what are the actual limitations of Nikon Flash and S2?

I hate when I have the occaissional job that requires me to shoot special event photography with my S2 Pro and a Nikon Sb80DX. I just never have any confidence in it. I know it lacks the ability to communicate in the D-TTL mode. but am not sure what that means really.

my question: are there certain shooting modes to avoid, and other ones that work better?

I have tried Programmed, Shutter Priority, and Aperture Priority. perhaps setting camera on Manual and the flash in AA is the best.

I am talking about indoors at night, AND indoors day.

I get too many underexposed photos that have to be ressurected in Photoshop with curves.

I often use the Nikon omni bounce attachment.

I have found that the default 3D balanced multi fill-flash on the S2 is less than ideal. Instead, plain TTL works much better. To set the S2 for this, set your S2 to spot metering (the dial next to the viewfinder).

I find that aperture priority works well. Set your aperture starting around f/5.6 and experiment from there to see what works for you.

Finally, I think you lose too much light with the Omni bounce. Either shoot directly or use a softbox (I've used a LumiQuest softbox in the past with success), but I think you'll get far more unexposures with the bounce flash if you are tilting/bouncing the flash in any way.

Anthony

Christopher Mann said:

I hate when I have the occaissional job that requires me to shoot
special event photography with my S2 Pro and a Nikon Sb80DX. I just
never have any confidence in it. I know it lacks the ability to
communicate in the D-TTL mode. but am not sure what that means
really.

my question: are there certain shooting modes to avoid, and other
ones that work better?

I have tried Programmed, Shutter Priority, and Aperture Priority.
perhaps setting camera on Manual and the flash in AA is the best.

I am talking about indoors at night, AND indoors day.

I get too many underexposed photos that have to be ressurected in
Photoshop with curves.

I often use the Nikon omni bounce attachment.

Click to expand...

Hi Christopher,

agree with Anthony's comments. I am very busy most weekends and try to avoid flash if possible but have to say that the S2 has never failed me yet (touch wood) I'm still using a Metz gun set manually at f4 with S2 in manual shutter set at 1/125. I will shoot a few test shots varying aperture and sometimes iso to get acceptable exposure. I'm not familiar with your gun but assume you can set it to manual.
Carl

Anthony said:

I have found that the default 3D balanced multi fill-flash on the
S2 is less than ideal. Instead, plain TTL works much better. To
set the S2 for this, set your S2 to spot metering (the dial next to
the viewfinder).

Click to expand...

interesting. I suppose you have to be careful to point the spot at someone's face, and not their white or black clothing. I have always felt that most caucasion faces are lighter than neutral grey though.

thanks

Anthony32599 said:

I find that aperture priority works well. Set your aperture
starting around f/5.6 and experiment from there to see what works
for you.

Finally, I think you lose too much light with the Omni bounce.
Either shoot directly or use a softbox (I've used a LumiQuest
softbox in the past with success), but I think you'll get far more
unexposures with the bounce flash if you are tilting/bouncing the
flash in any way.

Anthony

Christopher Mann said:

I hate when I have the occaissional job that requires me to shoot
special event photography with my S2 Pro and a Nikon Sb80DX. I just
never have any confidence in it. I know it lacks the ability to
communicate in the D-TTL mode. but am not sure what that means
really.

my question: are there certain shooting modes to avoid, and other
ones that work better?

I have tried Programmed, Shutter Priority, and Aperture Priority.
perhaps setting camera on Manual and the flash in AA is the best.

I am talking about indoors at night, AND indoors day.

I get too many underexposed photos that have to be ressurected in
Photoshop with curves.

I often use the Nikon omni bounce attachment.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

The spot metering on the S2 really seems to work more like a center weighted meter. In any case, my own experiences tell me that you're likely to be a lot happier setting the camera to spot metering with flash, which activates true TTL on the camera. I think the TTL may actually average overall flash brightness somehow, as I've gotten good whites and good blacks in a lot of situations, although I have to be careful not to blow out detailed whites. For many people though, they care more about recognizing faces and less about details in say, a white T-shirt.

Anthony

Christopher Mann said:

Anthony said:

I have found that the default 3D balanced multi fill-flash on the
S2 is less than ideal. Instead, plain TTL works much better. To
set the S2 for this, set your S2 to spot metering (the dial next to
the viewfinder).

Click to expand...

interesting. I suppose you have to be careful to point the spot at
someone's face, and not their white or black clothing. I have
always felt that most caucasion faces are lighter than neutral grey
though.

thanks

Christopher Mann said:

I find that aperture priority works well. Set your aperture
starting around f/5.6 and experiment from there to see what works
for you.

Finally, I think you lose too much light with the Omni bounce.
Either shoot directly or use a softbox (I've used a LumiQuest
softbox in the past with success), but I think you'll get far more
unexposures with the bounce flash if you are tilting/bouncing the
flash in any way.

