SB-900 impressions

Photometric

I am looking at the SB-900, and need some real life impressions of the flash. For example, is it suitable for use in a party/reception setting as a primary light source?

A friend asked me to come to a party to take some pictures as a favor, so I will be renting one for the weekend. However, I wanted to hear if enough people like them, I might end up just buying it.

ziggy53

The Nikon SB-900 is Nikon's best flash; what's not to love?

If you simply mount it onto the camera as a direct flash it will only be marginally better than the camera's built-in flash, so I recommend at least using some DIY flash modifiers/bounce devices to improve the results.

I greatly prefer the following 2 DIY light modifiers for my own flash units:

http://www.fototime.com/inv/908195739C4C0D3

http://abetterbouncecard.com/

Another pretty good commercial variation on the "bounce card" is:

http://www.dembflashproducts.com/flipit/

I use all of these but the one I prefer for outdoors, unless I am shooting fill flash and in that case I will use direct flash, is the "scoop" device in the first link. It works very well indoors when the ceiling is too high to help or if the ceiling and/or walls are dark or colored.

Zerodog

It is a great flash. It just has a huge zoom range, and is really powerfull. I have used it as fill flash with a fisheye all the way to fill flash in a stadium. But, it is big and expensive.

But the SB 600 is still my favorite. It is small and still has good power. You can buy at 2.5 of them used for the price of a new 900.

For on camera or off camera light modifiers can be a really big help. If you are buying one look at Flash Benders, lumiquest, and the Fong Light Sphere. Or if you are creative make your own as Ziggy said.

Photometric

I have an SB-600, but the problem is that I shoot marching bands at football games, and I need something with a little more power to reach across the field.

ziggy53

Photometric wrote: »

I have an SB-600, but the problem is that I shoot marching bands at football games, and I need something with a little more power to reach across the field.

That's a whole different scenario from the party/reception that you mentioned earlier. The SB-600 will also work for events, so the SB-900 isn't absolutely required.

At outdoor sports, "across the field" can be a pretty fair distance away and you can never have too much light.

Some sports shooters will use long lenses and a flash with a "Better Beamer" attached, just so they can reach out that much further with the light. An SB-900 plus a Better Beamer is about as good as it gets for nighttime sports at a distance. The attachment is a bit fiddly and won't hold up in a strong wind or any abuse, but it is a means to an end. It will gain you around 2 stops (4 times) the efficiency for long distance shooting. If you should get a Better Beamer be aware that it is just a fresnel lens and holder and you have to be careful using it in daylight as the sun can focus on the front of your flash and melt the black plastic.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/search?Ntt=better+beamer&N=0&InitialSearch=yes

borrowlenses.com

The Sb-900 is very powerful, intelligent and is the flagship product from Nikon. It's quite big, and it also has a built-in thermal cutoff that a lot of people are annoyed by, but you can disable it in the controls.

Photometric

Ziggy,
Thanks. I already went out and built something similar to the modifier for the indoor work you recommended. I did a test shot or two with my wife outside last night at the football field but got in too late to download, I'll look at it later.

I asked about the SB900 because I have to cover a party next weekend with 400 people in it (the largest event I've ever done) for a person who is terminally ill with leukemia. I wanted a flash appropriate for a group shot of that size, I don't think my sb600 is going to cut it alone.

I was expecting to rent one (at betterlenses, funny the owner chimed in last night on this thread) for the event and also was toying with buying one. I might wait buying it for now...

Thanks for the help everyone. I will look into the "Better Beamer" as well. Thanks for the warning about sunlight on that product, also.

ziggy53

Photometric wrote: »

Ziggy,
Thanks. I already went out and built something similar to the modifier for the indoor work you recommended. I did a test shot or two with my wife outside last night at the football field but got in too late to download, I'll look at it later.

I asked about the SB900 because I have to cover a party next weekend with 400 people in it (the largest event I've ever done) for a person who is terminally ill with leukemia. I wanted a flash appropriate for a group shot of that size, I don't think my sb600 is going to cut it alone.

I was expecting to rent one (at betterlenses, funny the owner chimed in last night on this thread) for the event and also was toying with buying one. I might wait buying it for now...

Thanks for the help everyone. I will look into the "Better Beamer" as well. Thanks for the warning about sunlight on that product, also.

That's awfully good of you to want to work a benefit. thumb

For a 400 person portrait you will want as much light as you can muster. I would contact local professional photographers and see if they want to help as well. If you have access to AC/line power see if you can get some studio strobes. I would want at least 4 - 600-800 watt/second actual, 1200-1600 watt/second effective heads. You can mix and match pack lights and monolights if needed. (So I am suggesting that you probably want around 5000-8000 watt/seconds effective light power.) Set up a "wall of light" using the studio strobes with umbrellas and light stands. Set everything as high as possible and try to get as smooth a light coverage as possible. You may have to feather the light as necessary.

Unless you have bleachers for the 400 people, try to get yourself up high as well. A "cherry picker" would be nice but a very tall step ladder will do. (Check with local lighting contractors and even churches for a tall step ladder.) Even if you use bleachers a tall stepladder is useful as it gets you closer to an even plane with the subjects.

Your f-stop will depend upon the needed DOF. Unless you can get the 400 people arranged in a flat plane, relative to your position, count on needing f8 and maybe f11. That's why you need so much light power. Even at higher ISOs it could be tough. 400 people is a pretty good spread.

Use optical slaves, if the studio lights have it, unless you get lucky and acquire radio units for all. If you use optical slaves use an external flash on the camera and set it in manual mode. Do not try to use i-TTL or wireless flash as that will trigger the optical slaves before the exposure.

If you do use optical slaves, coach any other photographers that you need to take your shot first, otherwise their flash will also trigger the optical slaves.

Let us know how this works out. It sounds like a great person is being honored.

DsrtVW

I have both the SB 600x2 and the SB 900 the 900 is much more powerful I use it as a fill flash(for wildlife) up to 300 when I go beyond that I use my Better Beamer.
The 900 is much easier to navigate the menus than the 600

Art Scott

to get the coverage you need to even light a group this large you may need 2 to 4 flash units of any sort......it might be more feasable
to shoot the group using quartz halogen work lights to get the area evenly lit the easiest way....these could be rented from tool rental companies..........
They do throw off tons of heat but that should not matter if they are only on long enough to shoot the groups shots.

Photometric

Art,

Great Scott! That's an awesome idea! I have a friend who has these lights...I am assuming you mean, these, correct?

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xgf/R-202071330/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

ziggy53

Photometric wrote: »

Art,

Great Scott! That's an awesome idea! I have a friend who has these lights...I am assuming you mean, these, correct?

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xgf/R-202071330/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

These give out a fair amount of light, but they are such a drain on power (because they run continuously and produce a lot of heat. Heat is very wasteful of power.) Flash is much more energy efficient and much less current drain for the output of light produced. Halogen will require custom color balancing and modern cameras are most efficient with daylight balance and daylight balanced flash will yield somewhat better color renditions. (Shadows and highlights will tend to clip/saturate individual color channels earlier with halogen lights. Tungsten is worse still, but not appropriate in this application, of course. B&W processing neutralizes most of the issues, if that's an option.)

Regardless of light type, you will still need diffusion to increase the apparent size of the light source. Umbrellas are the most portable diffusers, but be very careful about the heat produced by halogen lights. If indoors and if you can bounce the light into the corner between a white ceiling and white wall, that can give the desired diffusion and maintain a safe working distance from the hot lights.