Mounted Flash Help for Nikon D50

merrisweel · May 22, 2008

At the risk of sounding completely uneducated(which I am), Can someone please explain to me, very plainly, in english, how to get a flash on a bracket to work on a Nikon D50 without a sync chord? I can't seem to find any help that makes any sense to me! Thank You in advance!

ziggy53 · May 22, 2008

merrisweel wrote:

At the risk of sounding completely uneducated(which I am), Can someone please explain to me, very plainly, in english, how to get a flash on a bracket to work on a Nikon D50 without a sync chord? I can't seem to find any help that makes any sense to me! Thank You in advance!

The short answer is that since the Nikon D50 lacks a "Commander Mode" flash, you would have to add either a Nikon SB-800 flash or an SU-800 wireless controller to the camera to control either the SB-600 or SB-800 off-camera flashes without a cord.

If all you want is a simple trigger, I use an RF slave system which allows me to mount an inexpensive slave transmitter on the camera and a receiver for the flash. You do not have any control over the flash other than trigger, so either an "auto" flash or manual flash is indicated.

SloYerRoll · May 22, 2008

Hey MW welcome to dgrin

Ziggy did a perfect job explaining, but I wanted to reiterate and add something. (You asked for very simple, and I promise you. That is very simple to Ziggy

)

At the risk of telling you way more than what you need

.. There's no way to control off camera strobes wirelessly on a D50 without more gear..

You can buy an SU-800 or an SB-800. Both will allow you to control your strobes without any cords using either TTL & Non-TTL data. *more on TTL further down.
or..
you can buy an adapter that attaches to the hot shoe then a PC cable physically attaches to the strobe. (this way is Non-TTL)
and..
if that doesn't work for you. You can buy wireless flash triggers that attach to hotshoe and strobe and use radio waves to fire.

The SU-800 is pointless for you needs. The remote triggers are nice. But the can be expensive or unreliable (cost is directly related to reliability)

Buying an SB-800 would be your best bet IMO. While your waiting to grab more speedlights. You can use this strobe on camera. *Tip: pointing the flash directly is bad

After you get your second (or fifth:D) strobe. You can control all of them with your on, on board SB-800.
NOTE:
The only SB-800 you NEED is on your camera. You can buy additional SB-600's and control them with the SB-800. There are a few technical differences between the two versions of strobes. But none to concern yourself w/ for now.

TTL & Non-TTL
TTL is "smart" light. It can understand the readings your camera reads when it meters a scene.

Non-TTL just triggers that strobe. Whatever power setting it was at when you walked away from it. That's what it will fire.

Make sense?

-Jon

PS:
One really cool thing about the D50 is it's ability to high speed sync with a strobe. Normal high end cameras can't sync with a strobe past 1/250. You can sync the D50 to 1/1000 and higher. *The difference in sync speed is a big deal. It can open up worlds of lighting solutions when using strobes outside in the sun amongst other things.

MrBook2 · May 22, 2008

Ziggy pretty much covered it, but let's get a little more specific.

Since the D50 lacks both a PC sync terminal and the "commander mode" on the flash, you are somewhat limited.

So, let's say that you want to use the flash on a flash bracket, attached to the camera. To make the flash communicate with the camera, you will need something like the sc-28: (~$55)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/300477-REG/Nikon_4765_SC_28_TTL_Off_Camera_Shoe.html

or the sc-29: (~$75)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/300478-REG/Nikon_4766_SC_29_TTL_Off_Camera_Shoe.html

These both do basicall the same thing, but the sc-29 will project focusing lines in low light for the camera's AF system to focus on. You can find some made by third parties as well, but they basically just connect the hot shoe to the bottom of the flash.

If you want the flash to be someplace else, without a cord attached (say on a tripod across the room) you are now looking at a lot more money. Some Nikon cameras (like the D70/D70s and the D200) and some nikon flashes (like the SB-600 and SB-800) can be used to trigger using the built in flash. It basically sends out some very fast pre-flashes that will tell the flash units when to trigger. It is pretty slick to see in action, but doesn't help you. You can use this system, but you will have to buy something like the Nikon SU-800: (~$250)
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/410490-USA/Nikon_4794_SU_800_Wireless_Speedlight_Commander.html

This will take the place of the "commander mode". If you have one SB-800 on your camera and several other SB-800's or SB-600's around the studio, the SB-800 on your D50 can act as a commander (the SB-600 can't. That is part of the price difference between the two.)

