noob flash question

Garbz · Mar 20, 2008

Personally I think the SB-600 starts showing it's limitations quickly in the power department. Other than that there are no real features the SB-800 has that makes it appealing. For a beginner or even some intermediates the SB-800 is overkill. Most Nikon bodies now fully support CLS commander mode, both support the i-TTL system, 5 batteries for faster cycle times on the SB-800? Puulease, do you know how hard it is to charge an odd number of batteries :roll:.

noob873 · Mar 20, 2008

Wow lots of posts.
I like that way of thinking, that why spend more if you dont really "need" it. But in my experience of many things I've bought, I had gone with something cheaper because I thought that would be good enough, then that cheaper thing ends up not working so well for me and I need to replace it with the better one. So then I bought it for no reason and wasted money, when I could have just gone with the better one in the first place.
Of course that doesnt always happen with all things, like I will probably end up getting the sb600 instead of the sb800 since it seems good enough like you guys have said.
Thanks for the help.

kundalini · Mar 20, 2008

Good to know we can all agree to disagree. Like back in the day in a pick-up game - No Blood, No Foul. :biggrin:

Socrates · Mar 20, 2008

Mav said:
...and it's easier to rotate the camera around if you need to bounce in a different direction than it is to keep rotating the flash head around on the 600.

You want to explain a bit? I'm envisioning you rotating the camera and taking a picture other than the one that you want!

By the way, I do agree with your logic and, in my case, the D80/SB600 combination met my "needs." Well, I had to first convince myself that I would die if I didn't get the D80. That ensured that I was satisfying a "need" rather than merely a "want."

Mav · Mar 20, 2008

Socrates said:
You want to explain a bit? I'm envisioning you rotating the camera and taking a picture other than the one that you want!

The light from the flash travels very widely so it's not like you need to have it pointed in a very precise direction. I compose first, let the flash from the 400 go where it will (flipped up into the vertical position) and more often than not, lighting is not the issue in my photos shooting my daughter! :mrgreen: (ie, bad expression, caught at wrong moment, she blinked, missed focus, etc.)

If I'm really being serious, yeah I can break out the SB-600 and use the D80 instead. But then the handling is el-stinko with the SB-600/800 so I have the battery grip hooked up. But then I've got this large giant contraption that slows me down when I'm trying to crawl around on the floor. And plus, by the time I've composed the photo exactly the way I want and have the 600's flash head pointed the way I want, she's moved anyways. :lol:

It's the right tool for the wrong job. So now I use the 600 with the D80, but a much longer lens like my 70-300VR. Since you're not at point blank, precise flash orientation is much more critical and the 600 is a lot more useful then. I couldn't do it with a 400. And since you're not crawling around on the floor, all of the extra heft doesn't matter.

The D40/17-55DX/SB-400 is my close-in agile weapon. The D80/70-300VR/SB-600 is the sniper rifle.

All this for getting photos of an 11 month old. :mrgreen:

Socrates · Mar 20, 2008

Mav said:
All this for getting photos of an 11 month old. :mrgreen:

I can appreciate that. I have a 17-month old granddaughter and I ain't 22 anymore! (Actually, it's worse than usual as I got married at 28 and my son got married at 30 and neither one of us had a shotgun marriage.)

Mav · Mar 20, 2008

D80, 85mm f/1.8 @ f/2.8, 1/125s, iso800, SB-600 flash pointed up and to the right. My wife tickling our daughter on the couch.

The 400 would have worked too, but you can tell the light is sorta coming from the side to give some texture and 3D look, which I like.

This is nothing special here, but this is the D40 with the 17-55 and SB-400. The flash head is pointed straight up and going to the right, bouncing off the wall, and then coming back.

Now here's the stumper. :mrgreen: The D80, 17-55DX @ f/2.8, and SB-600 pointed up and to the left. You can see the light bouncing off the wall/ceiling and then coming back down on her face, and how the light fades towards the back of her head. If I had used the SB-400 though, and rotated the camera a bit more counter-clockwise, I think I could have gotten just about the same shot with less hassle, and might have liked the composition a bit better too.

Anyways, it's a crap shoot and style dependent too. I "say" I use stuff a certain way, but I end up swapping stuff out and mixing things up a lot too. Different tools used different ways let you shoot differently, and keeps a varied and interesting look to your photography. Just think of it this way. An SB-400 and 600 combined cost less than one 800 and do a lot more, so just get both. :lol:

kundalini · Mar 20, 2008

Socrates said:
You want to explain a bit? I'm envisioning you rotating the camera and taking a picture other than the one that you want!

I may be off base with this, but this is a technique I use when in close corners with people or pets. I can certainly get all the light I need without blasting my subject. It may be what Mav is saying, maybe not. I got the tip for this from elsapet in this thread.

Mav · Mar 20, 2008

LOL, yeah I shoot with the flash completely backwards too. My wife thinks I'm the biggest dork, but she loves the photos!

Socrates · Mar 20, 2008

Mav said:
LOL, yeah I shoot with the flash completely backwards too. My wife thinks I'm the biggest dork, but she loves the photos!

My wife thinks I'm a dork but I don't set the flash head backwards. What do you suppose is the reason?

andrew99 · Mar 20, 2008

I love to bounce my SB600 off walls and ceilings too, being able to rotate the head is great.

Have you guys experimented with making bounce cards, adding a tupperware diffuser, etc?

Mav · Mar 20, 2008

Socrates said:
My wife thinks I'm a dork but I don't set the flash head backwards. What do you suppose is the reason?

Turn the flash head backwards and see what her reaction is then and report back. :mrgreen:

Village Idiot · Mar 20, 2008

The D70 and D50 and Possibly the D200 have faster x sync speeds as well. Even the D40 can go over 1/500. There's several post on the strobist blog about them. I believe, with the Nikon flashes, at a lower power then have a longer flash duration which allows you to fire them with a faster shutter speed. This has to be done manually though. I don't know that you can put the flashes onto the camera hot shoe and still get a faster sync speed, but with a cheap radio trigger or a sync cable it may be possible.

Edit: Here's the blog entry. The first picture was taken at 1/4000 shutter speed without getting any cutoff.

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2008/01/control-your-world-with-ultra-high-sync.html

Mav · Mar 20, 2008

Yeah, the Nikons with the secondary electronic shutter can all be hacked into going way over the 1/500s firmware limit, which is more or less arbitrary. The D200 isn't one of those, though. It does 1/250s but has trouble running even that fast sometimes.

http://www.kenrockwell.com/tech/syncspeed.htm#speeds

The D40, D50, D70, D70s and older D1, D1h, and D1x will all do 1/500s or faster via "hack" modes.

The D40x, D60, D80, D100, D200, D300, D3, and even the D2-series lack this and can only manage 1/200s to 1/320s at best since they lack the electronic shutters and only have the primary mechanical.