Question about Nikon CLS- Off camera flash
lilmomma
Registered Users Posts: 1,060 Major grins
I'm curious if anyone knows the approximate indoor reach that the nikon CLS system has. I have sb600's and I have a wedding coming up and would like to stick my flashes off camera at the reception. But I was wondering if I need to be within like 5-10 feet of it at all times or if I have some room to move around. If I don't have much room then I need to invest in something to fire it that will give me more room. although I really hate to do that and defeat the purpose of the CLS. any insight is appreciated. thanks 
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But CLS works best for me at home (studio), as the range is always within 10 feet. At a hall, you will find that CLS won't work best as well as outdoors.
The cheapest option would be getting YongNuo flash triggers as I have 4 of them for my nikon flashes. You can try to use CLS but from my experience it won't work well.
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I shoot at 20-30 feet outdoors with it all the time no problem and at least that much indoors, I have never actually set it up indoors where it didn't work, give it a try.
Remember you need line of sight for best results, sometimes indoors you can fudge that a bit because the light bounces around and sometimes the sensor will still get the signal.
I use the sb800, hopefully the sb600 is the same.
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Zoomer and Zerodog- thanks for your replies as well. I don't think the place is huge or anything, but just wanted to know what some others experiences have been. i'm glad to know the reach has been fairly decent for you. I'm pretty sure it will work but i'll be testing it out before hand of course. Thanks
I've used ( and Blabbed) about using these flash combo's via the CLS for two+ years now.
The line of sight reach out of doors is +/- 98ft. they can reach further, but not reliably. Or turn more than 30 degrees away from them at this distance and they will miss the fire signal. Closer, say 50ft and you can turn 45 degrees either way and fire fine.
Indoors I have used them high/low and far. The nice thing about inside is, the signals have walls to bounce from. So if you have a large room even the ones on the other side and behind you will fire if shooting away from them.
The thing to note is you cannot light a big room without having a bank of them : say a 60ft by 30ft room, you might need as many as eight flashes to really light it up. Also, drapes and plants and anything that can disrupt the signal will basically split the signal up and make it die before it reaches it's intended target. Using the IR signal as many of us like to do requires you to use it like a pool player having a clear bounce area to bounce from/to.
Talking technique, I assume you already have a technique that you like, though you're asking about these so perhaps you are trying a new technique. There are so very many ways to light a particular scene, sometimes being all lit up ends up not looking as dramatic as being spot lit for a particular photo op.
HTH~
I use a SB900 and 2 SB800's for shooting large spaces. The 900 is on camera with the 2 SB800's mounted to spring clamps for easy positioning and there are lots of things you can clamp to. Line of sight is certainly the most reliable positioning for shots but I find that bounced IR works pretty well as shown below:
If you can get into the space ahead of time you will be ahead of the game to try some exposures and positioning.
Good Luck
Deacon
Caroline
This was a panorama (five or six shots) with an SB600 on the camera, and an SB800 just in front of the far balustrade. You'll see that the basses along the far wall picked up the flash from the SB800 (just a bit). The distance between the flash heads was at least 20 feet, and they were not in direct line of sight.
HTH -
- Wil
That may be but then it seems you are wasting a very
expensive asset....
Wasting an asset is to not be able to use off camera flash the way you want it to in tricky scenarios.
best example that I feel like writing at the moment:
I am taking a photo of someone looking out the window in front of me, she is about 10 -15' from me, there is a door open next to me. It is a bright sunny day, but it's just shade outside the door and window.
set up a light stand with a SB-600 right outside the window and I baffle the window.
Unable to get a reliably set off the sb-600 with my on board flash. Instead I use the SB-900 as a commander, set it to 200mm zoom and point it directly at the 600. I am able to trigger the 600 with worry.
I agree with this. I've had much more consistent results with multiple flashes firing using my SU-800 as my commander instead of the on camera flash as commander. I suspect the SU-800 (and SB800 and SB900) send out a much broader IR signal.
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Don't worry. I can fix you in photoshop.
If it were just one flash I could find a better reason for the failure, but with both, you gotta say it must've been the music.
And why music? I suspect that something the Band was using interrupted the electromagnetic field and interrupted your IR signal to your flashes. I do wonder what it was they were using that could have done this? Perhaps they were sending signals to speakers for control of some aspect, or just to float the sound signal on top of a lightwave?
??no help from me, but lots of questions~