Yongnuo’s YN600EX-RT Now Selling, Looks Remarkably Similar To Canon’s 600EX-RT Flagship
Oct 16, 2014
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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Earlier in august this year Hong-Kong based company YongNuo announced that they are releasing the YN600EX-RT – A Canon compatible strobe.
Some Canonistas, especially off camera flashers (AKA strobists) were pretty excited about this announcement. Mostly because the strobe was said to be compatible with Canon’s new 2.4GHz RT radio system that their 600EX-RT strobe features. The RT is a pretty awesome TTL triggering and strobe control system working on radio rather then on IR. But, Canon’s strobe sells for about $499 while the new Yongnuo which appeared on eBay today only sells for about $185. Roughly a 1:3 ratio.
DIYP are the last to be blamed with lack of frugality, but looking at the images that popped up on YongNuo’s sites got me thinking. Look at the two photos on the top. See any resemblance (aside the obviousness of the names). The strobe on the left is Canon’s 600EX-RT flagship, and the right one is the new YN600EX-RT.
The first thing that immediately pops out is the how similar those two strobes look. From the external shape of the strobe, though the location of the buttons, the little link LED down to the hot shoe lock. Sure they are not 100% identical, Canon has some of the writing on the buttons, while Yongnuo has them on the chassis; Canon’s LCD frame is more squarish than their Chinese buddy and there are other minor differences. See if you can spot them all.
Going up the food chain, the menus and LCD seems to be pretty much identical. I have not played with either, but the photos showing the options is too close to be a coincidence. I would dare to make a guess that once you dive into the menus looks stays similar throughout the system. And again, it is not a pixel-to-pixel copy. The YNs have a slightly more spaced layout and seem to have a slightly brighter LCD. Yet, the core is very similar.
Those two similarities seem to be dwarfing the next one. The YN is actually said to be compatible with Canon’s new RT 2.4GHz radio triggering system. I have not tested it, so I have no idea if it works as smoothly as the Canon one does, but this is what it claims. (They ditched the control protocol that was used on the older yn622) Other features match too: Guide Number=60M, Zoom head goes 20-200mm, HSS support. In fact the only features I am not seeing are Focus Assist and gels.
That makes the YN600EX-RT a Canon duplicate for 1/3 the price.
Here is what I find striking. YongNuo obviously has some good engineering. They came up with some of the most popular strobes on the market, and making a Class A strobe (even if an alleged copy) is not a trivial task. So why are they making a Canon Strobe rather than their own?
[YongNuo YN600EX-RT | Canon’s 600EX-RT]
Udi Tirosh
Udi Tirosh is an entrepreneur, photography inventor, journalist, educator, and writer based in Israel. With over 25 years of experience in the photo-video industry, Udi has built and sold several photography-related brands. Udi has a double degree in mass media communications and computer science.
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13 responses to “Yongnuo’s YN600EX-RT Now Selling, Looks Remarkably Similar To Canon’s 600EX-RT Flagship”
They sure built an easy case for Canon should it end up in court.
Time to buy quick before they get pulled! ;-)
It’s cute that you think that matters in China.
Ill bet they can still get what they want though
i bought 3 and they are great!!!
i think canon uses yn as a third world retailer.
they do the engenieering, and yn sold the thing. thus covering the whole market range.
I currently own 6 YN strobes. They are amazing. I have one 568EXII, three 560III’s, and two 560II’s. I’ll be buying a couple of these as soon as they’re back in stock at EachShot.
Talk about unimaginative product naming! They just added YN to the front of Canon’s high-end flash.
Yes, that’s brilliant. I no longer have to go through pages of specs to match up strobes. The also copied the E3-RT system. Canon’s is called ST-E3-RT and Yongnuo YN-E3-RT. Brilliant if you ask me.
Not all Canon products are used that way. The controllers for the YN 560 strobes is called YN-560TX. The triggers are called YN622C and the controllers YN622C-TX. Perfect naming on all levels.
“So why are they making a Canon Strobe rather than their own?”
Because they let others spend millions on development, then they just spend money of copying and improving it. This is the exact strategy Microsoft uses (except for the improving part hahaha).
Also, I don’t think you can really design a better strobe right now. They do everything you want and more.
The YN-E3-RT is actually better than the ST-E3-RT and they listened to the end consumer.
Yongnuo flashes are awesome, I own 3 of them – 2 of the YN560 and 1 YN565. I love these flashes so easy to set up, adjust and sync. The two YN560s have been modified to accept 6V 12ah SLA batteries..you can keep shooting all day without loss of power. The only problem is the Yongnuo flashes heat up too quickly at full power and you have to stop shooting for a few minutes before they will fire up again.
lol, that ebay seller linked jack the price to $600 and one poor sod bought it at that price.
Besides the identical external functions and menus, can someone that has the Youngnuo tell me if they are completely quiet like the Canon?? I mean, the Canon don’t make any that traditional flash rumming recharging. Does the Youngnuos are completely silent too??