The A1X was created for the professional photographer looking for portability and performance features or the ambitious non-professional who recognizes quality lighting but wants it comfortably and easily without the hassle of an overly technical interface. The A1X is easy to use. You can literally take it out of the box and start shooting. Weighing 1.2 lb including its battery, the A1X's sleek matte black finish not only appeals to the eye but to the tactile sense as well.

The first thing you'll notice about the A1X is its 2.75" round, tilting, rotating head, which is the physical feature most responsible for the A1X's natural-looking light with its soft gradual fall-off. The auto-zoom built into the head handles focal lengths from 32 to 105mm, while an optional Wide Lens gives you wide-angle coverage from 14 to 24mm. You can override the auto-zoom function at any time and make your adjustments manually.

The A1X recycles in 1 second, faster than most flash units in its class and has action-stopping flash durations from 1/800 to 1/20,000 second. The A1X supports HSS (High-Speed Sync) allowing you to shoot at shutter speeds as short a 1/8000 second instead of 1/250 to blur a distracting background using a wide aperture while controlling strong ambient light behind your subject.