1 sb-800 or 2 sb-600's?

I'd rather have two SB-600's. The added benefits wouldn't be enough for me to accept one light over two. Now if you have the money to just add one other SB-600, I'd do that instead.

What you have to do is ignore the "techie-talk" and instead focus on the real world practical use. The SB800 has benefits sure enough, but are these benefits you will actually take advantage of. Commander mode may as well be tossed out the window, as from the D80 on up, they will all act as a commander for you.

So the question becomes - what am I getting out of one SB-800, that I can't get out of two SB-600's?
 
I ended up upgrading to a d200, though that still doesn't make the decision any easier. I see the point of the d200 only controlling 3 vs the sb-800 controlling 4.....but that only matters once I reach having 4 flashes. When I have 1-2 that doesn't matter so much. How big of a room would the extra GN matter on bounce flash so much?
 
I ended up upgrading to a d200, though that still doesn't make the decision any easier. I see the point of the d200 only controlling 3 vs the sb-800 controlling 4.....but that only matters once I reach having 4 flashes. When I have 1-2 that doesn't matter so much. How big of a room would the extra GN matter on bounce flash so much?

It wont neccessarily matter when you have four, or five or 17. . .

Think of the "groups" as simply being AREAS that you want light coming from. You can do a lot with three areas of light: key light on your subject, maybe a little fill light to decrease some shadows on subject (if its a person) and perhaps a background or hair light. That's but ONE setup that you can put together, with any number of lights dedicated to the individual groups A, B or C.
 
Putting the speedlights onto groups works really well.

you can control the different areas as explained, and you can modify the light coming from the speedlights by using different things to control the light. By simply blocking halve of the speedlight light, you have done the same as halving the light via CLS in camera.
 
Don't even need to think of it in areas. The real though is settings. If all your flashes are going to be set to TTL+0 then heck take all 4 and put them in the same group. You will then have 2 others to spare.
 
At my weddings, I wish I had long range wireless iTTL. That way I could quickly adjust from camera the settings I want based on my position in the rooom.

Right now I am using PW IIs, 2 light stands in 2 different locations and also on 2 different channels, and turning on the light that I need. That works really well, but still, its not TTL, which though I do not need, I think it kicks butt. :)
 

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