A little help on the Flashes please

[Sean1965]

I bought a Nissin flash and for the most part I love it. I just want to ask when looking at high speed sync and I forget the correct name but the curtain that closes at the end of an exposure to freeze action at the end 2nd curtain whatever. Is this common for these features to only be able to be enabled in TTL mode? My manual flash settings which I am trying to get the hang of I don't seem to be able to use these settings unless I am in TTL mode and when my flash is off the camera on a stand TTL doesn't work at all. Thanks in advance for the help.

 

[cgipson1]

TTL on third party flashes usually has different and somewhat limited levels of compatibility... don't know how good the Nissan is. Rear Curtain sync should work with manual.. it is more a function of the camera than the flash.. as it just determines when the flash goes off. TTL only works when the camera can communicate with the flash... via a cable or using Nikon CLS or the Canon equivalent. I doubt that the Nissan has that capability... and would need to either be mounted on the body, or on a TTL cord for that setup.

 

[Big Mike]

Yes, that is pretty typical AFAIK.

Two issues here, high speed sync (HSS for Canon, Auto FP for Nikon). This mode is for allowing the use of flash at higher shutter speeds by pulsing the flash. At fast shutter speeds, the shutter is never fully open, so the flash has to illuminate different parts of the image, one by one.

Rear curtain (2nd curtain) sync is telling the flash to fire at the end of the exposure, rather than the standard, which is at the start of the exposure. This is mutually exclusive of HSS for obvious reasons.
In 'normal' shooting, you probably wouldn't see a difference between first or second curtain sync. But if you have a longer shutter speed, enough ambient light and some movement of camera or subject, then you will have some motion blur (exposed via ambient light). So for example, someone dancing at a wedding reception and you're dragging the shutter to get some ambient exposure. The flash will still freeze the subject, but if you have enough ambient exposure, you will also get motion blur (actually two separate exposures). If you use first curtain sync, the flash frozen subject is at the start of the exposure and the blur will show in the direction of motion...so if your subject is walking/dancing, the blur looks to be going ahead of them...which tends to look silly or just wrong.
If you use 2nd curtain sync, the flash fires at the end of the exposure, so the ambient blur is behind them, this looks more natural and tends to give the impression of the 'forward' movement.

Note that if you are using TTL metering with 2nd curtain sync, the preflash will still fire before the exposure and so the delay between preflash and actual flash, will be as long as the exposure (in first curtain, it's practically immediate). So there is a possibility of confusing your subjects, especially with longer shutter speeds. They will see the preflash and assume that the photo has been taken and move/look away etc.

 

[Sean1965]

Yes I understand what they do Big Mike and I want to be able to use them so basically to use these features my nissin is well useless and I need a new flash for off camera usage? Because I want to satay away from Canon flashes all I have definitely learned recently about Canon is it is a rip off when talking cash.

 

[cgipson1]

You have a Canon body? Then for full TTL HSS system compatibility, you are going to need a Canon flash..... I can almost guarantee it! But maybe some of the Canon "heads" here can make a suggestion for you!

 

[Big Mike]

Yes I understand what they do Big Mike and I want to be able to use them so basically to use these features my nissin is well useless and I need a new flash for off camera usage? Because I want to satay away from Canon flashes all I have definitely learned recently about Canon is it is a rip off when talking cash.

Well, seeing as your Nissin won't do what you want it to....and the Canon probably will....which is the rip off? :er:

You're asking your gear to do some very advanced things...and you don't seem to want to spend a lot of money. That's a recipe for some headaches IMO.

 

[Sean1965]

Well I understand what you're saying and it isn't like I am against spending money I am just starting to see how little difference the sigma lenses are against a canon and when I got the nissin flash well on camera it was alot less then my 430ex2 which I returned and it seemed to be better all of these functions work on camera, but off I am kind of lost I guess I will have to buy a Canon I am still hoping for something else.

Hey guys I went back to read my manual and it says that the the model I have works seemlessly with the Canon products off camera in ttl and ettl modes..

Could it be that my XTI doesnt offer the settings I need to fire it?

I use a coyboy studio ir system and can usually just hold it and fire in manual mode but not the ttl could it be cause of the camera or the IR?

Here is the link to my camera manual and this thing rocks if I can get this part to work I am all set.

http://www.nissindigital.com/files/en__di866c_ii_users_manual_c0111rev.1.1.pdf