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Hi All you flash people who knows the ins and outs of these things!! I am wanting to know is there a way to speed up the pre flashes when you have it set to stop red eye? as at times i have used it to take a shot and people pose and it take so long for the main flash to get the shot and can be a pain at times so maybe i am doing it all wrong.

Cheers
The Dumb One
BBJ

I am wanting to know is there a way to speed up the pre flashes when you have it set to stop red eye? as at times i have used it to take a shot and people pose and it take so long for the main flash to get the shot and can be a pain at times so maybe i am doing it all wrong.

Question is, why would you turn on red-eye reduction for this flash? Does it really create some red-eye problem when the flash is mounted on camera? (without red-eye reduction)

Redeye occurs when the flash is firing at the same axis as the lens. ie, built in flash on the P&S cameras. With the SB800, given ability to bounce off walls & ceiling, plus the extra height gained on camera, it should have very little effect on the 'red-eye' problem.

What are your settings? Any sample shot of problem you trying to solve?

1- Try rotating the flash away from the lens axis (instead of pointing it straight), eg. aim it up 45deg or rotate it away from the dead front position.
2- Try firing the flash off camera. I'm assuming you are running D2 cameras, so you might need a wireless trigger or a SC28/29 sync cables to try this.

Thanks Yi-p, I am not up to playing with the flash a lot but have in the past had a few pics where the red eye has been a problem and had not thought about adjusting angle of flash as some places i have been the ceilings have been very high so thought bouncing would not be good. It was just a thought as the time it takes for the preflashes seems slow and was curious if could be made faster. I hate using flash unless i really have to.LOL

If i can find some pics i will post them.

Yi-P wrote:Redeye occurs when the flash is firing at the same axis as the lens.

Or close to it.

Bouncing will help, as will moving the flash off camera.

The easiest way, John, would be to grab a SC-29, and then just hold the flash at arm's length when you make the image. Obviously, disable red-eye for this.

BBJ wrote:had not thought about adjusting angle of flash as some places i have been the ceilings have been very high so thought bouncing would not be good.

A 45deg up with bounce card out should solve most of your problems. Or stick a piece of white cardboard with rubberband to the head of your flash... it works the same way but has much larger area to 'bounce' off from.