Yongnuo Speedlite YN-560 Shoe Mount Flash for Canon/Nikon

Can't comment on battery life yet as I haven't used it enough, however otherwise it's a really great product. I bought 2 of these to use alongside my Canon 430 EXII in a 3 light studio setup. I trigger the 430EXII remotely with a wireless trigger and setup both of the YN560's to S1 mode, so they will trigger as soon as the 430EXII does. Power adjustment is easy; it also has a motorised zoom setting; it comes with a built-in drop-down diffuser screen and also a "white card" to deflect light (good for on-camera portrait use), which you can push back in if you don't need to use it. The units has a "beep" facility to let you know when the flash is ready, which is great in the studio, but you can turn it off if you want.
The unit also has an S2 mode that causes the flash to only operate on the 2nd flash it sees, so this is useful for example if you've got one flash on top of your camera and it does that "pre-burst" followed by the "main" burst, the YN560 will only react to the 2nd flash if it's in S2 mode, or the first flash if it's in S1 mode. There is also a manual mode where it has to be triggered directly.
Overall I would say for studio use, get one, or two!! You won't be disappointed, they're fantastic value for money.

Castellano/Spanish

Flash totalmente manual (Numero Guia 34 en 35mm y 100 ISO)
Buena construccion con buen plastico, un poco sobredimensionado por ser una imitacion del Canon 580EX
Con unas buenas pilas recargables, recicla muy rápido.
Ademas tiene modo esclavo, pitido opcional, PC sync y Zoom 24-105mm (18mm con difusor)
Excelente relacion calidad precio (mas o menos 50€)

English/Inglés

Full manual flash (Guide Number 34 at 35mm, ISO 100)
Good construction with good plastic, a bit oversized for being an imitation of the Canon 580EX
With good rechargeable batteries, recycled very quickly.
It also has slave mode, optional beep, PC sync and 24-105mm zoom (18mm with diffuser)
Excellent value for money (about € 50)

What an outstanding speedlight for the money!!! I bought the YN560 as a spare for events work and was truly surprised with its performance and refresh rate. So much so in fact, that I decided to run it as my main speedlight to see how it stood up to shooting a full day's wedding coverage, which it did admirably. I haven't bothered to run an accurate head to head test with a light meter, but I'd say the YN560 isn't far off the Canon 580EX in terms of outright flash and in all likelihood a fair bit more powerful than the older 430EX! OK, it doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but it does have an excellent slave facility and the overall build quality is actually rather good, so if you are happy running on manual settings (there being no TTL mode) and aren't going to lose too much sleep worrying about not having the premium brand logo, then you'll be saving yourself the best part of £500. In fact, why not buy three of them, so you can run two as slaves, and you'll still have over £300 left in your pocket?

I was initially considering a Canon Speedlite but the price was a bit beyond my budget.The Yongnuo YN560 was recommended by a friend and it was an excellent purchase and ideal for my Strobist setup.Its solidly built very powerful and easy to use you can also find tutorials on how to use it on You-tube.I highly recommend this product its such good value for money that I will be buying another one.

You cannot go wrong with these flashes, they are well built, reliable, plenty of power & best of all they are a bargain.

I have 2 of these which i use for off camera stuff with softboxes and brollies etc, all the work i do is in manual which is what these flashes do best. As long as you dont need all the fancy ettl stuff these flashes are great. They are very similar to the canon 580exii apart from the ettl but a sixth of the price.

I believe yongnuo now have released a ttl version of this flash for slightly more money so if ttl is what you need it might be worth a look.