Flashe Reviews

Bought this flash about two weeks ago for use with my Canon Powershot G1 digital camera, and have been nothing but impressed with it. it mates beautifully to the Canon, although it does make it somewhat bulky. The bounce flash photography is beautiful, and the E-TTL system just makes you look like a total pro. I also look forward to using it for wireless flash photography.

There are SOME things missing, however. Compared to my Canon 430 EZ flash, there is no LCD display. No flash compensation (but this isn't a big deal, since that's controlled from my G1). No strobe. If these are important to you, step up to the 550 EX. Otherwise, the 420 is a beautiful workhorse.

I bought this flash to go with my Elan 7E and it has worked great. It has all the features that most EOS users would ever need (vertical and horizontal bounce, fast sync, and E-TTL control). It isn't as good as the 550EX, but if you aren't planning on using mutliple flashes slaved together this is the better deal at almost half the cost (though the 420EX can be used as a wireless slave flash with the 550EX as the master). If you are shopping for an external flash for your EOS camera, you can't go wrong with this one.

An external flash is one of those things many people think only a "pro" has a need for -- like a tripod. Once you get one, though, you realize how essential it is and couldn't imagine going into the field without one.

I recently purchased this as part of my Digital Rebel package and am quite impressed with its features. The E-TTL -- the ability to adjust to the scene according to the camera's metering results -- is really amazing.

On the back of the unit is an LED display showing your approximate focal length (24 - 105mm), which also determines how powerful the flash will be. Additionally, there is a pilot button/light (for a test flash), exposure confirmation light, high-speed sync switch, "slave" setting buttons and the power switch.

After its flash flexibility, the 420EX's most impressive feature is its physical flexibility. You can move the flashhead within 90° vertically and horizontally, and it will lock at several angles. This enables the bounce-flash -- assuming you have a reflective surface nearby. Bounce-flash softens and distributes the light so you don't have overexposed, stiff looking subjects.

Speaking of which, I'd like to say that I bought a Sto-Fen Omni-Bounce diffuser when I bought the 420EX because it seemed like a good accessory. I have found that I generally don't need it because the 420EX is able to fine-tune itself to each shot.

I can't comment on its functionality as a slave because I have not used it in that capacity.

Ultimately, the 420EX is a great tool, whether you're shooting your kid's birthday party or a macro of a flower. It will allow you to take much better photos than you can with the built-in flash. And at its current price it is absolutely unbeatable.

As a 10 year aircraft maintainer in the US Air Force, I've used everything from standard Mag-lites, scuba divers' lights, and even penlights in a pinch. I can say this flashlight is brighter than any other I've used. It cuts my inspection time in half because I can see things 55 feet off the ground just like it was right in front of me. Don't be fooled to think a rechargeable battery pack isn't as strong as standard alkaline batteries. This isn't the case. I wouldn't trade this flashlight for anything!

As a police officer with over twenty years on the job, I can honestly say this MAG is the best flashlight in the business! I've used nothing else for the last twelve years.It's candle power turns the darkest area into daylight. The light's design makes it possible to keep the light held under the arm easily when both hands are busy, supplying a continuous stream of light. This is the perfect flashlight for camping--it takes drops and banging effortlessly and lives to shine another day! I'm ordering a second one to keep in my car. It's easily kept charged with the lighter adaptor.

My company bought one of these Mag Lights and I didnt expect much from a rechargeable light . Wow was I wrong , This light is better than any dry cell flashlight ever made . This is more like a spotlight on a police car with 50,000 candle power. We use this light all the time in an Industrial enviroment where it gets greasy a lot, and this has led it to be dropped a time or two, none the less it has never failed to operate like new.. The rechargeable feature on this light is so handy. We just hang up the light at the end of the day in its cradle and it is ready for hard action the next day ...

I poped into my Axim and downloaded 25 songs (approx 5 MB/song) and it worked like a champ. No problem so far. But instead of 128 MB it showed the total capacity as 122.10 MB. I sent an email to sandisk customer service and I got the following answer from them. This might be helpful for you.

