Roll the clock back almost a year and I was fairly impressed with the Viltrox Vintage Z1 Retro. Plus points included pocketable compactness, simplicity of use and a pretty much universal fit to suit the vast majority of current cameras. However, the universal nature of the flash came with various limitations, including the lack of Auto flash metering (TTL or otherwise), and no HSS (High-Speed Sync). I generally don’t mind setting flash power manually but the lack of HSS reduced the usefulness of the ‘Retro’ for fill-in flash in the likes of sunny-day portraiture, where fast shutter speeds can be hard to avoid.
The new ‘Pro’ version aims to put all of these ‘wrongs’ to right. It comes in four different dedicated options to suit Canon, Nikon, Sony and Fujifilm camera systems. It adds Auto TTL flash metering instead of being limited to purely manual adjustments, and there’s HSS as well as rear-curtain flash on the menu. Speaking of which, the menu itself is more intuitive. Whereas the Retro version had a single operating dial, the Pro adds a color touchscreen which eases navigation as well as giving a useful display of the additional settings and options.
