Used SB800 for first time and gave it a real workout

[Spooky]

I had the opportunity to photograph some girls in a bikini competition. The event had a photographer but through a contact I was allowed to also cover it. This is the first time I have ever tried to photograph such an event.

Hard work but someone has to do it.

I took about half the shots in about a 3m by 3m room with 10 contestants, 3 make up and hair people, another photographer and everyones bags and equipment. Needless to say it was hard to get clear shots amid the chaos of girls getting ready. There was also a time pressure as the girls had to get changed and photographed between each catwalk session. Pretty hectic stuff.

There was formal wear, casual wear and of course bikinis.

The other half of my shots were taken out by the catwalk. A rope kept the crowd back and gave me and the other photographer a bit of room to move around.

I took about 370 keepable images on the night in about 3 hours. I started shooting RAW but when I had filled one of my two 1GB cards up after the formal wear I changed to Jpeg so I would have enough space to record the whole event.

Anyway every shot was with flash and the SB800 performed well. I had only got it from Birdy the night before (thanks a bunch Birdy for getting it to me so quickly) and only had time to read the manual at work and take 10mins worth of test shots before the show.

I pretty much went through all the batteries, the eight I got from Birdy plus four I all ready had.

I'd say about 95% of my shots were pretty well exposed and I am pretty happy with that given I have never used a flash other than a built in one and have very little flash photography experience.

I used the diffuser dome for all shots and generally had about +1/3 flash compensation set.

My biggest mistake was trying to take two images quickly. Sometimes the flash hadn't cycled to ready yet and resulted in a dark image. I noticed this was more likely to happen when the batteries were getting closer to depletion.

On the D70 I used flash WB most of the night and for a time I left it on Auto WB. I went through one and a half D70 batteries.

What did I learn from the night?

- The WB on the D70 was great under the circumstances. I hardly needed to touch WB in Nikon Capture. I did tweak the exposure on some shots but overall I didn't need to use RAW for WB reasons.

- The autofocus on the D70 with the kit lens impressed me in conjunction with the flash. There were many times I wish it locked on a bit quicker but I think I had only two shots that I deleted because they weren't focused.

- If I continue to shoot RAW I need more than two 1GB CF cards for events like that.

- I need a few more batteries for the flash so I can use the 5th battery for faster cycle time.

- The importance of the histogram and LCD screen to judge exposure, here I was with new equipment and a newbie at flash photography and using this digital camera technology as a tool was still able to get a good result. I would have no immediate feedback with a film camera and probably would have screwed most of the exposures not knowing if what I was doing was okay.

- I love taking pictures of good looking women.



Sorry for the length of this post but I was excited about the night and wanted to share my observations.

I have placed some of my images in a post in the Image Review forum.

Cheers

[Aussie Dave]

Hi Spooky
just had a peek of your shoot on Pixspot.....great photos !
It must have been hard to keep your attention on camera settings ?!?!??

Did you find the SB800 easy to learn "on the fly", so to speak ? I often read that there are so many options and functions, that some people find it daunting.

Looking forward to further submissons from you...

[Alex]

Well done, Spooky. I like the photos, women are OK

I have the same question as Dave. How easy is it to learn to use SB800 for a newbie like me?

Alex

[Spooky]

I set it on TTL BL mode and just used the flash output level compensation adjustment as necessary. I found I generally needed 1/3 to 2/3 most of the time to get adequate exposures. I used the histogram and LCD screen to judge as I went and it turned out all right.

As for all the other things I will try and learn them over time. But I think the very basics are not that hard to pick up in an half an hour reading the manual and doing some test shooting. Alot of the stuff in the manual I skipped over because it was not relevant to the D70 and covered more advanced stuff. I was only concentrating on the basics to start.

[Manta]

Hey Spooky - thanks for posting your views on the light sabre.

I've only had mine for a month and I've certainly got a lot to learn but I'm getting some nice results.

One thing I've found is that for night or low light conditions, where you wouldn't normally get a shot WITHOUT flash, I prefer to use just TTL, not TTL BL. I found this gives a better exposure. TTL BL is for fill flash where there is some ambient light or the subject is backlit in normal light situations.

It looks like you were using direct flash for the shots. If you are using the diffuser, try tilting the head for bounced flash, provided the ceiling is white or light coloured (so as not to reflect coloured light on the subject) and not too high that the bounced flash is lost along the journey. This way you'll eliminate those harsh shadows when the subject is close to a wall or backdrop.

Did you have your camera set to P (program) mode?

[mudder]

These look great especially if you haven't used the flash before, I'm still coming to grips with mine... And thanks for sharing what you've learnt, makes it easier for us flash dumbies

What was the ambient lighting in the room like?

Cheers.

[Spooky]

In the main area where the catwalk was the ceiling was quite high, probably 5 to 6 meters and had lighting racks and lights etc. Too far I believe for the bounce to work. I could have tried the bounce technique in the little room where I took the photos against the dark wall as it had a standard height ceiling. I could not move the models away from the wall to reduce the shadow because of the smallness of the room.

The lighting was low as is common in trendy pubs these days. I think they had downlights spread around the place but they were turned down quite low in the little room. There was a bit more light on the stage as it was lit with some stage lights, but still not especially bright.

I stuck with the TTL BL because I wanted to capture the crowd and the advertsing images around the place in many of the images as well as the models. My reading of the manual indicated TTL BL was probably what I was after.

If you were solely interested in the models probably TTL would be the go.
Next time I am in that situation I will try the TTL mode and see what happens.

I had the D70 in Aperture priority mode except for a short period when I put it on Auto. I nearly all ways use Aperture priority for shooting as part of training myself about photography rather than "cheating" by pointing and shooting in Auto.

[Manta]

You've made good points here Spooky and obviously you considered a lot about the shot before deciding which settings to use.

I tend to use P or M modes (never Auto) with my SB but will try A and S at some stage to see the difference.

It's all part of the learning process and I suppose if we ever get our SB-800 Group Therapy session off the ground we all might get a little closer to a greater understanding the flash's capabilities.

[mudder]

Thanks for the insight Spooky, very helpful...

Cheers.