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Simon Yates Photography
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Compares favorably to the Nikon SB-800 Speedlight,
Customer Video Review Length:: 2:14 Mins
For the past ten years, I’ve used a Nikon SB-800 Speedlight with several Nikon DSLRs. It’s a great flash, the best I’ve ever used, and it still works perfectly after many thousands of flash exposures. So the SB-800 is the flash that I’m comparing the Neewer VK750II to. I was skeptical that the VK750II could measure up to the SB-800, especially for the price (a new SB-800 is about $500), but I was amazed that it comes fairly close, at least for the functions that most photographers actually use.
The first specification that I looked at was guide number (GN). The published GNs for the two strobes are virtually the same. For the SB-800, at 50mm, ISO 100, GN = 44/144 (Metric/English). For the VK750II, same settings, GN = 42/138. Many of the other features are similarly close:
* Both flash heads rotate vertically from about -7 degrees to +90 degrees (a key feature that allows bounce flash).
* Both flash heads rotate horizontally from 90 degrees left to 90 degrees right.
* Both speedlights will zoom automatically to match the focal length of the lens (or you can manually adjust it). The advantage goes to the VK750II, which will zoom to 180 mm, whereas the SB-800 only zooms to 105 mm.
* Both speedlights allow manual adjustment of the flash exposure when in TTL mode. Exposure compensation for both speedlights is from -3 stops to +3 stops in 1/3 stop increments.
* Both speedlights have an autofocus assist light.
* Both speedlights have a built-in wide angle diffuser and reflector card.
* Both speedlights will operate as an optically triggered flash.
Those are the major specs that I was interested in. The VK750II is a little larger than the SB-800, and it weighs slightly more (16.4 ounces vs. 15.5 ounces, including 4 AA batteries).
I took a series of images with the VK750II using both TTL and manual exposure, with the camera in program mode. I was very pleased with the results. In TTL, most exposures were spot-on. Some of the shots were in a very dark room, and the autofocus assist light worked very well even in almost total darkness.
Like the SB-800, the VK750II will operate in manual and TTL modes as an off-camera flash with optical triggering. The VK750II’s optical sensor was very reliable in the test shots that I set up, including a mirror shot so I could verify with my own eyes that it was firing in sync with the SB-800, which was used as the controller flash. For manual off-camera flash exposures, use the S1 mode; for TTL exposures, use the S2 mode.
The SB-800 has a Repeating (RPT) mode, where the SB-800 fires repeatedly during a single exposure, creating stroboscopic multiple-exposure effects. The VK750II has a comparable mode called “Stroboflash.” For this mode, the user guide has a table that shows flash output level, the frequency (Hz), and the number of repeating flashes per frame. The table is virtually identical to the RPT table in the SB-800 user guide.
One feature that the SB-800 has is the Auto FP High-Speed Sync mode, in which high-speed flash synchronization is possible at the camera’s highest shutter speed. This is useful when you want to use a bigger aperture to produce a shallow depth of field. This feature only works with some Nikon cameras. The VK750II user guide indicates that it supports high speed sync, but I wasn’t able to test this. I’m not sure that my camera has this function.
A few words about the VK750II user guide: It’s not as well written or as thorough as it could be. The SB-800 documentation is 132 full-size pages, whereas the VK750II user guide is 29 pages for the English language version. One omission that I really miss is a flash shooting distance range chart that shows flash shooting distances for combinations of ISO, zoom head position, and aperture. This is one of the most useful charts in the SB-800 guide. (Hint: Look up the Nikon SB-800 user guide online and print the page with the chart on it – it will work for the VK750II.) There are also a number of typos in the VK750II guide, but I didn’t notice any that were so bad as to be misleading.
Overall, the SB-800 is a more versatile flash with more functions than the VK750II, but for the average photographer, those additional functions probably won’t be missed. As one example, the VK750II does not have a redeye reduction function, but it’s simple enough to correct redeye in the photo editing process. One of the features of the SB-800 that I do miss is the modeling light, which the VK750II doesn’t have. But considering the huge price difference between the VK750II and an SB-800, the VK750II looks like a pretty good deal.
Note: For the testing that I did, I used a Nikon D3200.
A product sample was provided for review purposes.
