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Ever since I started reading the strobist blog I’ve been amazed at what cool effects you can achieve with strobes. The latest addition to my gear is a Canon Speedlite 430EX II flash, again from Japanfoto in Stockholm. They seem to be offering decent prices and a great customer experience (again…not getting paid to say this). I’m pretty new to using strobes creatively, I’ve mostly been using them as head-on fill light so far, so I have loads to learn. The plan is to get a Speedlite 580EX II when I become more familiar with strobes and to use the 580 as a master and the 430 as a slave.  I think I’m gonna stop at 2 strobes, since most things really don’t require more than that. I had a look around for wireless triggers too and I think this is the way to go, sync cables are fine but wireless just seems to provide so many more possibilities. Pocketwizards are way out of my budget so I’m probably gonna go with no-name radio triggers that have both a hotshoe and pc connector. This enables me to get whatever strobe as long as it has a  hotshoe connection. There’s really no end to getting photo gear is there??

I’ve only tested this strobe for one afternoon, but it’s proven to be pretty neat. The fully flexible head gives room for creativity and the foot construction makes it easy to just attach it to the hotshoe and shoot. I’ll post some results from todays  photowalk later on.

Here’s what the 430EX II looks like: