Wireless off camera flash

[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.

http://dr-cbtan.fotopic.net/p4606288.html

Then, there are the amateurish looking shots:


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


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

[Raydar]

Great stuff Onxy

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

Cheers
Ray

[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.

[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