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Wireless off camera flash

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 8:15 am
by Onyx
One of the much tauted features of Nikon's new i-TTL flash system are their wireless capabilities, aka. CLS (Creative Lighting System).

To be honest, I've never had much luck with illuminating a subject with flash off camera. Any tips welcome...

Here's a pic taken with my D70 at a Nikon demonstration of its wireless flash system. 3 SB800s were used. Professional setup, great results.
Image
http://dr-cbtan.fotopic.net/p4606288.html

Then, there are the amateurish looking shots:

Image
http://dr-cbtan.fotopic.net/p7817166.html

Image
http://dr-cbtan.fotopic.net/p7817167.html

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 9:45 am
by Raydar
Great stuff Onxy :wink:

What are those Robosapien's like I was thinking of getting one of them for somthing to play with????? :?
I've given up with whats in my pants :shock: :wink:

Cheers
Ray :lol:

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 9:57 am
by Onyx
That was a gift from my sister to her partner on his b'day. ;)
Well, the remote unit has tons of buttons, each of them moves one part or another on the robot... so there's tons of hours of discovery there. But there's also a number of hack/mod sites and the robot is programmable (eg. to do the macarena dance), so those electronically inclined will have even more fun modifying/customise the robot. They are a little pricey tho, and I would expect them to drop in price maybe leading up to the xmas rush. :)

PostPosted: Sat Sep 25, 2004 10:10 am
by krissingleton
I've had fairly good results, but I mainly use it for off camera fill flash with ambient light eg outdoors post wedding shots
I only have 1 sb800 so I couldn't use it for much more although have sometimes used a lastolite reflector on opposite side

I have NEVER used it as the only light source (doesn't mean you can't, just that I haven't :))
Basically I put D70 in Commander-->ttl and maybe dial in some minus FEC (aroun -1.7 using flash button and front command wheel on camera)

if it's a little trickier, for example, I want to underexpose background, then I might go to commander-->AA so that sb800 only exposes for my aperture and uses it's onboard sensor, not what I'm doing with ambient light, and use spot metering for background


And if it's REALLY tricky, I go to commander-->manual and then take 100 shots (lol) varying aperture (for flash exposure) and shutter speed (to compensate aperture) until I get it right!!


Can't post an example because I am at my day job being a mild mannered metrologist at the moment (well, I am at work but surfing photography forums!!!)
However, there are heaps of good examples at http://www.pbase.com/dlcmh/d70_amazing_pics

hope this helps a bit :)

Kris