Flash recommendations for M5

[colin_d]

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I'm looking for a flash for my M5, any recommendations please.

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[giordano]

Basically any flashgun that has a standard hot foot or a standard PC cable will work just fine on an M5. The main exceptions are the few surviving antique flashguns that use very large disposable bulbs, and recent electronic flashguns dedicated to particular ranges of digital cameras and controlled entirely by the camera. As long as there's a switch on the flashgun to select A or M modes you'll be OK; TTL mode won't work.

 

So you have a huge choice of used and new flashguns including all the older models with high-voltage trigger circuits that will fry many of today's electronic cameras and therefore can be bought for next to nothing.

 

For serious lighting, many people (I'm one) like the Mecablitz 45 series; lots of others recommend the Vivitar 283 series. Older Nikon speedlights have good reputations too. For all of them, the more aperture settings (in Automatic) and power settings (in Manual) the better. In general flashguns are very reliable and long-lived, but I wouldn't buy an old one with a non-replaceable rechargeable battery.

 

I also like to have a really tiny flashgun that can sit unnoticed at the bottom of the camera bag until it's needed to save a shot when there's no other light. Because trigger voltage isn't an issue, there's no need to be fussy about anything except size and having a couple of aperture settings in A mode.