Nissin NI-HI40N Compact Flashgun i40 for Nikon Cameras Photography - NFG013N

Product Information

Nissin supplies the i40 with a wide variety of accessories. Besides the flash unit itself you’ll find a protective bag, carabiner (not for climbing), an omnibouce-style hood and a stand to put the flash on when you use it wireless. Most other flash units aren’t this complete. However a more powerful flash can have collateral benefits. Depending on the distance from the subject, it can give you the same result by using less power which means it keeps a faster recycling rate. Placing your flash at a longer distance can help to diffuse the light better too. Finally you have more light output to work with when bouncing the light off a reflector or a wall. Controlling the unit is done by combining the two control dials. The smaller primary wheel is used to switch operation modes (like iTTL or Manual). The secondary wheel controls the power settings. In iTTL mode the power is adjusted in steps from -2.0 to +2.0. If you put the unit in Manual mode you control the output power in steps from 1/1 to 1/256 th. The guide number for all these units gives you a 50% gray on a gray card, but the whites look underexposed. If you expose to the right (as you should), you'll be happier opening up to a guide number of 56 (feet) or 17 (meters). I assume the other two flash units are the same. To use HSS on Canon, Sony and Micro Four Thirds (Olympus / Panasonic) cameras you must activate the HSS function on your Nissin Air 10s Commander. Press and hold " H↯" on the Air 10s selector dial until the HSS icon " H↯" appears on the display. To deactivate HSS, press " H↯" on the selector dial again until the HSS icon disappears from the display.

it doesn’t need to stay in direct line of sight unlike an infrared or optical flash, which means you can hide it behind an object or put it behind your subject for a silhouette effect At the beginning, one of the best options was to use the Olympus flashes designed for their now discontinued DSLR line. Then Olympus released the FL-600r which is a smaller flash unit designed specifically for the M4/3 system and includes all the functionalities you might need from a professional portable flash. Then Nissin managed to go one step further by making an even smaller flash unit compatible with different systems including M43 and recently Fujifilm. Since I needed a second unit for a wedding Heather and I shot in late September last year, I decided to give the i40 a try and see how well it performs for professional assignments. E-M1, 1/80, f/ 5.6, ISO 800 To use HSS on Nikon and Fujifilm cameras you must activate HSS (FP) from the camera's flash menu. You do not need to change any other Air 1 or flash settings.

Kenro announces the Nissin i40 Flash and Video Light

The Nissin i40 is sized appropriately for micro 4/3 cameras. It has a lot of power for its size and a full set of features.

I did try the Slave digital remote setting, where the camera reacts to other flashes it detects. This worked like a charm, just make sure the unit can detect the flash of the other unit. It doesn’t even have to be in direct line of sight, and as promised the i40 didn’t get fooled by the digital pre-flash.

Horizontally the head is adjustable over a range of 180 degrees to the left and 180 degrees to the right. Vertically you can adjust it in 5 steps with a total reach of 90 degrees, making it possible to adjust it from horizontally to completely vertically. Of course it is possible to combine horizontal and vertical adjustments, so you can adjust the flash to accommodate almost every shooting situation. The best result is obtained by bouncing the light of the ceiling. When you are shooting a portrait you can use the built in reflectioncard to brighten up the eyes of your subject. M400: I got 60 shots out of it. After the first minute it started to progressively slow down the recycle time to around 8/9s. After 2 minutes it also displayed the Temperature icon warning on the LCD screen. SD - Slave Digital (synchronizes to the pre-flash system. The master flash is to be set at TTL (E-TTL for Canon, i-TTL for Nikon and ADI/P-TTL for Sony) mode.

The Nissin i40 has 2 selector dial controls. Function dial and power dial. The indicated lamp A/B/C will show the adjustment position.

Wireless capabilities

The higher guide number means that if you capture a subject at f/4 and ISO 100, the i60A will give you a correct exposure up to 15 metres (at full power) and 200mm. The i40 and M400 will manage optimal brightness up 10 metres and 105mm. So overall the i60A can cover a longer distance than the other two units and can concentrate the light at a narrower angle of view as well.