The operating system, when reading the size of the card, reports a slightly different capacity than what is listed on the card's label
Definitions of a Megabyte:
1) Operating Systems commonly define a Megabyte (MB) as: 2 to the 20th power (1,024KB--Kilobytes).
2) DiskDrive and Flash Memory Card Manufacturers commonly define a MB as one million bytes (exactly 1,000,000 bytes).

Unformatted (Capacity)
Also known as drive byte capacity before formatting. The Maximum capacity of disk drive before formatting equals
[ (# Cylinders) X (# Heads) X (# Sectors) X (# Bytes per Track) ]

Example:
64MB CompactFlash Card consists of:
490 Cylinders
8 Heads
32 Sectors
512 Bytes per Track

This equates to: [ (490) X (8) X (32) X (512) ] = 64,225,280

Unformatted Capacity: 64,225,280 bytes
Formatted Capacity: 63,934,464 bytes (User Data)

Cause:
Disk Drive Companies such as SanDisk define 1 MEGABYTE as 1,000,000
BYTES. Operating Systems define 1 MEGABYTE as 1,048,576 BYTES (1024K X 1024K or 2 to the 20th power).

Example:
SanDisk 64MB CompactFlash Card being read by Microsoft Operating
System.
SanDisk Total Formatted Capacity divided by 1 MB (as defined by the Operating System) equates to the following:
63,934,464 BYTES / 1,048,576 BYTES = 60,972,656 BYTES, 60.9MB displayed by OS.

I was looking for the cheapest digital camera I could find that would take adequate shots of small collectibles for listing on eBay. I bought the Argus 3200 at a great price, knowing it had almost no internal memory. A second problem was that my older system has no USB port. My solution was to buy the SanDisk 128 MB flash card, and a card reader that plugs into the printer port--both from Amazon. Both have worked fine for me so far. At this time, a 32 MB card would be adequate for my purposes, but I don't regret buying the extra capacity--and the 128 costs little more than a 64. The SanDisk card arrived in three days-- with no shipping charge--and the price was much better than off the rack in my own city.

I bought this card about 18 months ago, and I've taken several thousand pictures with it. It's been taken overseas to experience a humid Scandinavian summer, and it's been used extensively the furnace that some people refer to as southern Arizona. I have several other Sandisk CF cards, and this being one of my oldest ones, I've got "nothing" but good things to say about it (except for the speed). :-)

Pros:
* Durable and extremely reliable - Sandisk is without a doubt the most reliable brand on the market for CF cards.
* Can be found very reasonably priced - usually very good value for money.

Cons:
* Just about the slowest CF card on the market.

Personally, I'm all about reliability. I wouldn't trade my Sandisk cards for any other card, even if the price was lower or performance higher. A card that corrupts your pictures even on rare occations is a useless card in my mind. This or any other of my Sandisk CF cards have never given me any problems. I also have several friends that have used Sandisk CF cards for several years, and between us we've never had any problems with any of our Sandisk CF cards.

I would highly recommend this card, and despite its speed, I would say it's a good buy. Because of its outstanding reliability, I give it 5 stars!!!

3 weeks ago, I contacted Maglite for a replacement switch for my 4-D flashlight, in which the switch failed. The customer service rep asked me for my serial number, which I gave her and she assured me that I could get a replacement switch. I gave her my name and address and she said that a shipment had just gone out, and it would be in the next shipment. That was fine with me. Days turned into weeks. Still no part. More days went by. STILL no part in the mail.

Hmmmm. Is this how long time customers are treated? I previous owned a variety of their flashlights, from an AAA Solitaire to a 5-D flashlight, at least 5 in total. My dad has purchased in the neighborhood of 15 or more himself, starting in about '86 when someone else turned him onto Maglites.

Customer support is as important to me as the product itself. Has customer support become a casualty of a tough economy?

This long-time customer will have to look at alternatives the next time he's buying a flashlight.

Once in a while you'll encounter a product that's so far out front that the others should pick up their marbles and go home. Mag-Lites are the standard bearer in the flashlight category. (Were it not for the picture, you would hardly know from the product description up there that we're talking about a 4-cell flashlight.)

