Home > Consumer Reviews > Canon Speedlite 430EX II Flash for Canon Digital SLR Cameras

The Speedlite 430EX II flash is a solid unit. It contains most of the upgrades that its big brother received. A metal foot finally, with a twist-lock that holds it totally securely to the top of the camera, yet removes in less than a second when you want to take it off, are true values and make a excellent flash unit even better. Canon quality is demonstrated in every aspect.

I actually purchased this unit as a slave to my 580EX II, but don't under estimate this unit. It is somewhat smaller than its bigger brother but is still a powerful flash to have in your bag. It can be used as a standalone flash or a slave to its bigger brother. The guide number for the 430ex is 43 and 58 for the 580EX units. That being said, in most shots, you will not know the difference. The unit can be rotated both vertically and horizontal, and can be operated fully ETTL automatically or manually. It supports High-Speed sync which allows you to shoot using all shutter camera speeds and has built in wide panel.

I also purchased the DVD "Understanding the Canon Speedlite 580EX/430EX" by Blue Crane Digital. This is a great companion that I highly recommend.

This is a great unit that is built for reliability and will be a work horse in anyone's bag. You will not go wrong with it purchase. It's a great investment. Later, if you decide to move up, you can add the 580EX as a master and use your 430EX as a slave.

I use this external flash unit with my Canon Rebel xTi. The flash does a great job calculating the amount of light it needs to release to expose the photo, making grossly over exposed or underexposed photos a thing of the past. The ability to bounce the flash off of medium height white ceilings gives you great looking photos to the point where I now prefer using my flash instead of relying on high ISOs, fast lenses and low aperature numbers. Although flash photography is a tricky subject, the casual shooter can leave this flash in automatic mode and get wonderfully exposed photos. However, in my opinion, the BEST PART of this external flash is that it enables you to focus MUCH faster than the built in flash and this is reason alone to pick up the Speedlite 430EX II. Previously, when shooting in low light settings, the camera/lens would struggle to focus and the flash would emit several highly annoying test flashes. The Speedlite has no problem finding and focusing on your subject in low lit catering halls and dark rooms and it does so without the annoying test flashes. Great product!

Wow. The 430 EX II exceeded my expectations! What a great flash. I use it with an XSI and it is absolutely awesome. I keep it aimed up at the ceiling and it produces great results. It is so bright! When you use it in conjunction with the zoom, it performs awesome too. It really lights up a long way. I use it with rechargeable battteries and it cycles almost instantly. I can pretty much snap 5 shots in a row and it keeps up, then needs about 2 seconds to give me another 5 shots. Use good rechargeable batteries, like 2650 milliamps. They work best.

Hats off to the folks at Canon, they did it again!

I was fairly hesitant on getting the 430EXII mainly because I wanted to get the 580EXII but after seeing the actual size of the 580EXII I realized that its going to dwarf my XSi and also not fit in my Slingshot 200AW bag, so I opted for the 430EXII. Since Ive got it Ive taken about 150shots (still on same set of energizer 2500mah rechargeables) and really getting the hang of this flash.

Initially I wasnt getting the best shots, sort of like the built in camera flash where I was getting alot of harsh flash shots. Later after learning more about the preflash and how the flash/camera reads that info to determine the exact amount, the pictures were coming out much better, almost more natural.

If you bounce flash alot (like I do as I dont like the straight on flash) when taking pics of my son (2yr old) I definetely recommend using the FEL (preflash) button, because without the the flash output is not properly calculated, yes you can manually adjust it but how many shots that going to take before your 2yr son is gone from the shot (since he cant sit still for more than 2secs).

Only gripe I got on this is that the lock button that keeps the camera say at straight on flash, lets say you want to raise it, you have to press and hold this release button to raise the head to say bounce flash. That button is only on the right side and alot of times in quick changes I cant remember to press it firmly and cant get the damn head to move positions. It also locks in the 90 position on swivel as well.

I finally added this flash to my Rebel XTi kit. I had been disappointed with the performance of the built-in flash for some time (this was not unexpected) and I got tired of relying on fast lenses or a steady hand.

There are two big problems with the built-in flash on the XTi:

1. It is weak, weak, weak.
2. It tends to overexpose things closer to the lens in portrait type scenes.

There's no cure for #1, but #2 can be compensated for with some planning and postprocessing.

Regardless, the 430EX II fixes both issues very very well. In full auto mode, the flash did the right thing 100% of the time - no more blown out faces in shots of people! It's also (obviously) far stronger than the pop up unit so you can get reasonable reach from it -- I'd say 2-3x the usable range of the built-in flash, maybe more.

Rotating the flash head up for indirect use creates much more natural lighting than direct flash illumination, provided that you don't have very high or dark colored ceilings. If you feel that you'll be doing a lot of this sort of work, than I'd suggest going with the 580 instead. This isn't really a mark against the 430, it's just something you should keep in mind.

Overall, I'm extremely pleased with this unit. I should have added it to my kit many months ago!