NISSIN I60A

£227/$249

Something of a small wonder, the Nissin punches well above its weight

There are quite a few small, lightweight flashguns on the market that look equally at home on mirrorless cameras as they do on SLRS. But most only have a meagre maximum power output and simple controls. They might also lack an LCD screen. This Nissin proves that you can pack a lot into a small build, with its ace Gn 60 rating, 24-200mm motorized zoom head and a graphical user interface based around a colour screen.

The bounce facility has 0-90-degree tilt and a full 180-degree swivel in left and right. Despite its small build, the Nissin also manages an LED light. It’s nowhere near as powerful as the secondary flash module in the Metz, but is suited to close-up shooting.

Infrared and RF wireless slave triggering are available, the latter working well with Nissin’s Commander Air 1 or more up-market Commander Air 10s RF triggers. You can buy these for around £75/$89 or £135/$170.

Performance

In our tests, the little Nissin matched the maximum power output of the top-ranking Canon 600EX II-RT throughout the entire zoom range. That makes it jointly the most powerful flashgun in the whole group. We experienced a slight and fairly consistent amount of underexposure during TTL flash shooting, equating to about a third of an f-stop. Recycling speed is just a tenth of a second slower than in the Metz flashgun after a full power flash, using NIMH batteries, but nearly twice as fast on alkaline cells.