Flashguns Buying Guide

A seperate flashgun is a brilliant way to extend your photographic range and bring extra quality to your pictures - and to ensure all keen photographers can add this professional essential to their SLR kit, we've selected a dazzling range to suit all budgets and explained the features to look out for when buying a flashgun.

The amount of light a flashgun kicks out is known as the guide number. A typical built-in flash has a guide number of 12 to 15, while a seperate flashgun can offer twice this power or more.

Look out too for flashguns with a swivelling head, enabling light to be bounced onto a subject, creating a more natural, daylight effect, and for our macro flash selection to put close-up subjects in just the right light.

Standard flashgun
Boosts light levels dramatically compared to a standard built-in flash,. Ideal for photographing subjects from further away taking professional people picture at night.

Macro/ring flashgun
Can be ring-shaped to fit around the lens or on swivelling stalks for directional lighting. Ideal for shadow-free close-ups.

Bounce flashgun
Allows light to be defeclted off a ceiling or wall, for a diffused, natural effect that mimics daylight and for eliminating red-eye. Ideal for portraits.