SB 800 or SB 900?

jbhinojosa · Oct 17, 2009

I'm looking to buy a flash and I had my eye on Nikon sb 800 af speedlight until I heard about the sb 900 af speedlight. The 900 is about half the price but other than that whats the difference? My thought is if I'm going to buy a flash I might as well buy the best one as an investment. Anyone know the difference or a better product?

Thanks

dhilberg · Oct 17, 2009

The SB-800 is discontinued and has been replaced by the SB-900. Don't buy the SB-800 unless you can get a good price, and I mean good, like sub-$300. A quick check on Amazon shows it's selling for $899 (extreme ripoff). Keep in mind these used to sell brand new for about $350. Considering the rather high asking prices for the used SB-800s that I've seen ($399 range), I'd forget about the SB-800 completely and get a SB-900. It's only $70 more than that brand new.

Garbz · Oct 17, 2009

Exactly. They are like a like for like replacement with an extra feature or two.

Teheheh I said like a like for like. I like that word.

jbhinojosa · Oct 17, 2009

Yeah Ive been working with sb 800 for months and I liked it. Now that I'm able to get my own thats the one I had in mind, perhaps because I'm familiar with it. Doing more research on this now

.

Thanks

blash · Oct 19, 2009

SB-900 is superior to the 800 in most ways (being the updated version).

What made me decide to pay for a SB-800 though is that Nikon killed off Film TTL support on the SB-900. If I want to shoot a flash on a film camera, then the SB-900 can't do it. The SB-800 is also a slightly smaller unit. Of course, most people nowadays won't care about those but I do think that, considering that a professional-quality F100 is only about $250 and will work with all the non-DX Nikon glass you already own, most people will buy a film body at one point or another just to fool around with.

KmH · Oct 19, 2009

I would look for a refurbished SB-800 at Nikon's authorized outlet Cameta Camera. I would pay up to $350 for a refurb or a good used one from a reputable seller.

The majority of my speedlight use is with the speedlight in manual mode and OCF (off camera flash). I rarely use CLS anymore. I use radio triggers/receivers with low priced speedlights like the Vivitar 485HV ($90 new).

For near the cost of an SB-900 I can have 4, 485HVs w/receivers.

BuZzZeRkEr · Oct 21, 2009

Well a point I think everyone missed on here is that wedding/event photographers are hoarding all the SB800's they can find because the SB900's fatal flaw is lock up due to over heating. Sb-900 is great for normal use, but wedding photographer put their speedlights through the ringer. If you go to BHphotovideo and read the reviews of the SB900....everyone loves them except wedding photographers....there are quite a few horror stories on there.

The prices on USED sb800 are MORE than what they paid for them new because they work better with external battery packs like the Quantum Turbo etc...and don't lock up/over heat as easy.

I own the SB-900, 800's, and 600's. The SB900 is worth every penny, although I wouldn't use it at a wedding or event. The sb900 serves as a great commander and portrait light with really easy to use menus and navigation tools. Thank goodness Nikon went to a really easy thumb switch to go between remote/commander modes...thats HUGE! The SB600 you have to press two buttons simultaneously and leave them down for a second just to get into the menu to turn on the remote mode.

Garbz · Oct 22, 2009

Really? A fatal flaw? I think it's a bulb saving feature. I managed to lock up my SB-800 for about 2 minutes on no less than 3 occasions (probably more but I can't think of any right now). 1 of them was a wedding.

Is the SB-900 much worse?

/EDIT: Scratch that. Google says it's much worse!

SpeedTrap · Oct 22, 2009

Garbz said:
Is the SB-900 much worse?

Yes it is, I had a chance to try one out at a wedding a few months ago while my SB-800 was getting fixed (I Dropped it) and it overheated and locked up 4 or 5 times that day and always at the worst time. I am glad I had an old Metz with me I could use instead.

IgsEMT · Oct 22, 2009

IT ALL DEPENDS ON WHAT YOU NEED IT FOR...
With negative review of SB900, I had to turn away from it. Got an SB800 and VERY happy with it.
Now the OPPOSITE end of it is if you'll be shooting manual, then look into getting sb80dx - you can probably get it cheap but the outcome will be similarly to Sb800.
I made a mistake of selling mine and regret it TILL THIS DAY!

Wolverinepwnes · Oct 29, 2009

SB-900 all the way! you can't find a SB-800 easily anyways! and its outdated

Wolverinepwnes · Oct 29, 2009

and ignore the "negative" reviews of the 900, you can just turn off the heat safety if you need to take that many shots in a row! thats the only difference!

Phranquey · Oct 29, 2009

The overheating bit is bad enough that a local camera store wouldn't even let me "test shoot" with it....enough people were coming in and testing it until it heated, which was was about 10 to 12 full power shots in a row, and then handing it back & not purchasing one....of course, that is exactly what I intended to do to see just how bad it was. I later got to try one out at a different store, but they outright asked me not to do this as the clerk handed it to me.

If your not shooting weddings, then it's a great flash.....but that is a disappointing statement for it now supposedly being the "flagship" model of speedlight. I'll stick with my 800.

Derrel · Oct 29, 2009

"Really? A fatal flaw? I think it's a bulb saving feature."

Well, with the increase in Strobist type use and abuse of portable speedlights, and the new breed of digital wedding shooters who turn in 1,400 to 1,600 shot count weddings, SB-900 units are overheating and locking up with enough frequency that the older,discontinued SB 800 has become the preferred flash of many people who want to fire a speedlight off of an external battery pack like a machine gun.

It sounds like Nikon might have gone a bit overboard on the thermal protection feature of the SB 900, but then again, the new trend of using one or two speedlight flashes instead of a 200 watt-second studio flash means that worldwide, hundreds of thousands of speedlights are being plopped onto umbrella mount brackets, and people are doing their "Strobist" stuff with flashes and many of them are/were deliberately ignoring the manual's stated flash number/cool-down time and just burning up flash tubes on SB 600 and SB 800 flashes.

So, yeah, the bulb-saving thermal protection the SB 900 has is good for SB 900 flash tube life span, and good for Nikon warranty claims reduction, but it seems that there are MANY wedding photogs and Strobist people who'd rather have an unprotected SB 800 that they can fire until a meltdown occurs--and they want it so badly that they have driven the price of the remaining SB 800 new and used inventory up to ridiculous levels.

It's almost like low-flow toilets and old-style toilets--I had a contractor tell me people call him all the time offering 500, 600 for an "old style toilet", and not the new 1.8 litre per flush models. Many people don't want any limits on any area of their lives. In-town speed limits of 40 MPH--PShaw, people are driving 50, 55 MPH down my neighborhood throughfair, and the motorcycle cops are writing $247 speeding tickets on average two days a week, but it doesn't stop these Suburban moms and dads from hauling A$$ through the neighborhood in their big gas-guzzling SUV's.