# Yongnuo YN600EX-RT now available for $186



## andrewflo (Oct 17, 2014)

I was extremely excited when the YN-E3-RT was released at a whopping $140, and the YN600EX-RT was announced.

Now seeing it available for $186 blows my mind. I was expecting it to be ~$250. Was anyone else looking forward to this flash?

Based off the reviews the YN-E3-RT (ST-E3-RT clone) which has even better features such AF Assist Beam, I think the YN600EX-RT could be a really interesting contender again the Canon OEM version.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/YONGNUO-Flash-Speedlite-YN600EX-RT-for-Canon-/121461881210?pt=Digital_Camera_Flashes&hash=item1c47b1397a


----------



## Besisika (Oct 17, 2014)

andrewflo said:


> I was extremely excited when the YN-E3-RT was released at a whopping $140, and the YN600EX-RT was announced.
> 
> Now seeing it available for $186 blows my mind. I was expecting it to be ~$250. Was anyone else looking forward to this flash?
> 
> ...


Yes, I am excited about it. I will wait until bunch of reviews are available on the net though.


----------



## Steve (Oct 17, 2014)

Finally.

I'll wait for some in depth reviews but I've been looking forward to an affordable competitor to the overpriced 600EX-RT for a while. 

One downside is that the flash doesn't work natively with the YN622 TTL triggers which is nonsense imo. Those triggers are great and there's no reason not to make a flash with a built in receiver. 

Here's FlashHavoc's post about it: http://flashhavoc.com/yongnuo-yn600ex-rt-now-available/


----------



## Marsu42 (Oct 17, 2014)

andrewflo said:


> Now seeing it available for $186 blows my mind. I was expecting it to be ~$250. Was anyone else looking forward to this flash?



I'm really looking forward to a working and *reliable* Canon 600ex clone. The new Yn being priced so low and near their bare-bones transmitter makes me suspicious though, there might be strings attached - so lets for real-world real user reviews from people who know their flash photography.

This is because after the complaints about the Yn transmitter, one popular argument was "Well, this is made for the Chinese market and for that price you cannot expect the same performance as the Canon, can you?"


----------



## Steve (Oct 17, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> This is because after the complaints about the Yn transmitter, one popular argument was "Well, this is made for the Chinese market and for that price you cannot expect the same performance as the Canon, can you?"



Yeah, well, that's a pretty legit statement though. For the prices Canon charges for their flash system, it better work every single time. If the YN's work 95% as well for ~1/3rd the price, well, I'll take a misfire here and there. If my livelihood depended on speedlite photography it might be a different story.


----------



## Marsu42 (Oct 17, 2014)

Steve said:


> If the YN's work 95% as well for ~1/3rd the price, well, I'll take a misfire here and there.



My Yn transmitter's performany is way below 95%, but of course ymmv. The question is if there are is "just" less qc and you might end up with a dud easily replaced by Yn's agile customer service, or if there are systematic problems. For example with the transmitter, the af assist is a bad joke as they moved the points so far apart from each other you have to wiggle the transmitter in the hotshoe around to catch one with one of the (6d's) af points.


----------



## andrewflo (Oct 17, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> Steve said:
> 
> 
> > If the YN's work 95% as well for ~1/3rd the price, well, I'll take a misfire here and there.
> ...



Good point. The biggest known issue of the YN-E3-RT is that the AF Assist Beam's points don't line up with the AF points in camera (not even close). But considering the Canon ST-E3-RT doesn't have an AF Assist Beam at all, it's kind of tough to call it a deal breaker.

I am, however, crossing my fingers that a YN-E3-RT II comes out soon that has this problem corrected.

Can I ask if there are any other problems you have with that transmitter that make it sub 95% performance?

Thanks!


----------



## Steve (Oct 17, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> My Yn transmitter's performany is way below 95%, but of course ymmv. The question is if there are is "just" less qc and you might end up with a dud easily replaced by Yn's agile customer service, or if there are systematic problems. For example with the transmitter, the af assist is a bad joke as they moved the points so far apart from each other you have to wiggle the transmitter in the hotshoe around to catch one with one of the (6d's) af points.



How well does the Canon's AF assist work? 

