VILTROX Vintage Z1 Retro Camera Flash – Hot Shoe Speedlite for DSLR & Mirrorless Cameras, Type-C Fast Charging, Adjustable Brightness, Detachable Softbox, Portable Photography Lighting

This flash is awesome and works perfectly with my Fuji X-T4The bonus is that it looks like it was built for this camera :-)

Small, compact and somewhat powerful flash. Will mainly use it indoors in smaller venues. Viltrox is making good accessories for photographers as of late. User friendlyWish some instructions was included.

very good quality product, incredible customer service

Decent mini light. It’s plastic, but the build quality is acceptable and it has a great retro look to it. The light isn’t that bright, but it is significantly brighter than other mini lights. I like the aesthetic and the functions are easy to use an access. I really like the manual knobs, you get to miss those after a while. Well, I generally am a little skeptical about the utility of mini lights, this one is small enough to be very convenient to carry and pop on something like a mini digital camera or even an off camera fill.

EXCELENTE

I like this little flash for its manual features and its built-in optical slave modes. This flash works with any camera that has a hot shoe with a center pin (Which is basically any camera), but it is fully manual. So you need to figure out what the appropriate exposure is if you intend to use it that way, as the only flash in your setup.If you choose to use this with (at least on Canon cameras, I haven't tried it with others) a Canon ETTL-II flash, you can trigger this as an optical slave, by setting it in S1 or S2 mode, and ETTL will take care of getting a (mostly) correct exposure for you.I really like the retro look of this thing, I think they did a great job with the chrome/black look, it looks like a retro camera. And I really like the dial-type control for flash power. I think I'll most likely use this in combination with my Canon ETTL mini flash (The 270EX II) as an off camera addition in slave mode.I like that this thing charges via USB-C, and it appears that you can still use the flash while it's attached to a USB-C powersource, so... You could attach it to a power bank in a pinch.The cycle time is pretty fast, about 2 seconds at full power, and basically immediate at 1/16 and lower.The one bit of criticism I have is... Since it is a fully manual flash, it would be nice if it had a manual with a flash table, or a published guide number (Distance, and number of stops for each power setting). I calculated the guide number for this flash to be around 40 without the diffuser, or around 32 with the diffuser (in feet). But now that I've done the math for you, you can use the info here to calculate your exposures.

I have never had occasion to savage a camera flash... until now. The Viltrox Vintage looks like a Metz 32-series flash from the 1980s. It charges via USB, has a servo (slave) flash function, a snap-on diffuser, and a power selector (100% down to 1/64). Sounds good, especially because you will never be able to fit batteries, but at this price, I would pass.First, this flash is hideously underpowered for its size. It has a guide number of 12m (at ISO 100) and is three times the volume of a Nikon SB-30, which is a very capable small flash with a guide number of 16. This is simply not excusable; if you can make a casual-use flash small, make it small.Second, there is no "automatic" functionality. This is actually a huge deficit. Most "universal-fit" flashes made from the 1970s on - which you can buy for as little as $5 on a famous auction site - contain a photocell that can detect light reflected from the subject -- and cut the flash off when enough light has been omitted (this generally depends on your being able to set the lens to a specific aperture and setting the flash auto mode to match). I did not expect to find this feature on the flash, but like most "tiny" flashes out of China these days, there is inexplicably no "auto mode."The Viltrox uses variable-power manual. For film, with most cameras, the only way to get a correct exposure is to divide 12 (the guide number of the flash at ISO 100) by your focused distance (say 2m) and set the closest aperture on the lens (so like f/5.6). If your film is 200, you will multiply the guide number (12) by 1.4, and if it's 400, by 2. But the point is that you will need to change the aperture every time you change the distance, or your flash pictures (especially where the flash is the only source of light) will be off. Some cameras automate this. The Hexar AF lets you set the guide number for programmed flash. The Nikon 45mm GN-Nikkor for the F series camera can automatically stop down based on focused distance (and the GN that you set on the lens barrel). Some older rangefinder cameras have "flashmatic," which is the same thing. Even so, with nothing but a standard ISO "trigger" contact, this flash will not be able to synch at high shutter speeds on an SLR.On digital, with auto ISO, it's all trial and error. You will simply have to turn the flash power up or down until things look right, and you will have better luck using a camera with a leaf shutter (like an X100 or RX1) than focal plane. Even when you fix ISO on digital, to get a correct exposure on the first shot, you would still need to be able to tell the actual distance at which the camera is focused - which is not always possible.Finally, the servo flash capability on this is useless for any "master" camera whose flash pulses more than twice. This means the Viltrox cannot be used as a servo/slave flash for a Sony X100.So as a concept, this flash is fun, but it's a solid-C in functionality.

It works as a manual only on camera flash...but for the same price you can get a full size starter flash that actually works.This thing is ON CAMERA ONLY - meaning you'll get 70s-90s flashlight looking photos with no TTL...the slave mode s1 and s2 WERE NOT RELIABLE AT ALL, I did tests with an external flash pointing directly at this viltrox - 5 percent work rate...S1 and S2 tested.Slave mode is a LIE.