Nissin Digital has extended its line of portable flashes with the new Di600 model. Priced at $199, the Nissin Di600 speedlight offers great quality and a good set of features that fits the needs of photography enthusiasts. It can also be an attractive slave/remote unit for professional photography applications.
With a Guide Number of 44 at 105 mm and 32 at 35mm (ISO 100), Di600 delivers more power than the mid-range units from Canon and Nikon. (See our Canon 430EX II review and Nikon SB-700 review.) The recycling time is about 5 seconds with AA batteries.
The rotating and tilting flash head allows you to use bounce techniques. The flash zoom range is from 24mm to 105mm, and the built-in wide-angle panel extends the coverage down to 16 mm field of view.
The best thing about the Di600 flash is its extremely simple interface. All you need to do is select a mode and adjust the power. The power can be adjusted in full f-stops down to 1/32 of the full power.
Besides the common TTL and Manual flash modes, Di600 also offers two optical slave modes: SD and SF (to be used with pre-flashes and manual strobes, respectively). In addition, the flash can serve as a wireless TTL slave. In this case, it belongs to the wireless Group A and uses Channel 1 (which cannot be changed).
AF-assist light, second curtain synchronization, FE / FV Lock, and red-eye reduction are also on the Di600 feature list.
As the model name suggests, Di600 stands in the lower range of the Nissin speedlight lineup (and it is priced accordingly). For example, for even more power and external battery port, Di700 can be a great option. To get the best of the best in the Nissin's world, you would need to consider Di866 II and MG8000 Extreme. If you need a more compact flash, Di466 is a nice alternative, but you'l be sacrificing the higher power of Di600 and some other features.
Nissin Di600 is currently available for Canon and Nikon cameras. A Sony-compatible model is expected to arrive soon. In the United States, it is distributed by Minox USA. Contact info: Bruce Michelsen at 952-255-8310 or [email protected]. The Di600 product page can be found here.
