality, brilliantly designed and fabricated, competing with the best there is for less than exorbitant prices. Not just cheap - because theres lots of cheap photo gear. When Im dipping my toe in new waters, these are especially enticing as Im not sure Im even going to use the product. If I do, I may very well buy something better once I outgrow it. These are the products I usually review - everybody already knows that the EF 24-70/2.8L lens is really, really good and really, really expensive. For instance, there has been some wonderful video related products coming out recently that IMHO are every bit as good as the big names, for a fraction of the price. This stuff gets me excited! Besides getting the word out on obscure and lesser known products, I hope to answer some of the questions I had about them myself. Macro Flash Ring Do you want or even need one? There are some advantages to the way it works, especially with macro photography. When shooting macro, youre often shooting at a very narrow aperture to keep your subject in relative focus. (we wont get into focus stacking software here!) If youre shooting say, a honey bee - even at f16 the entire bee might not be in focus. Additionally, at such a narrow aperture youre having to shoot at a much lower shutter speed to compensate. Even in bright light. Another consideration is distance. As you get close to your subject, literally placing the lens right up against it your own shadow becomes an issue. Unless it is being backlit by the sun or there are other light sources this can become an issue. Even if you move half an inch, you can instantly create shadows when recomposing. At close proximity, the light ring has the added advantage of being just as close as it can possibly be (the end of your lens!), while literally surrounding your subject with light. This isnt always possible using other types of flash setups as theyre usually more distant. Also, these external flashes have the potential of being blocked by leaves and such. Using the Macro Ring Flash allows you to be much more flexible and creative in your shooting - usually with no forethought as to how youre going to get the shot. You just do it. If your lens can see it - its getting light. After reading the review of the Canon MR-14EX II on The Digital Picture, I decided I really needed to try one out as part of my next step in macro. Ive considered the Canon ring macro flashes in the past, but not for long! Macro photography isnt "what I do", but I like doing it, and its certainly a tool that will help me improve. Of course buying a nice macro lens helped kick-start my desire! But with the Canon at $550, I felt as if Id be just fine with a flash handicap for the foreseeable future! After all, what if I dont find it fun or even useful? Thats a chunk of change. Thats another 600EX-RT, or even a nice little prime. Then I thought about Yongnuo. Do they make one? I bet they do! They do! Once Bitten Twice Shy Yongnuo and I have a checkered past. While my early experiences with Yongnuo verged on near catastrophic and certainly embarrassing, Ive recently given them a second chance. In the meantime Ive invested in Canon 600EX-RTs, which will never embarrass me. I do a good enough job on my own, thank you very much. What brought me back for a second round with Yongnuo? It was the YN-E3-RT that tempted me not only because of the price, but it has features that Canon certainly should have on theirs. And the price. As Ive had a fantastic experience with this product, I decided to give the YN-14EX a spin. The advantage of the Yongnuo over some of the other Chinese brands (some even cheaper) is that Yongnuo tends to make sure that their functionality is in step with Canon. Some of the other brands while quite good, are missing some of the features of this flash. At about $100 (price as of review) it can be viewed as either a stepping stone, a throw away or an investment. In the world of photography $100 is almost chump-change, and Im a chu- er, cheapskate. If a product fails me, it might as well be $1k. Ill howl and moan along with the best drama queens. If the product performs to expectations or beyond, Im disco dancing all night long and singing its praises. Out of the Box Normally the Yongnuo advantage is that theyre virtual clones of the Canon product. Theres no learning curve at all if youve used a similar Canon product. They function identically on the Camera menus as well. You can pretty much go out and start using it. Before the YN-E3-RT had a manual in English, I was using the Canon ST-E3-RT manual. I continued using it because its better written! However, the YN-14EX IS different in this respect! While on first glance the back is very similar in layout to the MR-14EX II (missing only the focus lamp and ratio shortcut buttons), the 4 main buttons here in fact perform very different functions. It also differs from the first generation. So be prepared for a bit of learning, but not much. Because in fact, theres not much to learn. The only bells and whistles