This flash is amazing!
I was reluctant to buy a 3rd party flash for my Canon Eos Elan, but I bought the Quantary Dual Swivel Zoom PZ-1 DSZ Flash cause it was cheaper ($139) and in stock (instant gratification).
My first experiemnt
The combination of a wide lens (19mm) and a large hood (77mm) always created a big round shadow at the bottom of every picture. The built-in flash on the Elan has a coverage of 28mm according to the manual, so this leaves an uneven patern of light at the corners of the frame as seen in the picture below.
So I used a mirror to reflect the built in flash upwards, and this is the result...
The colors are much more natural (warm) and the shadow created by the lens hood dissappeared.
Again, this is still the built-in Elan Flash reflected with a mirror.
So I bought my flash.
Rear View shows the Backlit LCD display. The flash was set on the slave setting, this lets it work wirelessly with ALMOST any camera with a flash. The slave flash will trigger when it sees the cameras flash.
I must admit, I have gotten a few emails refuting my claim that this flash works with every camera. Many new digital cameras use a preflash to measure exposure just before the picture is taken. This preflash sets off the slave, so when the real picture is taken the slave is not ready. This has been pointed out to me as being a problem with the Canon 10D, this flash doesn't work as a slave or on the hot shoe.
Imaging resource explicity states the Minolta Dimage 7i does not have a preflash and works perfectly with slaves. This will be my next camera since it is the only digital Ive found that has a 28mm wide angle zoom.
Here are pictures with the Quantaray flash vs. the built-in flash. The Flash zooms from 24mm to 105mm. The head swivels nearly 360 degrees, and rotates 187 degrees. This allows you to have the flash bounce off a wall behind you, to the side, off the celing, or directly at the subject, even when the camera is held in portrait (as opposed to landscape).
Quanatary Flash bounced off ceiling.
Built in Elan Flash
Note the lack of the redeye (dog) in the left (bounced flash) picture.
The Quantary flash also has a strobe effect, where you can choose up to 10 flashes from 1 second to 1/100th of a second. If you were taking a picture of a bouncing ball for example, each flash of light would track the motion of the ball. The flash also keeps up with the frame advance speed of my camera, I can shoot 3 frames/second, compared to 1 frame/second with the built-in flash.
** Picutre not taken yet**
This flash also has a preview mode, Quantaray calls it "model mode" which works very similar to the red eye lamp on the Eos Elan. It will rapidly fire the flash for several seconds allowing you to see if there are any shadows, flare, glare, reflections in your picture. This flash also has two heads, so you can use direct light and reflected light.
One thing I commend Canon on is the red eye lamp on my Elan has a coverage of 28mm just like the flash, it is easy to see the shadow from the lens hood without actually taking the picture.
The best part about this flash is the slave capablitly. I can use this flash with any camera including my point and shoot digital camera. I just place this flash anywhere in the room, and when it sees the flash from my camera it flashes. Notice in the pictures below that the flash is sitting on the coffee table. The two pictures below were taken with a Sony DSC-P50 with its built-in flash set to automatic (ON).
Quantaray Flash turned on (slave mode), built-in flash also used.
Quantaray Flash turned off, only the built-in flash is used. Looks like crap doesn't it?
Fisheye converter, Quantaray Flash turned on
Fisheye converter, Quantaray Flash turned off
This room was very dimmly lit, the flash lit the room up nicely.
I should note that Im not a writer, I'm not a professional photographer, and I haven't used the Canon brand EOS flashes. Im sure there are advantages only Canon flashes offer like E-TTL and A-TTL, but I have no experience with those technologies.
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