I guess really it depends on how good the transmitter system is at firing off the flash correctly. If it can't do that mostly reliably, its not worth any amount of money. I can only base what opinion I have of Yongnuo on the YN622 which is really good. I've had one failure that required a reset to factory defaults when I first got them but not a hiccup since. Maybe the ST is garbage and, if that's the case, this new flash would be pretty worthless.


----------



## Marsu42 (Oct 17, 2014)

Steve said:


> How well does the Canon's AF assist work?



Point taken, but as it turned out Yn's af assist performance in real world use is 100% up on par with the Canon 



Steve said:


> I can only base what opinion I have of Yongnuo on the YN622 which is really good. I've had one failure that required a reset to factory defaults when I first got them but not a hiccup since. Maybe the ST is garbage and, if that's the case, this new flash would be pretty worthless.



Yn's proprietary radio protocols are bound to work better since they can design them to their liking and to the actual hardware used. I hope with the long delay with their rt flash clone, enough people (including me) had to beta-test their transmitter and now they have the problems ironed out...

... but again, the cheap price makes me suspicious - if something's too good to be true, it probably isn't.


----------



## Steve (Oct 17, 2014)

I'll definitely be waiting on reviews but the cheap price could have a lot to do with the new Chinese competitor that's making its own 600RT clone.


----------



## ishdakuteb (Oct 17, 2014)

yay, been waiting for a while..... i also wonder about sleep mode option... hopefully yn will alow us to turn it off....


----------



## Besisika (Oct 17, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> Steve said:
> 
> 
> > If the YN's work 95% as well for ~1/3rd the price, well, I'll take a misfire here and there.
> ...


My YN don't cause me that much trouble. I noticed that they require fresh batteries, and whenever I have a misfire - I change the batteries and we are good to go again. I heard some people buying before me to having a lot more troubles. Not sure if they fixed something or just I had good units.


----------



## Marsu42 (Oct 17, 2014)

Besisika said:


> I noticed that they require fresh batteries, and whenever I have a misfire - I change the batteries and we are good to go again.



Thanks for reminding me, I almost forgot that "fresh" batteries really do help... I just didn't remember because my Canon 600ex unit as a master works 100% until the very end. There seem to be very different electronic parts inside Yn vs. Canon.


----------



## privatebydesign (Oct 17, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> Steve said:
> 
> 
> > How well does the Canon's AF assist work?
> ...



The 600-EX-RT AF assist works very very well, obviously the joke was on the ST-E3-RT AF assist being non existent, but we are onto the YN-600-RT now, and I am sure the assist on that will not be anywhere near as good as the Canon version.

Most of you know what I think of the YN-E3-RT, if anybody wants mine drop me a PM!


----------



## Marsu42 (Oct 17, 2014)

privatebydesign said:


> Marsu42 said:
> 
> 
> > Steve said:
> ...



Ok, this probably was too sarcastic to understand: Imho Yn's af's assist beam's performance is up on par with the Canon controller because Yn's is useless, and Canon's is non-existent


----------



## andrewflo (Oct 18, 2014)

Marsu42 said:


> privatebydesign said:
> 
> 
> > Marsu42 said:
> ...



It was a clever joke


----------



## Maui5150 (Oct 18, 2014)

I seriously have to consider this if the quality is semi-decent. I know it took Yongnuo a year to release so hopefully they realized they were rushing products to market like the YN-e3-Rt and that was hurting them and they really have made improvements.


----------



## drjlo (Oct 18, 2014)

Maui5150 said:


> I know it took Yongnuo a year to release so hopefully they realized they were rushing products to market like the YN-e3-Rt and that was hurting them and they really have made improvements.



I hope so. I also hope the new YN600EX-RT improves on the true light output, which have tended to be over-optimistic on their specs, and on the slightly more blue tinge compared to Canon counterparts.


----------



## Quasimodo (Oct 23, 2014)

I am also awaiting the reviews. What I want confirmed is the following: That it works flawlessly with my Canon st-e3, and that if I combine it with my other Canon 600ex-rts, I will not get trouble (Whether it be lack of consistent firings, or screwed up color temperatures relative to the original 600s, ect). 

Because if it does indeed perform as well as advertised, I will with the low cost be able to buy and play with as many flashes as the st-e3 controller is able to handle


----------

