Nissin Di700 flagship flash strobe, improved battery pack make their debut outside of Asia
posted Monday, March 11, 2013 at 1:31 PM EDT
Last spring, third-party flash manufacturer Nissin Japan launched several new products for its home photo show, CP+. The first of these are now appearing overseas, with the unveiling of the Nissin Di700 flash strobe and PS 8 power pack in the UK market by local distributor Kenro.
Compared to the preceding Di866 MkII Speedlite, Nissin's new Di700 has a wider-ranging zoom head that now covers everything from 24 - 200mm, where the previous model was capped at 105mm. At its new telephoto position, the strobe has a guide number of 50 meters. Like its predecessor, the Di700 is particularly unusual in offering a rear-panel color LCD, used to configure the strobe, rather than the more common monochrome LCD. The Di700 also still features a tilt/swivel bounce head, but the range of motion is greatly increased. It can now be rotated 180 degrees in either direction horizontally, tilted upwards 90 degrees, and downwards seven degrees.
Other new features include both a 3.5mm sync socket and a PC sync terminal for connecting the flash to studio strobe systems. Nissin has retained the Di866 MkII's external power supply connectivity, and the new Di700 flash is compatible with the company's latest PS 8 power pack. Recycle time is four seconds or less, and the strobe has a color temperature of 5,600 kelvin. There's a built-in autofocus assist lamp good to as far as 19.7 feet (6m), and dimensions are 4.5 x 3 x 1.6 inches (115 x 75 x 40mm). The strobe without batteries weighs 12.3 ounces (350g).
Available from April 2013 in the UK, the Nissin Di700 flash strobe will be offered for Canon E-TTL / E-TTL II, Nikon i-TTL, and Sony ADI / P-TTL systems. Pricing information wasn't available at press time.
The new PS 8 power pack, meanwhile, is available immediately in the UK, priced at £137.5 (US$180) excluding VAT. It now features a more compact, plastic body with built-in belt loop and shoulder strap lugs, and has been redesigned to reduce heat output. Another important new feature is an interchangeable battery pack, letting you carry multiple 3,000 mAh 7.2V batteries without needing to duplicate the rest of the power pack hardware. And in a handy design touch the PS 8 can also now be used to power your USB charging-capable devices, so you can top off some cameras, smartphones and other accessories from your strobe's battery pack.
No information has yet been provided on available in the US market.