Nissin Di700A + Air 1 £200/$300

A keenly priced wireless flashgun kit

The Di700A isn’t much to look at; controls boil down to a rotary dial and solitary ‘Set’ button, so only basic settings can be altered without resorting to controls on the camera. The info display is rudimentary, too, although at least it lights up in colour.

The sophisticated part is the ‘Air 1 Commander’, which slots into the camera’s hotshoe to trigger the flashgun remotely. Communication is via RF (Radio Frequency), which boosts the range to 30 metres, as well as being able to find its way through obstacles and around corners. The Di700A also has the more usual infrared slave facility for triggering from Nikon cameras and flashguns in commander mode, plus optical slave modes for use with other flashguns and studio heads, with or without pre-flash pulses.

Performance

For best results in TTL mode, you generally need to dial in about half a stop of positive flash exposure compensation, but recycling speed is super-fast and the maximum output is hefty. It also boasts a long maximum zoom of 200mm.