Very difficult to admit but I am confused

[JIP]

O.k. I give up I am totally lost, well I guess not totally lost but a little confused. Here goes, I have been shooting weddings now for 6 years I shot with a Bronica Etrsi and a Metz 60CT-1 and 4. I was not the best but i think I was pretty damn good at it. When i would shoot outdoors with flash I would throw my subjects in the shade meter off of the background bright area and set the slider on my flash for the aperture I came up with on my meter reading. I know this is not the perfect method but it worked very well for me. So now comes to the difficult part for me I am now shooting with digital Nikon D70s and an SB800 and I am finding it very hard to figure out how to repeat this process the SB800 has a totally different setting on manual so I am not sure how to make this method work for me. Now before you say anything I do understand that film has alot more latitude than digital so some borderline shots were probably saved by the lab but i need help. I want to reproduce the quality shots I used to be able to shoot with my Bronica so can someone tell me how?????

 

[Garbz]

Can you possibly take advantage of CLS metreing with the SB-800? When set in iTTL mode fire the flash compensating any compensation your camera does. i.e. if you D70's exposure based on the metred setting from your hand held metre is -1EV based on the D70's own metre, set the flash to +1EV may do the trick.

Beyond that I am not sure exactly how you want the SB-800 to work like the other units. Do the other units metre their own light and you provide them with the aperture and ISO you are using? This can be done on the SB-800 by setting the flash to A or AA modes. With the former you set the ISO and aperture of the camera manually, and with the latter they are loaded off the camera if it's either attached or you are using wireless CLS to trigger it.

 

[gizmo2071]

I think I'll be confused aswell when I switch to a digital Flash unit.
I currently use a Cobra auto0210, which is actually fully manual.
You set the iso on the slider, then it gives you an idea of what distance the flash will fire too and what aperture to use.

 

[Mike_E]

JIP, if you still have the Metz flashes, use them!

The Sb's are terrific flashes with amazing abilities but for a straight forward example like this the Metz is hard to beat (especially when you take the quality of their light into account).

Just for the heck of it try putting a model in a shady spot and your Metz on a stand set to which ever aperture you want to shoot at. Make sure that you have the Metz in the middle of the range stated on the flash away from the subject.

Measure the background and set your shutter speed for the exposure you would like to see on that with the aperture still set to what you determined for your subject (make sure of course that you are within your sync speed- if not then rethink your aperture) and then fire away.

I think that you will find that the problems go away and you are left with some really nice shots.

mike

 

[Hertz van Rental]

If you use a 60CT-1 with a digital the trigger voltage might fry the camera circuits unless you get an isolator. I use a 60CT with slave and I just got one of these:
http://www.weinproducts.com/safesyncs.htm
You should then be able to use the same set up you are familiar with.

 

[Mike_E]

Hi Hertz. You are right in that you should always check. My 60 CT1 is well under the 250V max for my D200 but I don't know what the max is for the D70 and as I use a wireless set up these days I tend to forget all about it.

Thanks for bringing it up.

mike

I'm betting JIP already knew this but for anyone else reading this-do check.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

Why don't' you just meter the background, get your shutter speed to 1/500th or lower, and just go? The flash should fill in perfect.

 

[Mike_E]

If simple fill is all you want then that would do it, or just put it in program mode and shoot as the D70 should be able to handle that.

If you are trying for one of the forms of oblique lighting using off the camera lighting the 'Dragging the Shutter' style of metering is the easiest of which I'm aware (both for stylistic lighting of the subject and DOF control/exposure control of the background). If we could get Hertz back here he (or any of our other Gurus here) might have a better method.

mike

 

[JIP]

Why don't' you just meter the background, get your shutter speed to 1/500th or lower, and just go? The flash should fill in perfect.

See that's the thing for me the Metz was simple it had a slider with apertures so when I set the camera I would just set the slider appropriately and fire and it worked. The problrm I have now is I don't understand the manual mode on the SB-800. It seems like there is no similar setting where I can set the aoerture in the flash. This is why it is so hard for me to admit because I am sure the solution is so simple and me the photographer who has been shooting professtionally for what 10 years? more? I know I hav shot weddings for 6 and for newspapers for the rest and now I can't figure out this stupid thing.

 

[Sw1tchFX]

I use an SB-600 because I don't need the 800, but i'm pretty sure the 800 has a non-TTL A mode on it.

The fill in TTL should work though. Nikon's flash system is REALLY good, it should be able to figure something like this out.