I’ve subscribed some time ago to receive the regular newsletter of a local photography shop.

They surprised me a few days ago with an offer of a light-bulb looking slave flash packed together with a light stand and white semi-transparent umbrella with a diameter of 60cm and a combined E27 cap - umbrella adaptor too. The flash has a guide number of 28 and a nominal power of 45W, can be fired by a synch cable (included) and the light of any other flash (it even has a test button). The whole thing costs the Hungarian equivalent of roughly 66 USD. I thought it’s worth the price and grabbed one. (And was somewhat pissed off noticing the same flash bulb for as little as 5 bucks on eBay. OK, that one does not include the light stand and the rest, but it’s annoying anyway. This is similar to other pieces of photography equipment as well: prices in Hungary are always at least 20% higher than in the US.)

The power of the flash cannot be adjusted: it fires or not. Its sensor is sensitive enough to capture the light of the built-in flash of my Nikon D80 even if it’s dialled down to 1/128 power. However one thing is important to note: no TTL can be used if you want to control the light bulb flash by light, because it captures the pre-flashes of the TTL mode and fires before the shutter opens.

It is clearly made in China and it’s branded as a part of the Mettle Studio Lighting.

It’s said that this bulb flash slave can be used for photographing small products or even as a fill or rim light in portraiture. Test images will come later.

Was I stupid to buy it?

Update: I made some test shots with this flash.