Customer Reviews

Yongnuo YN-560 Speedlight Flash for Canon and Nikon

5 star:		(101)
4 star:		(38)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(13)

 

 

I haven't shot enough with it to determine consistency, but I'm pleased so far. Flash is a bit large for the output, but it is still decent. I did some test shots and was getting f8 at 18 ft. This tells me that the GN is just about 144. The specs put it at just 58. (Maybe that was supposed to be meters and not feet). This is almost as good as I got from the Sunpak PZ42XC at full on manual.
Build is similar to the Sunpak flashes. Swivel and bounce feel no less solid and click into place just fine without shifting. The built in diffuser AND mini bounce card are nice although small. My sunpak PZ42XC doesn't have that. There is a PC sync and a power supply connection on the side which my sunpak doesn't have either. Then there is the optical slave which works well with two levels of sensitivity and of course my sunpak lacks that as well.
With all of that said, this flash isn't for just anybody. This is just a plain dumb manual flash without TTL or even a thyristor. THERE IS NO AUTO FUNCTION. If your intent is to use this as a camera mounted flash for candids, forget it unless you know how to manually setup for every shot by adjusting your aperture as needed. It is not intended for that purpose.

The flash came with a base that has a threaded hole in the bottom so it can be mounted to a stand. It would do a terrific job providing fill or backlight capability. It swivels 180 degrees and straight up so bouncing into an umbrella or through a diffuser while the slave sensor faces forward for a stationary photo shoot are ideal uses of this flash. So is placing it behind a subject for a backlight. My Lumiquest gel holder fits very tight due to the large flash head, but it fits.

The controls and lights on the back seem a bit confusing and the manual isn't a lot of help since the translation from Chinese to English is about the same quality as you get from Google translate..... I was able to figure it out but it took some time experimenting with the unit.

Recharge is quick - even at full power. I was very impressed. Of course it has less output than the Sunpak and uses the same number of batteries but still, I was pleased.

One other note. When i first tried to turn it on it wouldn't do anything and I was immediately afraid it was DOA. I found that to turn it on, you must hold the on-off button for a couple seconds. When you press it down, the lights on the bar progress from left to right and if you don't hold it down till the lights get to the far right, it just shuts off. Awkward, but easy to deal with if you are aware of it.

Altogether, I'm quite pleased with what I have assuming it lasts a a while. The build seems solid so I'll just have to wait and see. I'm confident enough in the product that I'm going to buy a second one so I can have one for fill and the other for a backlight for impromptu studio shots.

If you need a slave flash with some power and manual controls I really think this is the best thing out there. Almost everything else in this price range is a single power or auto-flash without the ability to make manual output adjustments. You can get this output with no slave, the slave with no manual,or you can spend twice as much. But if you need a speedlight with auto functions for camera mounted shots, get something with auto functions.

So I already own a canon 430ex II, and was trying to determine whether this flash was worth it. I am so glad that I bought it. I am a professional photographer who shoots mainly natural light, but wanted another flash for flexibility with off camera lighting scenarios. This thing rocks! In one job, I had accidentally turned off a remote receiver and thought that it was dead. This would have ruined the shoot, but thankfully the yn560 has a built-in optical slave that worked flawlessly and saved my neck! I have been using it with my canon 430 ex II (both off camera) with great results. I don't recommend this flash to people with the following needs:

1. TTL - it doesn't have it, manual only.
2. An LCD screen with menus and lots of options - this flash is pretty simple in terms of features.
3. A person new to flash photography intending to use it on camera with subjects of varying distances - if you don't know what you are doing with flash, it is a better idea to just buy the ttl flash first and then play with the manual flashes when you've had more time for study and experience.
4. People just trying to get a cheap flash. - this flash is certainly inexpensive, but the named brand flashes from Canon and Nikon are very nice. If you are going to own one flash, get a good one first with ttl and more features.

Lastly, don't let the comparisons of canon or Nikon flashes trick you. Those flashes are durable, reliable, and feature rich. This flash is great for manual flash work and off camera lighting. I love how it works for those things. I am even considering buying another one or two down the road.

For the money, I am amazed at how powerful, useful, and effective the 560's are. Since I bought mine, Yongnuo has added a metal shoe foot which is an even better reason to get these for strobist work. Beyond the fine manual control (full to 1/128th power w/micro adjustments between stops, zooms from 24-105mm) there's two variants of optical slave control built in - one simple and the other which ignores pre-flash, and this can be helpful if you don't have wireless receivers.