youll find are the, uh, bells and whistles. It beeps, it buzzes, it ticks. Yongnuos are nothing if not noisy! Yes, you can stop this. The settings are very rudimentary. Youll find no HSS here, no master/slave and no wireless flash control. What you do get is Manual and ETTL, exposure compensation, ratio settings for A:B, Rear curtain sync, modeling/assist light, FE lock, PC port and an external power supply port. About the only feature I would want from the Canon would be high speed sync - and at this price, Ill limp along. And seriously, HSS is something thats not going to get a lot of use in macro photography. For the simple reason that much of the time a user will be setting a higher aperture for focus depth, necessitating a slower shutter speed. While its a feature I use frequently with flash photography in daylight - I really dont see needing a shutter speed faster than 1/250 frequently. If so, there are workarounds with manual settings. Opening the box youll find a black zippered & padded carrying case. Inside youll find the main control unit (body) which is connected to the flash unit via a sturdy non-detachable coiled cable. The flash unit consists of 2 C shaped flash tubes hidden behind opaque white diffusers. Unlike the new Canon, the diffuser exterior is not ribbed, nor does it appear there is any ribbing on the interior surface. There is a tube brace visible (using a flashlight) halfway along the interior of the reflector. Dividing the 2 C sections on each side are the 2 LED AF assist lights. These are elevated slightly above the surface. There is a raised section holding the cable on one side also indicating "up", with the branding and model description screened on. On each side centered over the tubes towards the back of the ring are 2 buttons to retract the retention clips. More on this later. The backside is bland, with a raised section to house the clip buttons, 6 set screws and indicators with little light icons which side is A and which side is B. This is actually kind of nice as its a visual feedback when youre changing your ratios. Some of us still have L & R written on our hands. The control body is slightly less sexy - and looks like the bottom half of an old vivitar strobe for the most part. Surprisingly, even flashes like the Neewer are closer to the Canon in terms of appearance. On the lens side of the body, there is a raised section that would normally sport the transparent red window for the AF assist beam emitter. Here, its just black nothing - sort of like they thought about placing something here. On the business end of the control unit, are 4 control buttons (similar in layout to the first generation Canon), a power switch, pilot switch and 4-way 4-button circle with center select button. On one side theres the battery door, which has a textured thumb spot, you simply press down and slide it - it then pops open. It feels relatively durable - and an improvement over earlier generations of Yongnuo flashes that had problems here. On the other side just above the locking wheel there are 2 rubber covered ports, one PC port and the other for an external power source. First complaint, the rubber "plug" for the power source is ill fitting and wont completely close. It is tethered however, which is good because if it werent it would be long gone. My other Yongnuo products have no such issues with the rubber port covers. On that note, the build of the YN-14EX is not as nice as Yongnuos Canon-competing flashes. The buttons are hard (most have the soft touch buttons and even back-lighting now), but the tactile feedback is nice. As on most Yongnuos in place of Canons select dial is their ubiquitous 4-way button. In a way, its even less necessary as theres just not a lot of settings! Up/Down could be the same as Left/Right. But, the parts bin is the parts bin. Overall the fit and finish isnt quite as nice (the tolerances arent as tight) as the best Yongnuo units - which go head-to-head with Canon. But the overall feel, weight and solidity of the Yongnuo is nice enough. It absolutely feels of a piece, and not like its going to cause problems. I dont handle a 600EX-RT and then touch this thing and recoil in horror and disgust. Theyve chosen the places to cut corners well. The coiled cable is thick and well insulated, robust and attached on both ends with stiff flex fittings of the highest quality. A potential weak point has been nipped in the bud. The flash ring is suitably manufactured and braced, and if you take it and try to twist it, bend it, make it scream in pain - its not going to give away the location of the enemy ships any time soon! Bottom line, all pieces are really solid and well done. Theres no stray flashing, sharp edges or rough spots. For the price, its still remarkable how they do it. Handling & Performance First things first. Unzip the carrying case in which your new toy is lovingly cocooned. Pull the flash and ring out of their individual padded compartments (yes, theyre wired together). Open the sturdy battery door