I first became aware of the Magneflash back in 2010 while attending Focus on Imaging her
Magneflash Splash M30e in the UK. Peter Louden and his son had a small stall at the event showing their innovative lighting produce called Magneflash ‘Splash’, Back then they only had prototype but you could get a feeling of how the system would work.
Since then the ‘Splash’ system has come to market and Peter was very kind in sending out one of the unit for NTP to review. The M30 is the basic unit from Magneflash range, it has a Guide Number of 30 and a good short flash duration of 1/4000s and is a self contained unit which makes it totally portable. The built in battery is a good for 150+ pops at full power, fine for most shoots. To charge it there’s a port on the side, takes around 2 hours from flat to full charge. Also there’s a built in flash optical slave trigger so you don’t need a trigger if in the right conditions.
It’s built out of a very tough plastic sealed unit, you can’t take a screwdriver to this and tinker. There’s also an permanent stand bracket, I say permanent, you could take it off if you really wanted to but then you’d be left with no way of mounting it one a stand.
The M30 spigot Mount System
The bracket again is made of the same tough plastic and allow for adjustment from vertical to around 30° below horizontal. One thing to note about the bracket, it’s a unique design and works more like a a compression joint on copper piping.
As you can see from the picture (left) I have it mounted on a regular umbrella bracket with the cold shoe removed and a spigot screwed in place. The Splashes compression system does actually work, it gripped the spigot and the side locking bolt is just there to stop it from spinning.
While I’m talking about the bracket there is a design, fault is too strong a word, as design
The M30 mounted on a umbrella bracket with the cold shoe removed omission. There is no way to mount the flash on a umbrella, nothing. You either have to do as I have here and mount it on a bracket that allows you to remove the cold shoe or strap it the the mono blog itself. Having said that it is true that speedlights don’t come with a way to attach them to a modifiers and you have to get a bracket, I just feel that it could have been added, the unit is plenty strong enough to take it.
Talking of modifiers Magneflash do supply an ‘S’ mount adapter that lets you add a 7” reflector. The adapter is a detachable add-on, again made from the same tough plastic as the rest of the unit. It’s a very simple design that works very well, a reflector sits in nicely and doesn’t feel like it would fall out. The actual adapter mounts onto the unit via 4 locking tabs on the back. At first I really wasn’t sure about these ‘tabs’ they just didn’t seem like that could hold anything but I found they work rather well if not fiddly to install. Although don’t go expecting to mount a 28” beauty dish on there, that's just not going to work.
The Tabs for mounting the 'S' adapter
Operating the unit
Using the ‘Splash’ is simplicity itself, on the back of the unit you have 4 buttons a sync port and a 4 LED power indicator. From right to left you have
- Power on/off
- Flash Test Button
- 4 LED Power indicator
- +25%
- +50%
- 3.5mm Sync post at the bottom
The controls of the Splash M30
You can only control the output in percentages from 25% to 100"%, this is done via a combination of the power buttons, the default is 25% - 1 light. Pressing the 25% button will increases power to 50% – 2 lights. To get 75% you select the 50% button if you’re at the default. And to get full power you press both 25 and 50% buttons.
Using the Magneflash ‘Splash’
Alas I have to report that using the ‘Splash’ in the real world I wasn’t that impressed, it lacks power, the bracket is too different, not sure why there’s isn’t a industry standard umbrella style bracket fitted. The way the ‘S’ mount adapter attaches is very fiddly to fit.
But the biggest issue is the flash output, it’s inconsistent and very slow to recycle. At 25% you can get maybe 4 pops before the capacitors are empty. It gets even slower at full power, you’ll get 1 pop then you have to wait from 6-10 seconds before it’s ready again, compared to a speedlight it’s an absolute age.
As for the output, I was shocked to find that from pop to pop the output jumped. Testing the unit with a Sekonic L-358 from 6’ away at 25% I was getting readings of f/5.6 o f/4.5! Needless to say I couldn’t work with that, I’m used to have a consistent output from my 430EX speedlight. Once I have my exposure dialled in the only time I want it to change is when I change something, not when the flash decides to alter it by a 1 or 2 thirds.
The Magneflash Splash M30 inside a Westcott Apollo 28"
Verdict
I really wanted this flash to be awesome, having a self contained, splash resistant, lightweight portable flash is very appealing. But the issue of the flash output means I’ll have to stick with my trusty and reliable speedlights for now.
Mark.
NTP.
Update on Monday, April 23, 2012 at 19:13 by
newtophoto
I recieved his email from Peter from Magneflash today. I will say one thing, he is right, I have missed the point of this flash and perhaps if others can find the point they will benefit greatly from it. One more thing if you want to try out the Magneflash you can hire it at a very reasonable price, this is a great idea.
Thank you for that Mark.
I have to say though, you've rather missed the point; in fact you missed many points.
You did not actually take any exposures with the sample unit provided - or at least you didn't report any. When used in the automatic mode, as used in the recent 4-star Amateur Photographer review, little of what you said applies (and the reviewer included a well-constructed image as an example of what the M30 is capable of). You would have seen good exposure consistency.
When used in the manual mode, as you reported, of course you only get 4 shots at 25% power per recycle! Try taking 4 shots at similar light levels on your speedlight at as fast a repetition - you can't do it. You can't even get near it.
As for lack of power, if you had measured the M30's output in a way that included off-axis light rather than just placing a flash meter in front of it, you would have seen that the M30 has far more light output than your 430EX. I suspect you only measured on-axis light. For a studio light, of which the M30 counts as one, the key function is the spread of light rather than a spot of light a speedlight generally gives - hence the whole point of using the M30 in a large umbrella, or in your case, a large umbrella-box.
The M30, as with all the Splash Monos, is an off-camera flash; it is not meant to be akin to a speedlight. With its large light source, it doesn't even look like one.
You have missed an opportunity to demonstrate to your readers that you have reviewed something that breaks the mould; the mould of attempting to use a speedlight as an off-camera studio light source, as was the case before the Splash Monos. That is a great shame and is a waste of both of our times'.
