SB 600 dumb question

[Nimitz]

I recently purchased an SB-600 flash unit for my Nikon D200. I already have a full studio strobe setup and understand flash photogrpahy with strobes (exposure is only controlled by apeture setting & camera is set to flash sync speed of camera, etc, etc).

However, I went to a wedding over the weekend and thought it would be a good place to experiement with my new flash. (Adding the ability to do mobile flash photography adds another dimension to capturing pet portraits.) However, there is apparently something I must be missing because with leaving my camera in program mode (auto shutter & exp) & the SB-600 in auto if there wasn't enough light the flash did nothing to illuminate the scene. When I reduced shutter speed to get the correct exposure of course the images were blurry do to motion or camera shake.

So, by the end of the reception I just set the camera to manual, shutter to 1/100 and opened the aperature as wide as it would go and I started to get some reasonable shots.

So, there must be something fundamental I'm missing about using this type of flash since I assume you should be able to shoot with the camera in full auto mode as well as shutter priority, aperature priority & manual.

I thought in auto mode the flash unit would calculate the amount of flash req'd based on what shutter & aperature the camera's TTL system selected and for the other modes based on what you selected for shutter and/or aperature?

I'm sure I'm making this harder then it is :cry:

 

[Garbz]

Was everything set in Auto? Were you bouncing light off a black ceiling? It could be you were just running out of juice from the flash.

 

[dipstick]

You say the flash did nothing, but did it fire at all?

If the flash was set to TTL mode it should work with your camera no matter if you shoot in Program or manual mode.

It sounds strange if it did fire without doing anything for your exposure, even if the flash was set in the wrong mode.

 

[Nimitz]

my first images were inside a home (night before wedding party) with typical interior lighting. I 'thought' the camera was in 'program' mode & the SB 600 in auto (balanced fill flash). When i went to take my first shot the camera used a very slow shutter speed do to low light conditions & the shot came out blurry due to camera shake. Shouldn't the TLL/flash system have adjusted for the light and picked a faster shutter speed?
I also have the camera's min flash sync speed set tp 1/15. Is this affecting the setup as well?