sb-600 questions

Dooginfif20

I have a SB-600 and I have some questions about using it off camera. I have noticed that it is very finnicky at getting it to trigger some times. Is the flash triggered from the built in flash or is it actually triggered by IR? Also how can I get it to work on both left and right side of the camera. Sorry if these are lame questions but I really dont use my flash off camera very often and when I did it didnt work how I wanted it to. Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

nikmolson

how do you have it all set up? i have never used it off camera with out wireless triggers and didn't know that a D90 could command it

Qarik

Dooginfif20 wrote:

I have a SB-600 and I have some questions about using it off camera. I have noticed that it is very finnicky at getting it to trigger some times. Is the flash triggered from the built in flash or is it actually triggered by IR? Also how can I get it to work on both left and right side of the camera. Sorry if these are lame questions but I really dont use my flash off camera very often and when I did it didnt work how I wanted it to. Any comments would be greatly appreciated!

There is small circular dark plastic window on the side of the flash about the size of thumbtack head. This is the sensor for the slave and it is IR. This must be pointed towards your master flash The master trigger from your D90 is from a series of near imperceptible pre-flashes before the main flash.

You can hit it from both side of the camera by simply twisting the flash head 180 degrees (I beleive the sb600 can do this in one direction only.)

Dooginfif20

Qarik wrote:

There is small circular dark plastic window on the side of the flash about the size of thumbtack head. This is the sensor for the slave and it is IR. This must be pointed towards your master flash The master trigger from your D90 is from a series of near imperceptible pre-flashes before the main flash.

You can hit it from both side of the camera by simply twisting the flash head 180 degrees (I beleive the sb600 can do this in one direction only.)

That should actually work out! I never thought about rotating the flash so that the sensor points toward the camera when its on the other side. I knew this was a stupid question with an easy answer! Oh and all I loved your wedding pics you shot recently! What did you use to take them?

Qarik

Dooginfif20 wrote:

That should actually work out! I never thought about rotating the flash so that the sensor points toward the camera when its on the other side. I knew this was a stupid question with an easy answer! Oh and all I loved your wedding pics you shot recently! What did you use to take them?

Thank you! I used mostly the d90 and nikkor 24-70mm with a few shots of 85mm 1.4.

I only figured out the rotating flash head on my 4th off camera strobe session..DUH!

nikmolson

is there anyway to get past having the cameras popup flash effect the shot besides the over 1/200 fix ?

Wil Davis

I have a D300 and when using it in "Commander Mode", the pop-up flash can be set to "--" which still allows the control pre-flashes (commands to the other flash-units) but those flashes are so short and occur before the shutter opens so that they have no effect on the lighting. I thought all the Nikon CLS cameras had that feature.

HTH -
- Wil

Qarik

Wil Davis wrote:

I have a D300 and when using it in "Commander Mode", the pop-up flash can be set to "--" which still allows the control pre-flashes (commands to the other flash-units) but those flashes are so short and occur before the shutter opens so that they have no effect on the lighting. I thought all the Nikon CLS cameras had that feature.

HTH -
- Wil

never tried teh "--" but you can also set the commander in manual and lowest power setting which just about negates the effect of the flash.

fastfoci

im new to this as well. bought a SB-600 last night for my D90 and could not get it to flash every time. i have it on channel 1 group a. marked TTL but it only worked about 20$ of the time i walked away from the flash on the tripod.

this kinda helped
http://static.nikonusa.com/speedlight_demo/index.html

dlscott56

I use my SB-600 off camera in CLS mode quite a bit with my D80. It works great. You just have to be mindful of the fact that the sensor near the battery compartment can't be covered. Think line-of-site from commander to remote flashes.

Setting the on camera mode to "--" leaves it to fire the "instructions" only for the remotes. However, if you are very close up it does in fact contribute to the lighting depending on the shutter speed. I could be using it incorrectly though. What I do is place my hand in front of it when trying to use it this way. This allows the pre-flashing "commander" information to get to the remotes while blocking the light from my subject.

I believe the best way to use CLS and avoid this is to use the SU-800 commander unit attached to the camera hot shoe. It sends out the signals to the remotes without firing any flash.