- This topic is empty.
Portable Portraiture Solution at PhotoFest
-
Did anybody else see the demo given by John McDonald of Nikon Solutions Training Experts? If that’s the best Nikon can do, I don’t feel so bad using Canon after all. :)
Admittedly, I don’t use Canon’s wireless TTL flash setup either, preferring to do a setup like that using a Vivitar 285 triggered by radio trigger and metered using a flashmeter. Much quicker to setup and far more predictable.
I was astonished at the number of test shots he had to take before he had a moderately acceptable image. I shudder to think how long it would take non-experts to do the same thing. It all seemed rather hit and miss to me and in fact it’s even put me off using Canon’s remote TTL system! :(
ETTL is hit and miss at best. Finding Strobist.com soon after Dave Hobby started it made a massive difference to how I approach it. It’s hard to believe it’s a year ago.
Sounds like I didn’t miss anything Thorsten. I was going up around 10 to 2 and was told it was already full, so I went back to meet friends in the bar.At least with the 580ex II they had the decency to finally out a PC sync socket on the flash.
seanmcfoto wrote:
Finding Strobist.com soon after Dave Hobby started it made a massive difference to how I approach it. It’s hard to believe it’s a year ago.
Yes, it’s an excellent resource – one I would highly recommend, along with http://www.dg28.com/
Were you at that Thorsten ??
There was a whole posse of us in the back row – myself, expressbro, denverdoll, joe elway, ali and merv.
Felt a bit sorry for him. I was using an Sb600 & 800 remotely in a couple of communion shoots on Saturday and the results were great, have to say however that the “seminar” would put anyone off using the system.
Aiden (Joe Elway) just kept muttering – I’m glad I use Canon :lol: :lol:
Rgds
Kevin
KPM wrote:
I was using an SB600 & 800 remotely in a couple of communion shoots on Saturday and the results were great, have to say however that the “seminar” would put anyone off using the system.
KevinI’ve tried to get my head around this once or twice. I got it working but the SB800 seem to dump out it’s whole charge and then I didn’t go back to it for a while and had to re-learn it all again!. How do you set up your SB600 and SB800, what Nikon are you using?
Dave
I use two SB 600’s and an old SB 25 with an optical trigger if necessary. In the D200 flash menu you set the built in flash to ‘commander’, this gets you another menu with three groups (plus the on-board if you want that to contribute). You can choose for each group to use iTTL metering, AA or manual. I mostly use manual and two groups, one for the main light, that you can set at full/quater/eight/sixteenth etc. and the second group for fill at whatever ratio you want. Then you just put each flash in wireless mode (holding two buttons on the SB600’s) and set the group A, B or C. Sounds complicated but actually quick and logical when you’ve done it once or twice.
I have to qualify this with the fact that unlike most photographers for whom softness is the holy grail, I need harshnees for my subjects and now use it in full manual control but in all iTTL I got great results.
As a “Hurler on the ditch” just looking at the results most peple are getting with Remote “Hotshoe” flash, I have seen huge potential and some very good and interesting results. However it reminds me of the early days of Outdoor fill flash – most use of the remote units are overcooked and artificial looking. As I gather you have lots of control I just put this down to opperator error! Although I believe in AUTO (anything) where it works (Daylight metering) the best results I have seen with remote flash is from a Photographer who uses all his flashguns on manual and knows what he is doing! Try using a flash metre for a while (Until you get used to your results and equipment) and the very fact of slowing down and having to think about the output from each head will greatly improve your results.
I think this off camera flash is the mutts nuts. I’m still learning, but I’ve gotten some ok results with my limited knowledge, but I’ve a long way to go on cracking it.
David from strobist is doing a talk in London weekend after next (it’s sold out). I’ve got a place for the Sunday, so that shoudl throw some light on the subject. :-)
Also, by learning this stuff from a manual point of view, you can buy older 2nd hand non-ttl flashes as you’ll be programming them yourself instead of the ttl programming them. I think I saw some radio remotes on the Barker stand on Sunday, a flash meter, and your good to go!
Merv.
mervifwdc wrote:
you can buy older 2nd hand non-ttl flashes as you’ll be programming them yourself instead of the ttl programming them. I think I saw some radio remotes on the Barker stand on Sunday, a flash meter, and your good to go!
Merv.Hear, hear. I’ve been messing about with off camera flash for a number of years. In fairness mostly using my 2 Metz 45’s on auto but using cheap flash slaves (about ?10 each) to fire each unit. I use a bounce/swivel flash on camera pointing away from the subject as trigger.
To get you started you can use the cheapest of flashes as Merv said, but the only down side is that on manual all external flash units dump out their whole charge each time they fire so unless you’re on new batteries you won’t exactly be firing on Continuous Mode :). But well worth a try.
I tried the Commander Mode on the D200 as suggested by CianMcLiam and lo and behold the SB800 fired without dumping it’s whole charge. Either I was doing something terribly wrong or the quality of the teacher is just way better :) :). Thanks for that.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.