The primary job of a flashlight is, not surprisingly, to create light. Mag gets more light out of their flashlights than anybody. Maybe it's the bulb, or the reflector. But NO flashlight will come close to putting out as much light as a Mag.

Another quality we hope to find in any product is functionality -- does it work every time, or mainly when you don't need it? I can't recall more than a time or two that a Mag failed to come on. I've dropped them from heights that would have destroyed anything less and they still worked.

I have an old black AA-size Mini-Mag here that spent about a decade in the cockpits of airplanes -- the poorest lighted places this side of the Black Forest -- so it got a world of use. The place on the end cap for attaching a lanyard or hanging ring is worn completely through. But the little guy still works like a charm.

The switch on this D-cell model is under live rubber; it has a solid click on and off. The beam is adjustible to a sharp spot. You'll probably want to set it there and leave it alone.

I am certain that batteries last longer in a Mag-lite. The only explanation for this would seem to be that a tiny bit of battery drain occurs on some others. Before I became 100% converted to Mags I would too often pick up a flashlight that was full of dead batteries. I can go for years without changing the batteries in a Mag-lite.

All Mags are rugged. The barrels are sturdy aluminum extrusions -- not plastic or stamped metal. Both end caps have O rings to keep the case waterproof. And who else would be so thoughtful as to put an extra bulb in the bottom endcap?

A reviewer below had a legitimate gripe about tubular things not staying put on anything but a level surface. Of course, that has been a complaint for years about pens and all kinds of tubular devices. This can be cured for the Mag-Lite with a very small bungee cord. Tie several knots in it until it is shortened enough to fit tight around the barrel. The knots will keep the light from rolling around.

I like the new hot red Mag-Lites. Anybody with any sense at all would know a pretty red flashlight would throw more light than a black one. It just stands to reason.

I love Mag flashlights, and especially this one.

It's strong, the four D batteries dont run out quickly, has an on/off switch (unlike smaller Mag models), and doesnt generate much heat.

When electricity blacks-out, the torch mode of this flash light (the lense can be taken off) is very useful - I can continue studying / reading / writing for some while, as the light is strong enough.

I bought it about a year ago, as a small insurance in case the Y2K bug would have taken the electricity down, and it proved itself useful since.

I bought this card for my IPAQ 3955. Besides having slow read and write speeds, the realiability of the card is bad. Half of the time I am only able to use 3/4 of the available memory and than get writing errors. Save yourself the time and agony and buy a better brand like Viking.

Got this 512MB card to complement my iPAQ 3835 with CF+ Expansion sleeve. I'm also using a Sandisk 128MB Secure Digital card. Write speeds are faster than the SD (especially during system backups!), and media (Mp3, video clips) plays faster off the CF card than the SD. A great, relable addition...

As other reviewers have said, this card works great in a Creative Muvo2 shell (which you can buy on eBay for around $40). Popped it in, formatted it, upgraded the firmware, and voila! A 512mb flash memory mp3 player for well under $100, given the rebate on this item.

I was hoping to increase the write speed on my Minolta 7i which makes me wait for a full write before I can take the next photo. In this camera, the Ultra II is actually slower than a "regular" SanDisk 256MB card. Ran a couple of quick tests, using the Ultra II, a "regular speed" SanDisk CF and a 1G IBM CF Micro Drive:
--------------------------------------------
In the 7i, taking a macro photo of a catalog page with lots of colors, small images and text (5 MP):

UltraII - 13 seconds RAW : 15 seconds TIF : 4.5 seconds full size JPG.

