avoiding pinpoint "catchlights" from pop up when using off camera flash??

lilmomma

So I have been doing some things with off camera flash using pop up as commander, but something I've noticed is I still get pinpoint lights in the eyes...yuck! I have my pop up turned off, but I guess it puts out a little light to fire the sb600. Anyone else have this problem?

Qarik

lilmomma wrote:

So I have been doing some things with off camera flash using pop up as commander, but something I've noticed is I still get pinpoint lights in the eyes...yuck! I have my pop up turned off, but I guess it puts out a little light to fire the sb600. Anyone else have this problem?

example? also are you sure the commander light is "off"? It should be set to "--".

lilmomma

let me look for one and i'll post...

but yep, positive that it's set to --

MrBook2

I know exactly what you are talking about, as I see it too with my D200 and SB-600's. I think the issue is that the pop-up flash does not quite cut off in time before the shutter opens for the actual picture. The way I avoid it is to deflect the pop-up. (This does not work well in a really large room.) I have a "better bounce card" (a piece of craft foam) that I keep in my camera bag. I just hold it above my lens, angling the flash from the pop-up up towards the ceiling. Most of the time, the ceiling bounce is plenty to get the SB-600's to fire.

There is also a dodad that Nikon used to cell that slid into the hot shoe and put a screen in front of the pop-up so as to only allow the near-IR that does the triggering through. You can find it here: http://www.adorama.com/INKSG31R.html I don't know if it will fit the D90, or if Nikon makes one for the D90. I also think I remember that folks have had issues with being able to get this thing into the flash shoe just fine, but it is really really tight coming back out, so be gentle!

Hope this helps.

Manfr3d

lilmomma wrote:

So I have been doing some things with off camera flash using pop up as commander, but something I've noticed is I still get pinpoint lights in the eyes...yuck! I have my pop up turned off, but I guess it puts out a little light to fire the sb600. Anyone else have this problem?

You need to increase the light source to get rid of point lights. As long as you
have the lights in front of your subject you will always get some kind of reflection
of the light source in the subjects eyes because eyes reflect light.