Sony-compatible flash with metal hotshoe

[isaac_leung]

<p>While getting my HVL-F580AM flashes back from the repair shop following a second costly fix of their hot shoes, the old but oft-overlooked issue of the hotshoe came to the fore in our discussion. Namely, why does Sony not move on to using metal hotshoes?</p>

<p>I was quite surprised recently when I got two YongNuo YN460-II to see that they had transitioned to a metal type ISO shoe (an earlier version of the same flash had a plastic shoe), and of course, various flashes from Canon and Nikon use metal as well.</p>

<p>I kind of understand the rationale cited for the choice of material, i.e. the hotshoe connection is a sacrificial part, but my painful "tests" regarding the effect of impacts on the flashes found that the mini-stand offered with the Sony flashes actually withstands the impact at the expense of the connector on the flash itself. If we were looking at sacrificial parts, wouldn't the mini-stand be a better candidate?</p>

<p>In any case, that got me thinking about whether third-party manufacturers had introduced flashes with the Sony hotshoe connector in metal. My current thinking is that Sigma may have some, although I have yet to see detailed images of Sigma's Sony version flashes to determine this for certain. Does anyone have experience in this area?</p>

[john_tran14]

<p>use a bracket and mount the flash off camera</p>

[isaac_leung]

<p>Hi John, that's actually what I do almost exclusively. The issue with fragilehotshoe material is still pertinent when using off-camera flash because accidents do happen (and actually happen more if the flash is on a light stand, especially if an umbrella is being used, regardless of weighting).</p>