Regular - 11 seconds RAW: 14 seconds TIF : 3.8 seconds JPG

1G IBM MD - 12 Seconds RAW : 18 seconds TIF : 4.0 seconds JPG
_______________________________
Performance in my Nikon D-100 was better when taking the same (6.1MP) landscape photo:

Ultra II - 5.1 seconds RAW : 25 seconds TIF : 3.2 seconds full size JPG

Regular - 5.4 seconds RAW : 26 seconds TIF : 3.7 seconds JPG

1G IBM MD - 11 seconds RAW : 29.3 seconds TIF : 4.2 seconds JPG
*******************************************

When I purchased this card, Amazon was having a GREAT sale on it, I paid a dollar more than what a "standard" speed card would cost, so I am not irritated. If I had paid the normal retail price though, I'd be upset with its less than stellar performance in the intended application.

So, make sure that your camera can take advantage of the increased write speed of this card before you spend the extra money on it over a "standard" speed card. I'll be using it as backup on the Nikon rather than as a primary on the Minolta.

At first I was a bit hesitant to get Sandisk products because I've heard so many people complaining. But after doing thorough research, I found that the rest of the brands were being equally lambasted by users. So, I decided to choose based on technicals and not opinions. Well, this CompactFlash card is quite powerful and what was the bearing point for me to lean and buy this is its price. I've used it to record digital video clips, I've taken pictures of all sizes and with different visual effects, I've done high-speed shutter (~2.2 shots/sec @ 1024x768) and it works phenomenally and flawlessly. I have not had ANY of the errors people write so much about and I'm actually sure enough that I'm willing to recommend it to others.
The 256MB its sufficient for about 200 3.1-Megapixel high-quality pictures. Which can hold a weekend's vacation worth of pictures without having to erase or transfer them to your computer. However, if you can afford the extra $50, I suggest buying the 512Mb one. In short: good value, excellent performance, good price and good quality.

I purchased this product to use in a Sandisk Firewire CF card reader in order to transfer data files between the home and the office. I normally use 100MB Zip disks, but the transfer rate using a USB Zip250 for a 30 MB file is 3 min. 19 sec. which is incredibly slow. I had a Sandisk 128 MB CF card, but using the Firewire CF card reader, a 30 MB file still took 1 min. 9 sec. to transfer so I bought the Sandisk Ultra II 256 MB card since it was supposed to have a higher transfer rate. It did. It allowed the transfer of the 30 MB file in 15 seconds which is 4.6 times faster than the non-ultra Sandisk CF card and 13 times faster than a 100MB Zip disk in a USB Zip250 drive. I was pleasantly surprised. I would buy another one to use in my digital camera since I am pretty sure it will function faster than the non-ultra Sandisk CF card I use now. Plus, the Ultra II card was no more expensive than the non-ultra card and the Sandisk Ultra II CF card was comparably or better priced compared to CF cards from other manufacturers.

I'm glad most people are happy with their card because I'm having a terrible time with mine. I just came back from a short trip and was transferring 21 pictures that I took to my computer. By the 4th picture, things came to a halt, it might have been my computer. When I tried again, the camera gave me the "No image" message. Yes, the card was blank, all 21 pictures in the camera simply vanished before my eyes while I was transferring them to my computer. This is not the first time. It did do a few little funny things here and there before. Obviously I missed the crucial sign of a greater potential trouble back then. This memory card has compeletely made me paranoid about taking pictures with a digital camera. It's one of those things that money refund won't replace what's been lost.

Had great luck with the Simple Tech 128 CF card and my Kodak 2 MP camera, also worked fine in other cameras I check out in stores, including Canon, Minolta. ...

I've owned it for a year and it works fine. No issues with loss of storange or read/write speed.

For 40 bucks, you can't really go wrong, or can you.....

Listen, if you are using this just for the purpose of backing up files, go with it, but if you are going to be using this very often i recommend the pc card one. Of course it's a little bigger, but if you are going to add to the size anyway for the compact flash card slot, you might as well go for the pc card. The battery helps a lot and I can usually get 3 to 4 hours of use out of my PDA. 8-9 hours for mp3's. This is a good product, but by no means the best.

