What are the thoughts about the revised flash? The wireless range is about 5/3 of the original EL-5. I wonder if those will ever be on sale. My early EL-5 has the battery draw defect.
I pretty much only use Godox flashes nowadays, because you can’t beat the interoperability and value. This looks like a good unit, though, and not insanely priced for a first party option with its power. I don’t like that it’s only multifunction shoe compatible, though - it really locks you in to using it just with the most recent bodies. (Even the R5 can’t use it, let alone any Canon DSLRs).
Meanwhile my Godox V1 works with every Canon body I own, and my Godox flashes for other systems makes work with my Canon Godox triggers.
I have Canon (EL-5 and 600 series), Godox and Neewer on-camera flashes. Purely as an on-camera flash, I like the Canon EL-5 the best out of all of those. It just feels better built with really fast recycling time (though the EL-1 is even better). IMO touchscreens on a flash, like the Godox I have, are a complete PITA when trying to work quickly. Too much delay when changing group modes for example, because it's trying to prevent an accidental mode change. Yet accidental touches/swipes will inadvertently change power output or some other setting. The Canon feels more responsive in TTL mode, though the Godox is also pretty fast. This is where the Neewer units are well behind. For some reason they exhibit a slightly longer but noticeable delay between the pre-flash and main flash, which only gets worse if using additional units off camera, and even more worse when they're in different groups. But these Neewer were the physical equivalent of the Godox V1 Pro at half the price and are rock solid in off-camera manual output where that multi-group delay does not happen because there's no need for pre-flash. I also like that there is a USB-C charging port in the Godox and Neewer batteries, something Canon should emulate.
I've become a fan of some of Neewer's speedlight/strobe offerings at the lower end because of the price/performance ratio. They generally match the equivalent Godox units, often are near clones, yet are lower priced and sometimes considerably discounted (and are compatible with the Godox radio system). Meanwhile Godox seems to have become mainstream and no longer the bargain they used to be. They appear to quite tightly control street pricing, in that sales are modest and pricing remains consistent across all sources/suppliers.
The main reason I have Canon, Godox and Neewer speedlights now is how long it took for Canon to recognize and finally (apparently) fix the massive mess their RT radio network became between around 2020 until 2025. I updated the EL-5's firmware and it seemed to fix the problem, but I am reluctant to actually use it in real world critical applications. The same apprehension extends to the EL-5 v2, though the assumption is that Canon 'properly' fixed it in hardware this time. Hopefully.
I just thought simplistically that Canon would be more electronically compatible in the long run and I could charge the battery in the usual LC-E6. But I would not trust it for quite a while until other people buy it first.
