The new Viltrox TTL Vintage Z1 Pro Flash – Their best flash yet

Viltrox, known primarily as a third-party manufacturer of super sharp, budget friendly prime camera lenses, continues to expand its inventory of adjacent camera products.  This time with a new edition to their series of mini-flashes, the TTL enabled Viltrox Vintage Z1 Pro.

The Z1 Pro looks and feels similar to its predecessor, the Viltrox Z1 Retro, and the same general design philosophy can be seen in the original cyber punk styled Spark Z3 TTL, which we reviewed here.    This new model takes the TTL bits from the Spark and adds them in to the Vintage series.  TTL versions are available for Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm cameras.  The initial price in the US will be $59.99.  Prices for other countries are listed at the bottom of the article.  There is a discount for the first week, and if you buy through one of the links at the bottom, you’ll be helping 35mmc out with a pound or two on each purchase, so be kind!

The original ZI Vintage was fully manual, with a single contact hot shoe.  Adjustments to output were made through a large analog dial with painted on power numbers (Full, ½, ¼ etc.)  The new Pro version retains the dial, but adds a large electronic read out to the back of the flash.

I’m a big fan of physical dials and I’ll add that the bright large display is quite a bit easier to read than the painted numbers, especially in dark settings where you are most likely to be using a flash.  I think Viltrox got this just right; an easy-to-use dial, and an easy to read display.

Pushing the dial in towards the flash will change modes from TTL to Manual and then to some power readout that looks like the bars on your smart phone.   I didn’t have full instructions when using the flash, so while the bars clearly indicate power settings in a graphic format, I’m not sure if the flash is in Manual or TTL mode.  I might be missing something, but while using the flash I just skipped that view.

The only other control on the back of the flash is the on/off switch, and when charging, the digital display gives you a progress icon.

The left side of the flash has a USB port for charging the camera, and retains the three position switch for using the flash as a slave unit.  S1 is for detecting a flash that isn’t using pre-flash, and S2 for those that are.  The middle position turns the slave function off.  Just for fun, I shot these product pictures with my Viltrox Spark flash.

That’s it for the controls.  Very basic, no fancy three finger combinations to remember.  It’s all very simple, laid out beautifully and easy to use.  As someone who has literally spent an hour on the internet trying to figure out how to make something work on one of my expensive flash units, this is extremely liberating.  There are lots of these little flash units popping up on the market, but I’ve yet to use one that is better designed than the Viltrox models.

Technical specifications can just be moved over from its manual cousin.  24Ws of power, 1.5 seconds to recycle, and a claim of up to 400 flashes per charge at full power.  I’ll also note that when using the flash at less than full power the recycle time might have been a little faster than listed.  Both numbers will be dependent on your shooting style and volume.  When I plan on using the flash I just plug it in on the drive and don’t worry about it for the rest of the evening.  Another huge addition is the ability to shoot in high speed sync.  Pretty remarkable for such a small unit.

I didn’t have a lot of time to use the flash before writing this review but did manage one night at an outdoor concert.   With the longer days there was still enough light to shoot without a flash if I had wanted to, but the stage orientation meant that most of my subjects had their backs to a very bright summer sky, and I was looking to see if the flash could help fill in the shadows on their faces without blowing out everything behind them.  The camera used was the Nikon Zfc and the Viltrox 15mm 1.7 Air.  Flash setting on the Zfc was “fill  flash”  for most of the shots, although I tried out rear curtain sync toward the end of the evening.  The flash had the diffuser on the entire time, cutting down on effective range, but softening the look over all.  All the shots were taken in TTL mode.

I really like these little flashes from Viltrox, and the new Vintage Pro is the best one yet.  I doesn’t blow the earlier models out of the water in performance, but in terms a actually using the product  the Viltrox Vintage Pro has absolutely nailed it.

Here are the sale details before you go off and look at the pictures:

Mike Brooks is a photographer living in Texas.  You can check out both his paid and personal work here.

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