Anthony

Christopher Mann said:

I hate when I have the occaissional job that requires me to shoot
special event photography with my S2 Pro and a Nikon Sb80DX. I just
never have any confidence in it. I know it lacks the ability to
communicate in the D-TTL mode. but am not sure what that means
really.

my question: are there certain shooting modes to avoid, and other
ones that work better?

I have tried Programmed, Shutter Priority, and Aperture Priority.
perhaps setting camera on Manual and the flash in AA is the best.

I am talking about indoors at night, AND indoors day.

I get too many underexposed photos that have to be ressurected in
Photoshop with curves.

I often use the Nikon omni bounce attachment.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Christopher Mann said:

I hate when I have the occaissional job that requires me to shoot
special event photography with my S2 Pro and a Nikon Sb80DX. I just
never have any confidence in it. I know it lacks the ability to
communicate in the D-TTL mode. but am not sure what that means
really.

my question: are there certain shooting modes to avoid, and other
ones that work better?

I have tried Programmed, Shutter Priority, and Aperture Priority.
perhaps setting camera on Manual and the flash in AA is the best.

I am talking about indoors at night, AND indoors day.

I get too many underexposed photos that have to be ressurected in
Photoshop with curves.

Click to expand...

I have the same set-up and agree thats it can be hit or miss exposure wise...
I was wondering if anyone had experience with the newer SB800? From the little
I've read it seems to be way more accurate then its predacessor (sp?}

Christopher Mann said:

I often use the Nikon omni bounce attachment.

Click to expand...

This is not to say that you are wrong, but rather I want to know if I am right...

Am I right in assumming that you do not have to put the camera in "spot metering" mode to activate true TTL as you can activate it as well by telling the flash not to use 3DMM (Removing the icon on the flash).

Also, by putting the flash in spot metering mode, that does not mean the "spot" area will be the only area evaluated during the flash exposure since the TTL (flash ,meter ) will kick in for this which will evaluate the entire frame, right?

Thanks

Good questions all.

To get true TTL with flash there's a number of ways to do it on camera. I don't think taking it off the flash will necessarily work because the flash is controlled by the camera. If I'm reading my manual correctly, only the SB-24, 25, and 26 will override the camera settings.

Setting the camera to "M" and/or choosing spot metering will activate true TTL with a flash in the hot shoe. Again, there are some exceptions, if I'm reading the manual correctly.

And I believe you are entirely correct in the last paragraph, since either M exposure mode (regardless of metering mode) or spot meter result in true TTL. As a point of fact, I just leave my S2 in spot metering mode all the time and that seems to work pretty well.

Anthony

John Gaddy said:

This is not to say that you are wrong, but rather I want to know if
I am right...

Am I right in assumming that you do not have to put the camera in
"spot metering" mode to activate true TTL as you can activate it as
well by telling the flash not to use 3DMM (Removing the icon on the
flash).

Also, by putting the flash in spot metering mode, that does not
mean the "spot" area will be the only area evaluated during the
flash exposure since the TTL (flash ,meter ) will kick in for this
which will evaluate the entire frame, right?

Thanks

Click to expand...

I checked the manual and it doesn't say whether the camera switches metering modes if you go to "manual". I really wonder how the TTL works on the S2. I may have to break out Thom Hogan's CD and take a good long look around to see if it has the answer. In spot metering, the focus sensor that's activated is where the spot meter is. I wonder if that's true in TTL, or if it averages. What bugs me about the averaging thing is that, that's what matrix metering (read 3d balanced multi-fill flash) is supposed to be about. On the other hand, TTL reads the main subject and tends to ignore the background. Makes me wonder if spot metering just works because people tend to center or if in TTL the meter segments are all monitored and the flash quenched when the first segment to get the right amount of light is activated. I'm going to do more research.

Anthony

John Gaddy said:

This is not to say that you are wrong, but rather I want to know if
I am right...

Am I right in assumming that you do not have to put the camera in
"spot metering" mode to activate true TTL as you can activate it as
well by telling the flash not to use 3DMM (Removing the icon on the
flash).

Also, by putting the flash in spot metering mode, that does not
mean the "spot" area will be the only area evaluated during the
flash exposure since the TTL (flash ,meter ) will kick in for this
which will evaluate the entire frame, right?

Thanks

Click to expand...

I've thought about it more, and I realized that there must be TTL sensors pointed at the superCCD to take the reading. Thus, it's not a question of matrix metering, which has to happen in the viewfinder area.

After reading Thom's section on TTL flash with the S2, he mentions specifically that for many situations, TTL is the way to go and that TTL measures off the sensor during flash exposure.

Anthony

Anthony said:

Anthony

John Gaddy said:

This is not to say that you are wrong, but rather I want to know if
I am right...

Am I right in assumming that you do not have to put the camera in
"spot metering" mode to activate true TTL as you can activate it as
well by telling the flash not to use 3DMM (Removing the icon on the
flash).

Also, by putting the flash in spot metering mode, that does not
mean the "spot" area will be the only area evaluated during the
flash exposure since the TTL (flash ,meter ) will kick in for this
which will evaluate the entire frame, right?

Thanks

Click to expand...

Click to expand...