by pushing and sliding down, it will pop open. Drop in 4 AA batteries. I highly recommend if youre not using NiMH batteries, you start. Theyre not only superior in performance to regular lithium batteries in every respect, theyll save you a fortune after a while. Did somebody say close the battery door? It was a test. Next, slide the Yonguo control unit into the flash shoe of your camera, and turn the locking ring in the direction of the arrow that says "lock"! So far so good. Removing your lens cap and hood, you screw one of the 4 supplied adapters housed in an interior pocket of the case onto the filter threads (or filter) on your lens. 52mm, 58mm, 67mm and 72mm. Here I have to say the quality of these things really surprised me! Granted, its a small thing - but theyre immaculately finished smooth matte finish with the size screened on in white. The threads and machining are as good as I could expect from anyone. Canon used to give you a plastic piece of... Squirrel! Anyway, details like this make you feel as if youre using a professional piece of equipment - which you really are. *Note* I see a mention that Yongnuo also used to supply plastic piece of you-know-what adapters on older models. This is a commendable step up and one Id even pay extra for honestly. Continuing, youve noticed with the supplied adapters youre covered for pretty much all macro lens sizes, as long as were talking macro. We *are* talking macro, right? Yeah, me too. If theres anything resembling a de facto standard lens size, it would be 77mm right? What if you want to shoot this as a nice soft flash fill - since this thing acts like a beauty dish? And not use a Macro lens, but rather almost any other lens in your kit? The very first thing I did after ordering this was to buy a 77mm adapter on eBay. I figured if it was coming from China, it would take at least as long as the seller said it would (4-8 weeks), right? $5 (thats all - including shipping) and the thing was here in 7 days. 4 days after my prime delivery. Not bad. I feel better just having it in my bag. /rant. OK, weve finally got the correctly sized adapter on, right? Then, pushing down the 2 buttons on each side of the flash ring (retracting the 4 clips), place the flash ring over the filter ring, and release the buttons. The clips extend out behind the ring plate pulling the flash on even tighter creating a snug and positive fit. So snug in fact if you wish to rotate the ring, press the release buttons to do so. Otherwise youll unscrew or tighten the adapter ring (or filter)! Now, press the power button and power it up! On the large LCD screen youll see the little indicator-thermometer that tells you its powering up or down. It will also give you a couple of chirps to tell you youve turned it on, and a longer tone to tell you that its fully charged. The LCD screen has a nice, soft orange (yay!) illumination. You can control the time it stays lit, or press the lamp button to light it. Besides the basic displayed information on your settings, the screen will also show you: - battery life - overheat status (little thermometer) - A:B ratio settings (graphic of lamps left and right) - FEC, FEB, 2nd curtain, custom functions Everything considered, I was happy to see things like battery life and temperature status displayed. The menu and functionality is very straightforward. If youve used a flash or flashes, you probably wont even need to crack the manual er, pamphlet to figure it out. Save for the custom functions and sound/power settings Ive not needed it. Theres not a lot I can say about the quality of the flash itself, other than its everything I could have hoped. Pretty much the first day I was using my new EF 100/2.8L IS for its intended use - I discovered the reason I need a flash like this. Of course an off camera flash of any type would help, but theres a noticeable advantage to having your light source just as close as possible to the end of the lens. Or in this case, being able to literally envelope the subject with a nice, soft, even illumination. But flat lighting isnt always flattering. As shadows are what gives your subject interest, being able to change the intensity of each ring half is important. Ive found this to have the greatest advantage when the subject is a bit flatter - or when Im shooting straight on. When I first got the flash, I thought that it landed somewhere in between the Canon MR-14EX and MR-14EX II as far as performance. It obviously took its cues from the new Canon, however theres a bit of the old design in there too as far as the button functionality and ring design. However now that Ive used it its obvious that the II was the target when designing it. From the very first shots I could see a huge difference in my comparison shots. One of the first things to strike me was that the light was far softer than I had imagined, and even better - it was not at all obvious. Just like those poorly directed action films - where the good guy is out in the desert all by himself wearing sunglasses and