Outraged at the cost of a cannon speedlight I have gone for a cheap option of a Yongnuo-YN-468-II (ebay special) on recommendation of a friend that has the non TTL Yongnuo YN-460-II for £30.
A 430EX II is over £200 and I cannot justify that! This seems a better option at £70 with all of the same features but not as good build quality.
I am not allowed to play with it till my Birthday as the Mrs is buying it for me as a present. Have a made a big mistake?
The next thing I am looking for is a ring flash. Looking at cheap LED ones for macro work as other are stupidly expensive. Anyone have any experience in this area?
DZ
Bringing back an old post but one that didn't receive any feedback.
You can actually make a decent DIY ring flash attachment for a standard flash gun using plastic bowls and some tin foil
http://strobist.blogspot.co.uk/2006/09/super-cheap-diy-ring-flash.html
In fact this webs its a really great resource for all things Flash, check it out.
If you can move your macro subject about you could use a light tent/cube. They're dirty cheap and you can use any lights to illuminate the box. Proper daylight lamps are best but I've used angle poised desk lamps before and then fixed the white balance on the PC.
http://www.stevesphotoshop.co.uk/photo_light_tents_cubes.html
(I've not bought anything from this site so am not specifically recommending them, they just have nice pic's of the cubes in action.)
I've started out buying only Nikon Flash guns and they are also horribly expensive, although they are excellent bits of kit.. I actually gave up buying them and went for a Metz 44 speed light at £100 each which I think is an equivalent substitute for Nikon as the Youngnuo is for Canon. I can now work with three or four speed lights for the same price as a couple of Nikons. They don't have the amazing reach of the Nikon flash but for 90% of my work they're fine.