Sunpak 018ST Digital Camera Flash Enhancement Kit

I purchased this falsh to serve specifically as a slave flash for fill-ins and effects. Unfortunately the light sensor that senses the main flash does not work. It fired MAYBE 2% of the time. The only way I could get this to fire consistently was to aim it directly at the camera's flash, which obviously isn't helpful. I would not recomend this flash to anyone. Sunpac, you got it wrong...

I ordered this flash as a birthday present for my husband. He has a Panasonic FZ30 digital camera and it has a hot shoe for a flash. The 018ST worked with the FZ30, but it didn't offer anything over the built-in flash. The flash head does not swivel or rotate. Supposedly you could use the flash away from the camera and it would fire when the camera's flash went off. We found that it would fire less than 10% of the time in that manner.

We returned the flash and bought a Sunpak 383. It works very well with the FZ30 and the flash head swivels and rotates, allowuing the flash to be bounced off the ceiling or a side wall.

You should use this flash when your built-in flash doesn't cut it, when the distance is too far. To use it up close will not do anything for you, and you really don't need to use it anyway. It's a great fill in flash, because of the slave, and great for extending the output to allow you to take photos much further away. If you insist on using it close, put a cheap neutral density filter on it, or 2 and it works like a champ. You must experiment, either with a filter, or with a reflector, but, sure as heck, IT DOES WORK!!

I disagree with the previous reviewer. Since this is not camera specific you have to play with the camera settings to get good results. My first shots were washed out but by setting my iso to a lower value than what the included chart recommends the results were excellent. I gave it 5 stars for value.

Tom

This flash does not communicate with your camera with the exception of accepting the command to fire. You have to set your camera to what you think the flash output will be and hope that it comes out alright. The built-in flash in the most low-end one-time use camera is better than this thing. This will, inevitably, create a washed out picture that cannot be recovered with Photoshop. The only thing moderately useful in this package is the flexi-tripod. Use your built-in flash until you can save up the money for a good Speedlight (if you are a Canon camera user, I'd recommend the 580EX).