Mini-Review of Yongnuo YN-565EX speedlight

I have posted a "review" of the Yongnuo YN-565EX speedlight at Mini-Review of the Yongnuo YN-565EX Speedlight

I like it. Fully featured, fully powered. There are one or two little things (and any warranty seems very unlikely), but it seems impossible for the price. Even if it did not do wireless remote slave with Nikon Commander, it would still seem an incredible bargain.

Still in work, and comments from other 565 users are especially invited - what am I missing? The one big thing I am missing is the Nikon warning (Ready light flashing) when TTL power demands exceed the available power capability (i.e., underexposure which cannot simply be compensated).

Thanks Wayne..
Been looking for a proper review on this for some time

Nice job Wayne, Thank you!!

Pat in NH

It is a great flash. Put a 603 on it, and you'll have TTL. ;-) Gotten great results from this flash.

Mfrankfort said:

It is a great flash. Put a 603 on it, and you'll have TTL. ;-) Gotten great results from this flash.

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603? oh hell no. what a garbage slave. bought 2 sets for weddings. mounted it, then put it back and sent it back. garbage in every way. got 2 sets commlite g430 and 3 sets of 622n.

anybody looking at the 603. be forewarned, your flash will fall off the shoe. it has no locking ring. I used my friends after I retruned mine and it fell out of the shoe over and over and over. dont know what those dummies were thinking. no ttl pass through hot shoe and no locking ring and the dumb on off button is in the worst place possible. I wouldnt use it if I got it for free. cheap is expensive.

you were being cynical when you said "youll have TTL" , right? it does not do ttl at all. on or off camera.

haha. I know. It's a little inside joke. We had a little argument a while back about the 603 being able to do TTL. I don't use those for flashes, but they make really nice and cheap radio triggers. 622's are the way to go for the TTL function.

Mfrankfort said:

haha. I know. It's a little inside joke. We had a little argument a while back about the 603 being able to do TTL. I don't use those for flashes, but they make really nice and cheap radio triggers. 622's are the way to go for the TTL function.

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My 568 fell to the floor already because of it. I dont know how when they designed it and were in the meeting, and the big boss says "alright, were ready to send the prototype to production. were good here guys?" didnt anyone raise his hand and say, uhhh..what about locking wheel and ttl pass through hot shoe? garbage slaves. the fact they made a markII confirms it.

I agree. The design isn't the greatest. However, for a 30$ pair of radio triggers, they work quite well. 622's are the way to go for flashes though. Waiting on the 622tx.

Nice review.

Thanks John. I have embellished it some since the first pass, but I fear it is not quite like other reviews - some aspects are more about using flash with the Nikon system, instead of about the particular flash. Some details taken for granted, and some with the detail too deep.

Wayne, would the 565EX (or other Yongnuo Flashes) be compatible with multiple systems?
for example, if one were to have Elinchrom strobes, a couple of Nikon speedlights & a couple of Yongnuo's, would all be controllable with say Elinchrom's Skyport or Pocket Wizards?

(Biased question as i am gonna be investing in the Elinchroms soon & wondering if it would make sense just to have the strobes and Nikon speedlights or it's ok to have multiple brands in the mix)

I'm not sure I understand the question.

It has a PC sync port, so you could attach any brand of radio trigger that output to a PC sync cable. Or to the speedlight foot. It would flash when triggered. But it does not have any of that stuff built in. It does have optical slave trigger built in, which should be well sufficient in the studio.

Any manual flash should do that too (all may not have PC or slave built in). Manual flash units don't care about brands. We just set them to 1/4 power and trigger them. The Nikon speedlights would be the same in that regard (if equipped with a PC sync port), and the Yongnuo would do anything the Nikons did (speaking of triggered manual flash).

The Yongnuos (at least the 5xx series) go to 1/128 power in 1/3 stop steps. We hear people discussing buying an old Nikon SB-24 for manual flash use, but it only goes to 1/16 power in full stop steps. The Yongnuo would be much more versatile, and the YN-560II model may be as inexpensive.

