Sony announces new Alpha Flash — can the flagship be far behind?
Sony has just announced their “flagship flash unit” the HLV-F58AM. You can’t buy yet, but it will be on dealer shelves in September.
We knew it was coming, but details were rather sparse. Now we know the new flash unit will have a guide number of 58 (when the head is zoomed out to 105mm).
Sony says the new HLV-F58AM will arrive in September.
Speaking of the zoom flash head, the new flash knows whether it is illuminating a full frame sensor (think Alpha A900) or a APS-C size sensor and will zoom accordingly.
The big display on the back looks easy to read, and there is a mini joy stick controller to change settings. Naturally it offers TTL, HSS and ADI, as well as manual settings. Sony says the High Speed Sync on the HLV-F58AM can use shutter speed os /500 to 1/4000 second.
The HLV-F58AM features Sony’s new quick shift bounce feature, which allows the entire body of the flash to orbit like a fan to the left and right, in addition to the usual bounce and swivel capabilities.
The flash also includes a modeling light and a stroboscopic setting that will fire multiple times during an exposure, creating an in-camera multiple exposure of moving subjects.
Sony also claims the new unit will recharge 55% more quickly than the older HLV-F56AM. There is also a claim that the electronic whine has been done away with. Sony apparently thinks that is a good thing, but I always relied on that high-pitched whine to know my flash was charging properly. I guess I will get used to it, but to me, that whine was a feature, not a bug!
Like all Sony flashes the HLV-F58AM supports wireless flash — and apparently it can serve as a controller as well as a slave. (More on that next time.)
Like the dSLRs it will be matched with, the new flash will have a large, easy to read LCD and a joy stick controller
Finally, Sony has also announced the price. Earlier this week I brought you news that the price of the older HLV-F36AM flash unit dropped to $199. Sony gives and takes it seems. The new flagship flash will be priced at $500 — not outrageous for a flash with all these capabilities — but much higher than the HLV-F56AM.
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June 20th, 2008 at 8:05 am
Funny, you say MUCH higher than the F56AM, last I checked it was $449 everywhere…………
www.ryanhollowayphotography.com
June 21st, 2008 at 6:45 pm
This flash is really good news; there are quiet a few pro’s watching what Sony is about to come up with, incl. their new flash-series and the qick shift bounce. This flash (almost) solves a big problem that red carpet photographers have with usual flash-mounts: the photographer next to them covers the fash with his arm or equipment. For 1st row- or 2nd row-photographing this flash-mount is just bullseye! Bravo Sony!
/markus
June 22nd, 2008 at 7:28 pm
@Ryan Holloway:
The F56AM -USED- to be priced at around 309 most places. Then sony started some stupid program called SURE, which forced retailers to sell their product for SONY’s MSRP so the sellers could keep their profits up or something like that… so we all suffer. Luckily i got mine when the getting was good.
July 16th, 2008 at 10:15 pm
This is good news on the feature list, but bad news on the price. I am waffling around on which flash to buy. I realize this top end flash is a killer unit, but seriously, who can afford this, unless they’re a pro.
For that much money, I could buy a whole bunch of aftermarket wireless gizmos, tripods, and thyristor flashes, and have a great suite of lighting gear. All for the price of ONE flash lamp from Sony, albeit with a bazillion bells and whistles.
Doesn’t anyone else think it’s time to call bullshit, when a flash costs over $500 when you add in taxes?
And the “under $200″ unit is no longer even listed on sonystyle.ca. (HVL-F36AM silently disappeared from sony’s own online canadian web store, just in the last few days.)
Anyone who wants to do a lot of flash work with their sony alpha should check out the hong-kong guys, such as www.gadgetinfinity.com, if you want to get off camera wireless flash without killing your bank account.
Geeze.
Warren
Toronto, Canada