The Nissin i40 Flash for Fuji Review
The Nissin i40 flashgun for Fuji X cameras. A small, yet powerful beast.
A while ago I saw a post on Fuji Rumours about this little flash, I mostly just glanced over it and carried on about my day, but I saw more and more articles and leaks crop up over the past few months and upon reading up it seemed that the i40 would be a most welcome addition to my kit.
A bit of clarification; I rarely use flash, in fact I really only use it for dancing shots at weddings, that being said this review is a quick look at what this piece of gear can do, my abilities with flash are limited so please excuse the technical side of things.
My current flash guns are the very competent but also the very big Yongnuo 560's, when this flash came out I ordered one right away as it had some great features but for me the size is a massive bonus, no longer will my little X100 feel like its being pulled forward with the weight of the Yongnuo on top.
I always like to keep my reviews short so I'll try that here, I preordered the Nissin i40 from Jessops and managed to be one of the first to get it in the UK, so this review is kind of a quick overview and a breakdown of how it performs, so here goes.
Size on a Fuji:
Small, like really really small, crazy small. As you can see from the photos, this flash is super small, it's crazy that it takes 4 AA batteries, I'm not really sure where the electronics go. On the X100 it's incredibly well balanced and feels very comfortable to use, the dials are in the perfect place and are very easy to turn whilst feeling solid.
Power and Recycle rate:
Here's where things get interesting, so the current Fuji flashes on offer don't have the best recycle rate, so to test the Nissin i40 I loaded it with a set of newly charged batteries, put it in manual mode on 1/32 power and managed to pop off 18 flashes in a row before it needed to charge again. Now this was by no means a scientific test, more of a real world feeling for how this flash performs, I usually shoot my dancing photos at this power and up the ISO if I need more from the camera, so for me this is great.
TTL run and gun photography:
This flash has a lot of people interested as it allows you to have a fully TTL capable flash on a fuji for a decent price, and unlike the EFX20 & EF20 flashes sure toy avian,e you have much more power and it's fully angle possible, awesome.
So to test this out I put everything in TTL mode and shot away, overall it's a very pleasing setup to use for quick run and gun photography, the dials allow you to adjust your exposure compensation so if you need to bounce it then crank it up and shoot away, overall it's a very easy piece of kit to use. (I didn't read the manual)
Notable features: There are a few little features that I think are worth pointing out;
-Flash has a nice little bounce card and wide angle diffsuer
-Flash goes into standby mode when you turn the camera off
-Video light is very impressive, it's like 2 LEDs and puts out a crazy ammount of light
Things I don't like:
- You can't seem to use focus if the flash is powering up/recycling , or when using the video light, I'm looking more into this, a work around is to use manual Focus and back button focus the shot.
Results:
This bit's nice and simple here are a selection of images taken with various Fuji X series cameras all sporting the Nissin i40 flash, overall it's a great piece of kit and really fun and easy to use. I've just completed a wedding using this flash and it was great, used mostly in manual in place of my usual Yongnuo's the lighter option is much better, images to come soon.
Many thanks to my good friend Amy who features in many of the photos, always better to have a real person than inanimate objects.
Thanks for visiting, let me know your thoughts below,
Cheers,
Col-
Fuji X100 - F2 | 1/1000th | iso200 - flash pointed up with diffuser on and bounce card up, bright day in the shade, the Nissin flash has no problem keeping up with the Fuji X100's high speed sync.
Trying out the flash in the day with bright sun, just a little pointed at the tree for fill in flash, set to TTL.
Fuji X100 - Shooting into bright sun, using the flash to balance the light.
Fuji XE-2 - TTL, flash bounced up and dial turned to give a little more power, much faster than pushing buttons.
Above: Direct & bounced flash, of course the bounced is a much nicer light, but these 2 images are taken within second of each other, another time where the speed of the TTL comes to god use.
Quick shoot with the Nissin Bounced off the ceiling.
Christmas rabbit, Fuji X100 flash bounced.
Fuji X100 - Daytime in the shade.