You can also go with a radio system. A transmitter for your hot shoe and recievers for each of your slave flashes. That can add up fast but might be worth it if you shoot a lot with multiple flashes.

You probably can't get away with a standard "optical trigger" slave unless you are careful about it. Most modern flashes send out a quick pre-flash (usually too fast to see) to decide on the correct exposure before sending the main flash. This can fool optical triggers to pop early. They make some fancy ones that understand pre-flashes and you might be able to make it work if you were to set your D50 onboard flash to a manual setting rather than letting it decide how much power to use. It might not use pre-flashes then, but I am not sure.

Hope this helps. (It probably just raises more questions, but that is photography for you!)

--Aaron

EDIT: Looks like Jon beat me to some of this. I gotta type faster!

I would only add that using the SC-28 or SC-29 with a SB-600 or SB-800 flash should do TTL correctly (or at least Nikon claims they do. I haven't tried yet.)

merrisweel · May 28, 2008

Thank You!
Thanks for all your help guys! I really do appreciate it.

I have a couple more questions. I'm new to digital (tho not chemical) and I really don't know what TTL and iTTL even means, and what the difference is... little help? and I do want the camera on a bracket, its for an evening outdoor wedding... so I will look into your suggestions for that. Thanks so much again, and any further clarification is much appreciated!

ziggy53 · May 28, 2008

merrisweel wrote:

Thanks for all your help guys! I really do appreciate it.

I have a couple more questions. I'm new to digital (tho not chemical) and I really don't know what TTL and iTTL even means, and what the difference is... little help? and I do want the camera on a bracket, its for an evening outdoor wedding... so I will look into your suggestions for that. Thanks so much again, and any further clarification is much appreciated!

TTL (Through The Lens) implies that the flash is using the metering system of the camera to provide information back to the flash for proper exposure.

i-TTL is Nikon's advanced TTL in that it uses a program in the camera to further assist in proper exposure.

A major advantage of i-TTL is that it can use distance information, provided by the lens, to determine exposure, much like you would do if setting the flash manually.

When you use the tilt or swivel features of the flash, the system defaults back to TTL, which on modern Nikons is still pretty good.

An "auto" flash has its own sensor to determine exposure, independant of the camera. This makes auto flashes more versatile if you have to use them on different cameras. Some auto flashes are nearly the equaly of TTL in terms of exposure accuracy in normal and typical conditions of use. The Sunpak 383 Super is such an "auto" flash.

If you use a TTL/i-TTL flash on a bracket, you will probably also want an 'off-camera flash cord" to retain full communications with the camera. I recommend the cord over wireless methods for simplicity.

merrisweel · May 28, 2008

Thanks for the clarification Ziggy! But here is where I run into the problem. I, too, want to use a chord for simplicity, but my camera body has no chord holes. Would you recommend a hotshoe adapter for such things? (for the record, the flash I have - and I didn't want to buy a new one - is a sunpak thyristor auto 383 super) Would that present me with any problems I should know about, or will everything you've discussed prior still work?

Thanks again for all your help!

ziggy53 · May 28, 2008

merrisweel wrote:

Thanks for the clarification Ziggy! But here is where I run into the problem. I, too, want to use a chord for simplicity, but my camera body has no chord holes. Would you recommend a hotshoe adapter for such things? (for the record, the flash I have - and I didn't want to buy a new one - is a sunpak thyristor auto 383 super) Would that present me with any problems I should know about, or will everything you've discussed prior still work?

Thanks again for all your help!

Since you have a simple flash, all you need to pass is the trigger pulse for sync. This should work:

A hotshoe-to-PC adapter.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...Adapter_1.html

A PC-to-hotshoe adapter for the flash.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc..._Hot_Shoe.html

For this particular arrangement you would use a PC-male to PC-female extension cord.

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produc...ale_to_PC.html

Edit: while the above Paramount cord will work, it's pretty long for your application. The following would be more appropriate:

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/78146-REG/General_Brand_NP6971_PC_Male_to_PC.html

merrisweel · May 29, 2008

Thank You So Much!
Thank you so much for helping me to understand all this! I greatly, greatly appreciate it - it's going to help me out more than you know!

Mounted Flash Help for Nikon D50

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