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Reviews (1)
10 November 2014
Metz for Nikon: Compatible with CLS, well made, powerful. Excellent value.
A half-stop more powerful and larger than the SB-800. Mfrd in Germany, build quality and materials are excellent. Metz strobes have always produced very white, high quality light & these are no exception. I suspect UV is very well filtered.
I also have two 58 AF-1 units, four 50-1 and one 48-1. In my testing, Metz strobes are compatible with Nikon's CLS system as both Master and Slave: The 48 & 50 as Slave and the 58s as Master & Slave. HSS works as it should.
Both the 50 and 58 have an optical slave like the SB-800.
The 50 and 58-2 have metal feet while the older 48 and 58-1 are plastic. All use the decades-old screw down hot shoe lock which isn't as fast as the lever lock used by the Nikon brand units but is equally secure, imo.
When one of my 58-1s fell off a lightstand (my fault) I replaced the plastic foot myself; the part is available from a USA-based Ebay seller. I think you'd have trouble obtaining parts for Nikon, at least in the US. There was no other damage and it functions fine.
I dropped my other 58-1 another time and it stopped flashing. Cost about $125 USD including shipping to have the flash tube replaced at the US service center, turn-around was about 12 working days and its worked fine since. I suspect a Nikon repair would have been far more costly.
The user interface of Metz strobes is slightly more straight forward than Nikon's, imo. However, once learned, both present about the same degree of ease/difficulty in navigation.
I like the updateable-via-USB firmware of the Metz units although the last update for the 48-50 and 58-1 was in 2011 IIRC. However, the firmware did mature nicely.
I consider Metz strobes excellent value for money and will purchase more, especially when I recently (10/2014) paid $235 for a used but mint SB-800 (bought for comparison). With careful bidding I can win a NIB 58-x on ebay for under $175 USD delivered. Ditto the 48-50: SB-600's sell used for $175 or so and I've averaged $120 for mint to NIB 48-50's on ebay.