I just worry you may have some obscure proprietary feature in mind that I don't know about.

Simple answer. Yes. You can mix speed lights, strobes.. pretty much anything. You'll just need something to tell them to fire. Transmitter on the camera, receiver on all the lights.

I have two diff flashes. They're fired with a 622 on my camera, and a 622 on each flash. The one on the camera sends the signal to the others and says "fire". Some triggers you can adjust power to the flashes, some just tell it to fire, and you set the power manually.

Im sorry my friend but that would be the last choice for a slave id take. commlite is even cheaper, and is a quality reliable product. I cant believe people are stupid (including me) to buy the 603. its garbage in every way.

Commlite ComTrig G430 flash trigger review | Lighting Rumours

sorry, there is no excuse to buy such junk slaves. not one reason. think how much a $15 slave will cause a huge amount of damage to your flash smacking to the floor. it happened to me. they fell out numerous time. I was not able to catch it that one time. and no ttl pass through shoe.

Commlite Grouping Flash Trigger 7 Channels TTL G430N for Nikon Pentax Olympus | eBay

$24 shipped. I have these. there is no comparison.

that 603 is GARBAGE. they shot themselves in the foot with the 622tx. no hot shoe on top. it hugely limits potential buyers. in weddings you want on camera flash and off camera fill for dance floors. same with phottix odin. a huge fail. pixel king were the only smart ones. shame about the price. but more than anything im happy pocket wizard are taking a beating. they raped people for so many years with those crazy prices.

Yes.. I personally wouldn't use the 603's to trigger a flash. However, I would and do use them as a remote shutter and they work perfectly. You hit the button wherever you are, and the camera fires. Never had a single problem with them as a SHUTTER release. TTL transceivers, the 622's are my choice. TTL works perfectly, and once the TX is released, you'll be able to change the power settings. I was just giving him an example, that the 603's could be plugged in to any flash or strobe to make them fire. Would they be my first choice... no... would they work as he wanted. Yes. He wants a flash/strobe to fire, and the 603's will tell them to fire. If your worried about the flash falling off, you can use a cord. And your not hooking strobes up to the hot-shoe, so that's not a problem for him either. I was simply answering his question, not giving him my review of the 603's.

I understand what youre saying. for a basic lowest level slave to fire an off camera flash, this will suffice.

my point is, why buy it? it offers nothing over the commlite. so why? no locking wheel/pin is a huge fail. sync can do about 1/180, horrible placement of power button, range isnt that great, no ttl pass through hot shoe and the biggest problem is theyre overpriced and cost more than the very capable commlite which also includes cables for firing your camera remotely. and the features I just mentions its lacking are basic things we need and it cant do any of those things well. I dont see a single reason why to buy them. they cost more and do so much less. I dont know, but I really like to get my moneys worth. dont know why people even buy these. they are such a ripoff. and the proof, they released a markII thats fixed almost all its failures.

I bought the 622n and im not happy with them. they are not working in ttl for some reason. tried it with my D3 and D600 with both, the light is red and nnot turning to green when I try to activate it with the button. have to talk yongnuo

Excellent write up, I may consider a few of these to compliment my SB-910.

Excellent indeed.

Scott Murray said:

Excellent write up, I may consider a few of these to compliment my SB-910.

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565's are awesome flashes. very strong and very fast. it has a battery pack port as well. just no HSS mode. I was considering getting 3 of these for off camera flash work. 2 to fire from umbrellas and one for rim lighting. amazing pics for family portraits. but sent yongnuo an email and they said the 568 mark II are in testing phases so im waiting and will go for the flagships if they have a battery port included. they will be able to run as masters!! YES! the 568/565 are already killing sales for nikon, once the 568NII come out, its not going be good at all for nikon. so many wedding pros use their flashes and slaves. thats the 568 (the same pretty much as a 565) in the back giving the rim job, err, rim light (how disgusting am I...shaking head)... with 2-560III shooting bounced from an umbrella. iso 2000, dark as hell out. only lights from those pillars you see. D3/105VR dont reember specs but something like 125 f/4 or so.