Some cons:
~ weird interface that is not immediately user friendly but becomes so after study and experience
~ inconsistent recycles both in terms of power and timing (variance in output is more than I'd hope, and even when the power is turned down to 1/64th or 1/128th high speed continuous is hit and miss) but this isn't an issue when not shooting high frame rate or when half second intervals or longer are employed
~ base/front is so deep that my particular wireless receivers must be powered on/off only when removed from the flash itself, but this isn't a knock when using other receivers
~ sometimes I turn the annoying beep feature off and it comes back on after restarting the flash

Despite those knocks, I still give it five stars due to the overwhelming upside. Full power is nearly at the high end of what flashguns can do, and it does recycle at full faster than most too. The fit and finish is a copy of Canon's 580EXII and so exceeds this price point. The ability to accept external power packs as well as a PC sync cable is really nice. Anyone who's looking to add more remote lights that are reliable and accepting of multiple ways of triggering should grab a couple of these.

FYI...I have used several Nikon SB800's and Sigma EF500 DG Super flashguns for years, and these complement what we do.

I'm using it on a canon xsi with tamron 18~270 lens.

pros:
- the flash feels solid even though made of plastic.
- controls are well laid out and with pro features like settings save on power down.
- external battery pack connector.
- motorized 'zoom' via two buttons.
- pull out diffuser for front flash and bounce card for up flash.
- power save mode by holding 'sound' button.
- pc connector plus hot shoe.
- has remote 's1' and 's2' mode.
cons:
- the manual has some english translation issues, minor though.
- test button (which is the flash ready led) needs to be pushed a little harder than expected.

guide number seems to be as stated, via a quick test of 30feet away from dark corner of the room, 1/250 sec with 420mm(effective) lens at f6.3, flash set to full power, flash set for 105mm max zoom, image looked well exposed.

used the flash's built-in pull out 'soften' lens on a remote cord held 90deg to macro close up subject and image had a very nice soft light/shadow/.

so far after a day of learn/use/play this is keeper and at the guide number per cost ratio, this beats most other, if not all other flashes.

I was in a pinch and needed a flash for an event I was shooting. I didn't have the $500 to go buy a speed-lite, so I figured what the heck, and bought this.

Its constructed well, it works okay, and has an array of nice features.

Its not awesome, but its also WELL below $100. I did not find it quite as easy to use as many other reviewers, but this is also my first manual flash - so its taken some time. I thought the instructions could have been a bit more helpful - but as many things with photography it is both trial and error, and getting to know your gear.

Not the worlds best kept secret as many would claim, but not bad to have. What made it a for sure sale for me is being able to sync with other flashes meant that when I upgraded, this would still be functional for my set up! A big plus for someone like me.

This is a great flash! I have the YN 468 while it is a nice flash with eTTL for Canon, it is not built nearly as well as the YN 560.

(Note: I do lots of commercial and event photography and will only use off-camera or bounce -- unless I'm forced to do otherwise)

First it is very powerful and in full power mode you can hear it go off - BOOM! (not really but it is impressive)
Zoom works very well.
Shape of the light on the subject is likewise as good.
The construction is solid, not as good a Canon but close. (if you wanted to do a drop test I'm sure this flash would hold up well against a Canon, but if I'm wrong it is not like I'm out $500.00 for the same amount of light.)
Refresh rate is very speedy on rechargeable batt. less than 2sec at full power, and just as fast as my 60D can go at 1/8 and below.
Simple interface that is rather fast to use. Unlike the YN 468 where you have to shuffle between every power setting, the YN560 allows you to make eight major jumps, then choose fine adjustments to suit, this is much faster.
The battery door is great--huge improvement over the YN468.
Let me put it this way, next paycheck I'm ordering three more, with a few more wireless triggers.

Cons: No TTL, but I do not use that anyway. Lame instructions, but you'll figure it out.

Pros: 270 degrees bounce swivel :)
Fast
Powerful
Bounce Card
IR trigger
PC Sync
Charger input--thats great for studio work
Well built--this is rugged flash
Good looking compared to YN468
Crazy Cheap when compared to the Canon 580 ( considering I would not use most of its features)
No LCD screen to break, just some very bright led lights that are very easy to read from afar.
Also the power-saver mode is easy to notice as it blinks so you won't forget to turn it off a the end of a shoot.

If you do off-camera strobe-work, and you should, this is a no-brainer. I'll stack this flash against my buddy's Canon 580 anytime, anyplace. However I will have 4 four of them for less money than his one. The great thing about having a simple, CHEAP, rugged, powerful flash like the YN560 is that I'm willing to do things with it that I would never do with a Canon 580 ex II, such as set it down on wet grass, behind a rock/tree, round around with it in my pocket, place it in an engine compartment of car, etc. Anyone want to buy a used YN-468? :)

PS: I bought my YN 468 from SimpleStudioLighting (Amazon Vendor) and it failed in two days, called Todd up and he replaced, no questions asked, lightning quick. Got my new YN560 from him too, fast! Thanks Todd.