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|Smart money buy!,
At $65, you get a VERY good TTL (compared to SB700 and spot on), TWO (!) slave modes to help you get creative with curtain sync, a great (albeit noisy) adaptive zoom, bounce card, and wide angle diffuser. Additionally, it comes with a built-in wireless receiver, allowing you to trigger the flash off camera without shoving an additional piece of equipment on it!
All in all, this is a WONDERFUL flash at the price. It’s great to see so many options for full function, powerful, aftermarket flashes. Neewer has definitely thrown their hat in the ring with this one. You can’t put it next to a 700 or 900 and say, yes.. it’s clearly as well made. But what you can do is stack 8 of them in a pyramid next to a single 700/900 and say, yes.. my flash pyramid is pretty damn awesome.
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|Lots of value for the low price!,
First, the Neewer company is a distributor of goods made by other (Chinese) companies. Neewer makes NOTHING themselves. That is not a bad thing, as Neewer branded gear is almost always cheaper than the name brand items, think of them as the generic brand line sold at your local grocery store but made by the big name companies.
This VK750 II strobe appears to be a re-branded Meike MK951 strobe which was introduced around 2010. One of the reasons this is so cheap is that the company is probably closing them out to get rid of them. The Meike MK951 was not a very good strobe, and some reviewers claimed it would drain batteries even when the strobe was turned off!
I have been testing my VK750 II with the Nikon D700 trying to find fault or a reason to send it back before the one month return period expires. So far I can’t find a good reason (for my needs) to send it back.
Here is what the 750 II can do. You can shoot iTTL on camera with rear curtain sync. The strobe head claims to zoom automatically from 18mm-180mm. I say claims because I think Neewer/Meike is exaggerating the zoom range, I believe 20mm-105mm is more accurate. Manual mode full power down to 1/128th power in 1/3 or full stops.
The strobe has a port to plug in an external battery pack such as the excellent Pixel packs (TD-382 works awesome).
The external packs will drop the recycle times from 4 seconds to 1.5 seconds for a full-power pop.
There is a PC port to attach a PC cord or Pocket Wizard for off-camera use. You can also use the built-in optical slave modes S1 and S2 which “sees” the light from another strobe (on your camera) and then triggers itself. You are much better off using one of the great cheap radio triggers available here on Amazon, so the S1 and S2 modes are of little interest to me. If you are looking for a diffuser to use over the head the models which fit the SB-910 work well, I have been happy with the XIT XTHD910 Hard Dome diffuser for the Nikon SB-900/910. Very nicely constructed of thick plastic and cheap.
The exposures are accurate in both direct and bounced modes, so no real complaints here. I have used the strobe now for about a week and a half on the same batteries and don’t see any signs of the batteries draining faster that usual.
Now here is what it won’t do. No High-Speed HHS synch, no CLS commander/master mode (even though the manual says clearly the mode is included and describes how to use it! Weird!). I tried using the flash off-camera with a Nikon SC-17 cord (which works with the Nikon SB-910) and the 750 II strobe acted as if it was not connected to the camera. That is, it would not fire at all. Bummer.
Another fault is that there is no way to turn off the sleep mode which comes on after 3 minutes, so using it with a radio trigger off camera might be a pain if the strobe keeps turning off, if your trigger has a wake trigger mode it might work out.
Another weird quirk the Meike strobes have is that the flash ready light in the viewfinder will stay lit even though the strobe is recycling. That is the flash is telling the camera that it is ready to shoot when it really isn’t. I have a Meike MK910 (perfect clone of the SB-910) and it does the same thing.
If you are looking for a decent strobe for on-camera use such as event work or longer lens use (think 70-200mm body as opposed to your wide angle body) than this is hard to pass up at $55 each. With a metal hotshoe the electronics inside will fail before the physical body will. Even if it fails after a year or so you are still ahead. I might buy an extra one, it’s cheaper than what the Vivitar 283 used to cost!
To recap, if this was priced at $100 I’d say in the current marketplace to pass on this strobe, but for $55? Sounds like a deal to me if you can live with the limitations I mentioned.
UPDATE: 9-27-2014: I went ahead and bought another one I like it so much. I have tested it with the excellent Yongnuo RF-603 II wireless flash triggers (for Nikon) and the 603’s “wake-up” the 750 MKII every time from sleep mode. This means you can use this little sucker off-camera with a softbox/umbrella on top of a lightstand and with the port for an external battery pack you can really go to town.
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