USED BUT NOT ABUSED:
Ever wonder how those used camera departments like KEH, B&H, ADORAMA and Used Cameras.com got so big and do quite a few million a year?  Not because of brilliant decisions. Because people sell gear that does not meet their expectations and the next guy gets the same piece and loves it. Since they buy at 30-35 cents on the dollar, please don’t tell me about bargains. It's always in the mind of the party.  Never the less they all have a great reputation and stand behind their merchandise. They can afford to at their margins. 

TRUE, someone let you down when you went cheaper or for the off brand. And you were let down when the gear only performs to a certain standard and falls short of what you needed.  Who was the one person present at both those occasions?  Hint: Look in the mirror! 

The Canon, Metz and Nikon proprietary strobes are excellent in the hands of someone who works with THEM.  The Sigma / ProMaster / Quantaray / Vivitar / SunPak” can also work well in the hands of the shooter with knowledge.

I own, manufacture, invent, build, test, evaluate, break, modify, battery packs for Nikon, Canon, Metz, Sigma, ProMaster, Quantaray, Vivitar, SunPak  and others” so I deal with a lot of flash owners and that gets me a fair amount of feedback across the board. Most owners are fiercely brand loyal so that’s the opinion you get. Because I am an independent, I get to hear the good the bad and the really ugly.

BUBBLE BUSTING: 
A large percentage of most flash componentry comes from the same sources in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Mainland, Thailand and other parts of Micronesia.  These OEM parts are shared with most competitors. Notice the same module fits the ProMaster as does fit the 580 Canon. The Nikon and Metz 54 use the same module from Quantum.

Achiever, National and others make the strobes for the manufacturers. They may have the same insides but the outsides differ. For example:  If it said made in Hong Kong like ProMaster is, it is most likely an Achiever, rebranded.  SunPak flash re-badges for Ritz/ Wolf under the trade name Quantaray now also rebadges smaller units under PROmaster and so forth.

Several strobes are rebranded variants of the same 4 cell 6 volt setup made popular some time in the 60's.  They just added more stuff that’s automated and made more folks trigger happy. When Nikon and others do a whole thing on lighting using every toy in the strobe game they make it look simple.

RANDOM THOUGHTS:
Most Canon users who are stout traditionalists with embedded branding won't shoot anything other than Canon so 90% of their decisions are based on a Political Choice being the eminent reason.  Same with Nikon, simply put, it's Canon, Nikon etc. it's got to be good.  Look no further. That’s what brandsmanship does and it is a very strong word in today’s advertising.  I can see it differently. I judge performance not brand.

Metz owners generally drive foreign cars with names like Audi, BMW, Porsche and VW Passat.  They like the Euro look, feel, and accept a few quirks. No more or fewer quirks than their Canon brethren. Metz are excellent strobes on a par with and sometimes exceed Nikon and Canon.  If it's not like what you owned before, it's called a quirk.  If it's comfortable to you, and it performs, it's a great feature. Metz owners feel the controls make more sense than Nikons do and a lot of Metz owners shoot Nikon. I like their products. Great color and light.

BRANDING - 
The biggest buzzword or voice you hear at ad agencies is branding. It's in politics, cars and every other thing you buy or vote for. People like associations, and being associated with. Look how fast social Nutworking took over as the number one time-waster of them all, it might surpass couch potato-ing as Americas favorite sport.

We call them “tags”.  As in politics, "I shoot CANON, NIKON or METZ" so the party line dictates you follow it.  Many have trouble with their associations leading them to a disease known as cranial-rectal dyslexia. I had a friend who wouldn't buy a Quantaray from Ritz so he mail ordered a SunPak model. Same thing. Quite a genius, it’s the same model. SunPak makes RITZ and some PRO items.  

No one would buy a camera with the name "Valley of Pale Moon Perpetual Sunlight" (Sounds very Chinese) but they'll go to Wal-mart and buy a $99.00 Digital with the name "Polaroid" on it.  VPS rents the name Polaroid.  Polaroid is out of business, has nothing and owns nothing. But someone paid 230 million dollars to 'OWN" the brand name POLAROID which shows up on anything today.  

WHEN LIGHT DIES:
Flashes are needed at the end of the light functionality spectrum.  In other words you run out of apertures and speed and go to flash. Sometimes you use flash to counteract too much light. This is the single component that we don't prepare often enough, balanced fill flash.

To me, a flash unit is the most important accessory, next to a lens, that a photographer needs. Simple, it extends our shooting base to more difficult light situations and goes beyond the film or the digital sensors ability to properly record light.  Many cameras come with a built in on-camera portable flash that either is a waste of battery power or rarely gets used. It’s effective range is six to ten feet on a good day.  

NUTS AND BOLTS:
The optional add on flashes are units have considerably more power than do the built-in small pop-ups, allowing for greater coverage in width and height as well as distance. The flash may be bounced, which both reduces the chance of red-eye to almost nil and spreads the light for a softer effect... sometimes, it can also backfire.  

Note that most all wedding photographers use brackets to raise of move the light away even from the lens plane.  There are many companies producing flash units for Digital and 35mm cameras, and their interpretations of the needs of amateur and professional photographers are varied. 

A good, powerful, average on-camera flash offers a GN (guide number) of about 100-120, but some of the better units start at a guide of 160, basically one f-stop. and can go to 400 watt seconds with studio gear types. 

In flash we had some potent units with fairly good guide numbers that gave you F8-F11. That was the magic number for weddings with ISO 100 and about the sharpest setting for the lenses as most work best mid values.  We used to say ten feet and F11 and shoot.  Then when we got the first auto-thyristor units adjusted for distance if you got closer or further away we were in heaven.  You know in 99% of the time it worked properly because of it's simplicity.

Photography is not photography anymore. It is more image manipulation and creation rather than stealing a moment of light. It is more skills after the fact instead of skills capturing the fact. In film knowledge, preceded the event, in digital the knowledge is after the event. It is an entirely different process and the fault lies with the move to sales being more of the electronics industry rather than the photo industry.  

BACKUP FLASH:
A good backup like a good Vice President has to perform on demand. The one thing a backup sometimes has to do is work in those modes where if the camera faults, the flash will perform. 

While photographing in Tampa, I had a catastrophic failure on both my D2H's. Both died, it was caused by a bad trace on the SONY chip boards and the meter failed. Yes three thousand, five hundred dollar cameras fail. Two at the same time and both brand new. I could not believe, I had two do it at the same time. We were in a hanger at MacDillAFB under heavy security with thousands of people, no AC and 105 degrees. The heat opened the trace and they died. Both.

I got the camera to work in manual, but the flash wouldn't integrate or kick off. So I switched to a manual strobe that works outside of the internal command system. I modify some strobes for manual only with "variable pots" I selected a modified 285HV from my bag and a D100 body. This was going to be a manual shoot. Nikons and Vivitars and Canons all run off my battery packs. 

Irony.. I was covering the PRESIDENT of the UNITED STATES that day.  I was shooting the President on assignment when it went turkey.  I got the conventional shots, saved the day and one blooper. Thats why one shot from it, the blooper became the article under Bush Wacked. No further comments on this issue but even a dead watch tells time twice a day.