I bought this Expansion pack when i bought my new Compaq Ipaq 3765. I have used it for about a month now and i really like it. The Ipaq fits in it very well and it does make the Ipaq easier to hold when i am walking around the office or at home answering email or surfing the net. I use a Linksys compact flash 802.11b card plugged into this sleeve to connect to my company's intranet I do have a problem with the size in that none of the cases will hold the Ipaq with the expansion slot on. This makes it a little hard because when i leave the office i have to take the sleeve off to put the unit in its case for the trip home, or take the chance of scratching the face of the Ipaq. I am kind of worried about how long the connector will last with this kind of use.
Over all it is a very good product. I have not had any problems with this piece and for the price it is worth it... you won't go wrong.

I bought this for my iPaq 3650. It works great but it adds a lot of bulk. As most of iPaq owners know, the iPaq is slitly bulky by itself, so when you add the CF Exp. Pack it's even bulkier. It is a great acessory, it has lots of advanteages (especially if you use your iPaq as an MP3 player a lot) It makes life easier! The only con is the bulkyness.

Okay if you're anything like me, than 64 megs is going to be plenty of space. There's more than enough room for high quality digital picture as well as Mp3's or whatever else you can think of. The only down side to having a larger card is that it takes a while to download or upload information. For that problem there is the viking card reader, at around $60 it's not a bad investment if you're planning on using that card a lot.

The CompactFlash Card is so convenient, small, and user friendly. This is a great price for a 64MB CompactFlash Card! The 64 MB card will hold Hundreds of pictures, more than you can take on a weekend. The camera's which use these cards usually have a feature to erase unwanted photos, so you have room on the card for only the photos you want. After you down load the photos onto other storage media, you just erase the card and re-shoot! On a large capacity card like this one you can purchase a SanDisk reader for around $25 to read the card like a Memory Disc and download the photos faster than sending them from the camera.

What do you say about a CF card?
It works.
No problems.

The Sandisk 256Mb Cf card really delivers 244MB after formatting it in my Canon A80 camera. But this happens to many CF cards, you have to accept that.
I chose a 256MB card since the Canon takes up about 2MB PER Picture on best quality and size settings ( total about 120 odd-pics). Lower quality( picture compression) or pic size gives me much more images. I can record about 700 odd seconds of video on the card @ 320*240 15fps settings. I definitely recommend this card size as one if you plan to buy a 3MP+ camera. Since the price difference is reducing every day, it makes more sense to opt of a 256Mb instead of a 128MB card. FOr 5MP and above, however, a 512MB+ card may be better suited.

The card is very reliable. I've been using it for 3 months+ and have taken 500+ photos on it. However, the speed at which the card writes the image is a bit too slow for my liking ( or maybe its the camera?). Next time i'm going in for a faster card , maybe from the Sandisk ULTRA II series....

I have two Sandisk 256MB CF cards, and I'm very happy with them. My oldest Sandisk 256MB CF card is about a year old. Between the two of them, I've taken several thousand pictures, and so far neither has given me any problems. My oldest card has proven its reliability in the combination of humid Scandinavian summer weather, a lot of hiking in southern Arizona's blasting heat, and some really cold Colorado winter weather. It has performed exceptionally well under all of these conditions.

Pros:
* Durable and exceptionally reliable - Sandisk does without a doubt have the most reliable CF cards on the market.
* This card is due to its reliability and price, without a doubt the best value for money of any CF card on the market today.

Cons:
* Molasses in winter pretty much describes the speed of this card. Seriously though, tests show that unless you're transferring files to your computer via a USB 2.0 interface, the read/write speed between the camera and the CF card does not nearly exploit the potential of any good card. There might be a 20-30% difference between a fast and a slow card when it comes to in-camera read/writes.

This card is extremely reliable, and looking at reliability+price (you can get really good deals on this card) vs. speed, I'd say this is the best value for money of any CF card on the market today. I give it an unconditional 5 stars!!!

I've taken about 300+ pictures with this card in my Canon S400 and I have absolutely no complaints. It can hold about 246 pictures at the finest quality and 1600x1200 resolution, which is more than most people would need. The picture transfer time is not bad at all -- about the same as the card the camera came with (which is also made by Sandisk). Since the Canon came with a SanDisk card, I would say going with the same brand would be your best bet.