An introduction to flash with the Nikon SB-800
Nikon Speedlight SB-800 by Nikon
By Andrew Foltz-Morrison
13 June 2008
There are a great deal of talented amateurs who refuse to open themselves up to flash photography. They probably got their start using the built-in flashes in their cameras. Those flashes are terrible. It doesn't matter if it's a DSLR or compact, if it was made by Nikon or Canon, they're all equally guilty of putting a terrible amount and quality of light on your subject.
There are a few things you can do to mitigate the harsh, jagged effects that built-in flash creates, but it only goes so far. Eventually, you'll get fed up with using it and start insisting on ambient light, like I did. I remained set in my beliefs until I saw some photos on Flickr that showed me just what a real flash is capable of. I wasn't immediately convinced, but I eventually decided to buy a flash for myself and see what the fuss was about.
I decided on the Nikon SB-800. Its initial expense was offset by the wealth of features it afforded. A range of power covering a 7 f-stop range, fast recycle times, compatibility with a PC cable for syncing, and an amazing built-in slave feature.
That last feature, when I discovered it, (it isn't in the manual) completely blew me away. I can sync my flash wirelessly without any cables or pocket wizards, so long as it's just around the house. I do this by using my camera's built-in flash (dialed down to minimum power) to set off the flash with a burst of infrared light.
On its own, the light of the flash is still a bit harsh. With a few cheap DIY accessories, however, the flash becomes incredibly versatile. I built David Tejada's (davidtejada.blogspot.com) beauty dish design, and the large and small softboxes seen on diyphotography.net. I learned proper exposure with flash from David Hobby's site (strobist.blogspot.com).
Once I finished assembling the accessories, I set to work taking the pictures you see in the essay. Some were difficult to do, others took very little time, but I learned a lot from all of them.
The bowl of fruit had a very simple setup. I used a piece of posterboard to create a seamless white background, and then I used a large sheet of paper above the bowl to diffuse the flash.
The next photo was a bit more complicated. I was taking some photos of the subject and we had to move around my house a couple of times, and eventually decided on the kitchen. I used the beauty dish on a light stand at about a 45 degree angle above her.
I found a tablecloth to use as the background for the last one, and used the beauty dish at about the same angle to achieve the effect. While the dramatic effect in the previous photo was good, I like this one because there are almost no shadows on her face.
To sync the flash with your camera, either use the AS-15 shoe-to-PC adapter & PC cable or put the flash in the almost secret "SU-4" mode. To access this mode, hold select for 2 seconds to get to the submenu. Then, go to the box in the top right and hit select. Scroll down to where it says "SU-4" and hit select. To get back to the main interface, select an empty box and hold select again for 2 seconds. The flash should now say "REMOTE" below the intensity setting.
I'd recommend a couple of cheap accessories for the flash to increase its usefulness, especially a light stand. Also, putting velcro on the top of the flash (so long as it doesn't get in the way of the white plastic diffuser) to hold things in place, like snoots and flags, which control where the light of the flash goes. That's the best overview I can give in a product review. To learn more, I'd recommend reading some of the blogs dedicated to the subject, like Strobist, David Tejada's blog, ProPhotoLife, or Joe McNally's blog. I hope I was able to inform you about both this Nikon flash and flash photography itself.
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