2009 Best Camera Flash Store

Description

Powerful Flash for More Creative Freedom. The HVL-F42AM Flash Unit gives Sony ¿ system photographers more illumination power for every shooting opportunity, with effective range greater than 30 feet (10.5m), versatile bounce angles (90° up, 90° left, 180° right) and high-speed sync to catch fast action. It also provides intelligent features like auto zoom optimized for image sensor size, auto WB with color temperature signal to camera, and accurate ADI metering capability -- plus wide zoom angle (16mm) with retractable wide panel, simple controls, flash test button and fast recharging time to help you shoot more quickly (guide number: 42).

Features

• High-power illumination (guide number: 42)
• Longer effective range of over 30 ft. (10.5m)
• Versatile bounce angles: 90° up, 90° left, 180° right
• Auto white balance (signals color temp. to camera)
• Retractable wide-angle panel (16mm angle)

Reviews

The flash shoe is very loose and doesn't fit very well with Sony Alpha 300K. So at certain position the flash works and at other time it doesn't as it stops communicating with the camera. This makes it highly unreliable. The Auto light doesn't work as described in the manual. When it works, I have noticed that the camera shoots very slowly in auto mode. This defeats the purpose of having a fast SLR. The wireless mode works well. That is why it gets 2 stars instead of 1. I returned the flash.

I bought this flash for mothers day for my wife, and we had our first child a few weeks ago. She and I have taken a number of photographs of him and the lighting looks a lot better. Glad we got this flash.

This is a great product, it is easy to work with. Light, small, and portable. I only wish the battery life would last longer.

I wasn't sure if it was going to be what I wanted or not but I was not disappointed. I took my daughters senior pictures and it was amazing. It did so much more than I expected. Being able to take it off the camera and set it somewhere and have it syc with my on camera flash was fantastic. If you are looking for a flash for your camera, I would highly recommend this flash. It did such a great job and get yourself a lot of batteries because it will use them up. All flashes do that. It helped it making my photos look more professional than just with the flash on the camera.

I used this flash for about 5 months (before I broke my hot-shoe part of my A-200). This flash did a great job with brightening up many pictures that I would not have been able to take with the basic flash. The only improvement I would give these flashes, more so with the camera itself, is to have hot-shoe connector piece made of metal (as with Canon, Nikon and almost all of the other companies that make D-SLR). Even many point-and-shoot cameras have metal adapters/connector pieces for external flashes. This may sliiiiiiightly add a bit of weight and price of materials, but would totally decrease the chance of the piece breaking. I like the option of using it wirelessly. Prop it up on the stand that it comes with and go to town. It would be nice if there was some way to linking the camera to the flash (bluetooth or equivalent). Even a cord would be better than telling a buddy "On 3...". I have read that the 56 and/or 58 have/has an external battery source option. The professionals use external battery sources on many of their shoots for extended battery life and when changing out AA's is clumsy and time inefficient. It was a slight disappointment that I could not be one of the cool guys and have the same thing with my flash. Oh well, I still paid a pretty good price for the 42 and kept a nice chunk of change that went to something else important, like a good tripod or something. In summary: This is great flash, for great price, with not quite the perfect design (but not very important unless you are clumsy or an adventurer photographer) and it is an all around must for anyone who takes pictures in slightly dark to very dark conditions.