In Depth Comparison/Review: Neewer VK750II vs. Nikon SB700

[smedz28]

At this point i've used it twice and i'm unsure of if I am actually changing the power setting correctly, so I guess a description of how to correctly adjust the power in manual mode as I would be looking to use this off camera. Unless I am looking at it wrong the power seems to change regardless of which directional buttons I press and I don't really understand the scale, if I remember correctly once you go through all the stops of power there seems to be a kind of -1 and 2 thing going on once you cycle through the range of power setting?

 

[dannylightning]

nice review. i have 2 of the VK750II flashes and i think they are really nice.. build quality seems good to me, they work very well IMO i think its a great flash for not allot of money..

i dropped one of them and it hit the ground hard. it would not come on after that.. i found that the prongs that make contact with the battery's bent down on impact and were not making contact with the battery any more.. i was able to bend them back so they do make contact with the battery's again and the flash has been working great ever since....

that was a pretty minor thing to happen for as hard as it hit, it was up pretty high on a light stand and i forgot to lock it in the tripod mount when i put it up there. i would say there pretty tough..

 

[WayneF]

The reason your are seeing dark images from the SB700 is that the flash is defaulting to TTL-BL mode and trying to match the flash power to the ambient background illumination. To force the SB700 into basic TTL mode you have to have the camera metering mode set to spot metering.
The lack of a simple method to select between TTL and TTL-BL is a real PITA with the SB700

It is a nice review, thanks Braineack. I'm late to the party, but I had missed it before. I have a VK750 too, and I like it a lot. It works well, and it is an amazing flash for the price. Extreme bargain.

But the SB-700 dark direct flash is not TTL BL. The camera metering system does the TTL BL, so the VK750 is doing TTL BL too. TTL BL is the default for any TTL flash, unless TTL is directly specified (spot metering for example).

The dark direct flash is a problem of Nikon cameras. They brag that they use the D-lens distance, which I think only means with flash. Meaning, if the metering thinks the metered flash is going to be brighter than the distance indicates it should, TTL BL direct flash reduces the flash level to match what the D-lens is reporting. This only happens for TTL BL direct flash. It does NOT happen for bounce or TTL flash mode.

We can argue direct flash does often have a dark background when the flash won't reach that far back, which metering of the dark background can cause overexposure of direct flash trying to brighten the scene, so it is a good idea. Just implemented very poorly.

It works better for prime lenses, but the big problem is that Nikon zoom lenses, esp the less expensive DX lenses, report miserably inaccurate and variable distance. Distance is just lens rotation, and due to the internal focusing, they report something different at each zoom setting. You can check yours, Exif reports focus distance, but it may be unbelievable at wide zoom values. (Blessed exception, the widest lenses, 12 and 14mm, report very little distance info, and call most distances "infinity"). Distance only causes a flash exposure problem when the lens distance is LESS than the actual distance. It is ignored if greater (Infinity is a good thing). Examples at the links below. It can cause very dark TTL BL direct flash pictures.

Yet, Nikon simply ignores this problem with zoom D lenses, and uses this distance number anyway, to override the metered flash exposure (only TTL BL direct flash). The meter may meter it right, but then the dumb D-lens screws it up, big time sometimes.

The Chinese difference is that the Nikon flashes have a tilt switch in the head, so the camera knows if direct flash or bounce. The Chinese flashes do not have that tilt switch, so the same procedure cannot be followed. Camera does not know if it Chinese flash is bouncing or not, so D-lens is ignored (thankfully).

Which means the Chinese flashes are immune from this bad zoom lens distance, (D-lens distance is thankfully ignored), but Nikon flashes cause it to be complied with, even when distance is grossly wrong. It can cause very dark direct flash TTL BL pictures. Again, only speaking of TTL BL direct flash.

My notion is the camera seriously needs two new menus:

1. Allow opt out of D-lens distance being used in any way. It is so bad.
2. Camera menu to directly choose TTL or TTL BL flash mode. Why not?

I seem to be the only one interested, but I have a couple of pages about this Nikon problem

Non-Nikon brand flashes bypass the TTL BL Zoom Problems
Nikon TTL BL flash - D-lens distance data accuracy

The metering is often pretty good, and to instead use what is actually metered, there are work-arounds (again, speaking default TTL BL with direct flash).

To disable the D-lens distance check (because it often interferes with TTL BL direct flash by Nikon flashes), then:

• Selecting TTL mode (as opposed to TTL BL mode) will disable the D-lens distance check. Some flashes had this menu (but only SB-910 now).
• Choosing Spot Metering will switch the TTL BL flash metering to be TTL mode. The flash system does not use Spot metering, and if the ambient is too dim to register much, Spot won't matter to it either (works well for indoor flash), but Spot metering does switch flash modes (Just don't forget to reset it when you go back into bright ambient.)
• If your camera model has the FV Lock function, it ignores the D-lens distance data, so its use will ignore this problem too.
• Tilting the Nikon flash head (for bounce) switches out D-lens distance support. The bounce path is assumed to be a different distance.
• Chinese flashes seem to be the exception, not suffering from the D-lens problem. They don't report head tilt, which seems able to suppress D-lens effects. That's a big plus.