Powerful flashguns

Eight convenient but potent light sources to help your shots shine

We put eight of the best-performing flashguns through a rigorous group test

The adjustable and directional light from a flashgun can do anything from filling in the shadows for sunny-day portraiture to delivering a complete lighting solution for indoor or late-night photography. A little light can go a long way.

All of the flashguns we’ve chosen for this group test are powerful models that are rich in features. As such, they have impressive ‘guide numbers’ (a measure of their maximum light output); bounce, swivel and zoom heads to enable greater versatility and control over lighting; and full dedication for various camera systems. This enables automatic TTL (Through The Lens) flash metering, and the ability to control flash parameters directly from your camera.

Other fancy features include wireless slave and possibly ‘master’ modes for linking two or more flashguns for complex lighting setups; and advanced flash modes that can typically comprise high-speed sync, rear curtain, red-eye reduction and maybe even a programmable strobe mode, for firing a series of flashes within one long exposure. Let’s go into the light...