The reviewed Triopo Speedlight TR-982II, made in China of course, comes with a lot of features and accessories, a maximum guide number of 56 which is fairly powerful, a built in wide panel as well as a bounce card, a diffusor, a pouch plus a stand and it’s available for Canon as well as Nikon cameras.
Price spread is kind of large, ranging from around CHF 100.- to almost CHF 200.- on ebay. I picked up my exemplars (I own two of them) at CHF 98.- a piece from www.swissphoto-shop. Let’s find out in this review of the Triopo Speedlight TR-982II if it’s worth that kind of money.
Here is a quick overview over some of it’s features:
- E-TTL/ I-TTL support (Canon/ Nikon)
- Zoom range of 18-180 mm (manual mode available)
- Manual setting 1/1 – 1/128
- HSS
- Synch. on second curtain
- Wireless control of slave flashes
- Wireless slave mode (radio as well as optical, S2 mode ignores pre-flash)
- 2.9 second recycle time
- Control the flash from within your camera menu
- Big, illuminated LCD screen
- more than 90° vertical tilt, 180° horizontal swivel
- AF assist beam
- Power saving mode
- Overheating protection
- Auto power off function
- Port for external power input
- and many more…
Build Quality
Of course build quality does not feel like a premium product but it also does not make you fear that the Triopo Speedlight TR-982II is falling apart any minute. In fact the build quality feels quite alright, far better than expected at this price. The LCD screen is easy readable, thanks to the illumination and the buttons are also ok, they give solid feedback when pressed. The tilting (more than 90°) and turning (180° in both directions) flash head feels solid and the flash mounts firmly on your camera.
Another positive aspect concerning build quality is the fact that it seems to be consistent over several exemplars. I own two Triopo Speedlight TR-982II flashes and they look and feel exactly the same. Now one might say that this should be kind of self-evident but while this is certainly true for flashes of renown manufacturers it’s definitely not always the case with cheap “made in china” products.Performance
Performance is in fact very good. Thanks to it’s relatively high maximum guide number of 56 it’s powerful and lights everything within a reasonable distance. The flash is reliable, during all may shootings the flash has never failed so far. What has surprised me is it’s long battery life. Even though I’ve already shot several hundred fotos with the Triopo Seedlight TR-982II it’s still running on it’s initial set of batteries. So the claimed energy saving functionality seems to work quite well.
Especially positive is the accuracy of the controls. For a flash at this price I feared rather inaccurate controls but the opposite turned out to be true. A manual correction of exposure values (EV) in the camera menu or through the built in controls does exactly what you would expect. The same can also be said for manual mode, although my judgment is solely based on practical experience since I don’t own any kind of equipment to scientifically measure the emitted light.
And what can be said about the different master and slave modes? Well they work reliably too. The wireless control of another flash over radio is easy to set up and does exactly what it should do. The optical slave modes also do their job and you can count on slave 2 (S2) mode to ignore the pre-flash emitted by other flashes.Flaws
So far I’ve not encountered many real problems. One issue is that the flash sometimes locks itself up and you need to open the battery case in order to reset it. Unfortunately I cannot tell under which exact circumstances this happens because it does not seem to be consistent. But it happens only while navigating through the menu, never during the shooting itself. Once set up the flash fires reliably every time.
Another concern is the fact that the flash does not seem to work very well with my Phottix Strato TTL wireless flash trigger. This does not mean they don’t work together at all but adjustments made through the camera menu or on the transmitter itself are not recognized by the flash so I need to run the flash in manual mode. On the other hand manual mode works as expected and is reliable so this isn’t a game changer for me.
The last but maybe most important glitch is the fact that the AF assist beam is not centered so it is not that helpful for focusing. For some photographers that could indeed be a decisive shortcoming.Conclusion and Rating
The Triopo Speedlight TR-982II offers a lot of bang for your buck. It gets the job done and it’s reliability and performance almost makes you forget that it’s not manufactured by the big camera companies themselves. The build quality is solid If it wasn’t for the above mentioned flaws I’d give the Triopo Seedlight TR-982II a rating of 8 out of 10 points. As long as those shortcomings aren’t important for your work you can in fact give this flash an imaginary 8 point rating. But because the described flaws can actually be annoying or even game changers for certain photographers I think a 7 out of 10 is more appropriate. Nevertheless the Triopo Speedlight TR-982II is definitely recommendable as a cheap alternative. If you need a powerful system flash but cannot afford spending several hundred bucks on it this might just be the solution for you.