you can see the light reflectors and entire camera crew every time he turns his head - well thats half what I was expecting here. But even the honey bees reflective qualities dont give away that its not sunlight. I can also see the benefit for non-macro photography. The ring acts much like a mini beauty dish. I will certainly be experimenting further with this aspect of the Yongnuo. While its not the most attractive thing you can have on your camera - its powerful enough that you can almost consider it a mini softbox. It creates ideal on-camera on-axis lighting with none of the typical shadow cast you achieve with a typical single source strobe. The only downside Ive found is that when acting as a catchlight the ring shape is not the most natural (or attractive) solution. I could see this as being an ideal solution for the budget minded if doing small product photography for say, eBay. The flash ratio for A:B moves in half-stop increments from 8:1 to 1:1 to 1:8, with the equivalence of 3:1 through 1:3 in f stops. This is plenty to move between the two groups and identical to the Canons functionality. Exposure compensation in both manual and ETTL has a range of ±3 in 1/3 stop increments. What we dont have is the ability to set additional slaves as group C in wireless or otherwise. At first this seems like a huge omission, but honestly for my purposes this acts as a stand-alone unit. If you have grander schemes - then you might want to take a pass. A couple of features that did make it on the Yongnuo is flash exposure bracketing (1/3 EV at ±3), so it will work seamlessly with your Canon when bracketing. Again - Im not sure Ill find myself bracketing with macro work - but who knows! Also present is 2nd curtain sync and flash exposure lock. The latter will fire the pre-flash, and then store the data until you pull the trigger. The display stays up for half a second, but I would assume theres no time limit to the actual flash lock. This latter feature is certainly one that will get used - Im pretty old school when it comes to focus/exposure lock and recompose. Also the press of a button can illuminate one or both of the LED AF assist lights to use as modeling lights. I havent really found a reason or purpose to use this for just yet. Pros - Fantastic price - Excellent physical build - 4 aluminum adapter rings (not just 1) beautiful finish and highest tolerances: 52, 58, 67 and 72mm - Amazing & consistent performance - Very fast recycling times - Powerful - Soft even illumination - Color consistency - Proper flash tubes & not LED - Dual LED AF Assist/Modeling light - Variable A:B group settings - ETTL, FEL, FEC and 2nd curtain - Included: padded carrying case with fixed padded compartments Cons - No HSS - No wireless functions - No slave mode - No 77mm adapter! - Locking wheel, not lever - Not weather resistant - Physical build on Yongnuos low end - Control unit appearance & layout rather primitive compared to competition - External power supply cover ill-fitting on my copy Summary This is one excellent product from Yongnuo. Theyve balanced the features and performance with the price point and created an absolute winner. Omissions of features such as HSS and wireless first appear to be glaring issues, but on reflection Im not sure if either of those would ever see use for my purposes. The main reason I purchased this was to act as a compact standalone unit. I cant say where or how Id ever implement wireless with a secondary flash. While the absence of HSS is something I never see as being an issue as long as this is used for its primary purpose as a portable single unit and macro work. Aside from macro work, HSS requires more power to do right than this little unit is capable of anyway. Thats when the 600EX-RTs come out - and when wireless comes into play. At this point I dont know why I would want to spend an extra $450 on the Canon. I have no doubt the MR-14EX is as excellent as everything else they make. Like my 2 600EX-RTs. For a lot of people the Canon is absolutely the right choice. However, for a lot of people the YN-14EX is absolutely the right choice by a wide margin. If you too are dipping your toe into new waters, or are just starting to consider kit for macro photography - do yourself a favor and consider this great little flash. With the money youll save you could get the Tamron 60mm macro and have enough left over for a protective filter or a camera case. The overall performance is 4 stars, the feature set is 3 stars, but the price adds one more star again, and the overall build quality a half star. On the Amazon touchy-feely review scale, it rates 5 "I love it" stars easy. Right now Im giving it a big 5, rating systems aside. Its not often Im happier than I ever thought Id be with a product. Either I underestimated my needs, or Yongnuo exceeded my expectations. Perhaps its both of those. If youve ever considered such a tool, youll be glad you tried it out. At this price and with Amazons return policy youve got nothing to lose. Thanks for reading.