I bought a pair of these to use for a couple of portrait shoots and was very impressed with the speed, power, and capability of them. If you're looking for a couple of flash heads to run in slave mode, or with a radio trigger, these will do all you could want. You set the power level (64 different increments), the mode (manual - for a hotshoe or PC trigger, slave1 or slave2), and it's ready to go.

A couple of things I was surprised at:
(1) The battery door is solid and spring-loaded, unlike the cheap plastic-tab style doors on other flashes in this price range.
(2) It comes with a little foot-stand with a threaded mount hole on the bottom, a nice touch.
(3) The recycle time is *fast*. I haven't timed it out, but even at full power, recharge time is less than a second.
(4) You get a classy felt drawstring bag for it. Because I like to carry around my flash heads the same way that I do my Crown Royal
(5) There's a popup diffuser and flash bounce card. Nice to have in a pinch.

So yeah, very happy with this unit. Thinking of picking up another pair just to have around when I need to zap shadows. Would definitely recommend this flash head for anyone looking to light up an umbrella or softbox without spending big bucks on an expensive TTL unit.

Buyer Beware - I bought two of these thinking "What a Deal". They worked fine for 400-500 pops, both on camera and off. Then, both started to fail around the same time. By the time you have problems with them - your warranty is over. If you try to contact Yongnuo (as I did) you will get nowhere. They will tell you that no one else has had problems, and if you want it fixed you will have to post it to them and pay for the repair costs.

I now have two Yongnuo YN560s that make great "Book-Ends". Save your money and look at either Canon, Nikon, Metz, or Nissin. You get what you pay for, so if you plan on throwing your money away, go for it. I learnt an expensive exercise in buying cheap "alternatives".

If you do a search on some of the strobist sites you will see similar problems being reported with this flash.

I have had my Canon 430EXII since it was released - not a problem.

As a professional wedding photographer I have a lot of expensive gear. I do have multiple Canon 580ex2's which I use and love but at almost $500 each(new), I don't love the price tag and when using them off camera and I have always used them manually(using wireless triggers). That's right, a $500 fancy schmancy ETTL flash I used the manual power settings and manual zoom for the flash off camera work I did. I think a lot of "strobist" type work is done this way and once you learn how it's just quicker and much more reliable to do it this way.

Enter these little beauties.

For the money you cannot beat these. Literally the best thing about these is how much they have ripped off from an actual Canon 580ex2...number one being the ability to use the AA battery backs for faster recycle times. They make knock off 8AA battery packs as well, go figure.

The second wedding I tried using the yn560 I was outside trying to set up a small softbox on a light stand and at the exact moment I let go of the stand a gust of wind took the whole thing over backwards..crashing to the ground. I thought for sure this thing was toast being made of plastic etc and I was ready to toss it and buy another. To my surprise, it worked just fine! That was the first time I have EVER had a flash go down and had that been an actual 580EX2(and worse had it been damaged) I would have been out MAJOR money. This YN560 breaks, not such a big deal and that's why I bought it.

The only thing I would change would be instead of ONLY having the markings for the flash ZOOM level the rear LED's would also be marked in flash power starting at 1/128 up to 1/1. Even if it can't give you the in betweens it would be easier when having an assistant doing the adjustments to be able to ask for "1/8" and have them be able to tell right away which one it is. I plan to use a small label gun to make my own.
Of course the thing that remains to be seen is longevity. Anything cheap is usually that way because it uses inexpensive components and materials and this flash is I'm sure no exception. So far the performance has been excellent and for the price I really don't think you can go wrong. I have one, I'll be buying at least 2 more.

-Brian

This is my second Yongnuo 560. The first one was the one with the cheaper plastic foot and the pilot light that you couldn't push and test fire without some sort of hard object. Many people have had to return their Yongnuo 560s with the PLASTIC foot ...I haven't and have dropped mine a few times. I may be one of the lucky ones.

The second one, the latter version of the 560, IS THE BETTER version. The BETTER version has the metal foot, and easy to push test/ready light/button and a quality control sticker in the battery compartment. I think Yongnuo has actually been paying attention and has made improvements to the quality.

Again: People had problems with the original 560s but very few are reporting problems with the version with the metal foot.

The Yongnuo 560s are MANUAL flashes with zoom and power controls down to 1/128 with multiple increments between each power level. The 560 also has 2 slave modes for use with or without the preflash/red-eye reduction lights.

The Yongnuo 560s are NOT TTL, iTTL, eTTL ...they're just plain old MANUAL flashes.

I use one of the 560s with my Nikon and the Yongnuo RF 602 radio transmitter and receiver and pop the second flash in slave mode. Works great. I love the multiple power levels, very fast recycle times and it's difficult to beat the price.

If you're into Strobing and don't need any of the TTL stuff, if you're lighting manually, David Hobby style (or learning to), then these Yongnuo 560s should suit you fine.