D850 and radio controled flash

Just unboxed my D850 and pouring through the user manual and camera control. Much is very familiar coming from my D800, but I do see that the D850 supports radio control and integrated flash with the SB-5000.

A few questions:

1) If I understand it, with an SB-5000 attached can one see and control the flash settings through the D850 viewfinder?

2) If one had two SB-5000's and a WR-A10 attached to the D850, then can both speedlights be controlled without needing a speedlight physically attached to the D850's hot shoe?

3) If, with a pair of remote SB-5000's plus a WR-A10, can the ratios of both remote speedlights be controlled in camera via CLS?

4) Same as #3, but are the settings both remote speedlights viewable in the D850's viewfinder?

Put it anther way, can I take two SB5000's and a WR-A10, make one my main light (Group A), the other a fill light, set the ratio of the fill light (as group B) (say minus 1-3) put the whole thing in iTTL along with 1/250FP sync, view the settings and change in the viewfinder, and shoot away with pretty much total control over aperture and shutter speed along with flash info/control through the D850's viewfinder?

I've seen several Youtube videos so far (including Joe McNally's), but all seems to be fairly limited to using a single SB-5000 via radio control.

I am sure all of the above can be done with a few (much cheaper) Godox or equivalent speedlights plus a controller, but the (potential) ability to see and manage the flash settings through the viewfinder along with native CLS is intriguing.

Regards,
Mike

I have quite a bit of off camera flash photography experience. I can't answer your SB-5000 question, but when I switched to the 850, I switched from my SB910's to GODOX/Flashpoint system which is more robust.

They come with LION batteries and have fantastic transmitters with group iTTL control. They are also more cost effective. Check them out at Adorama.

Al Giordano said:

I have quite a bit of off camera flash photography experience. I can't answer your SB-5000 question, but when I switched to the 850, I switched from my SB910's to GODOX/Flashpoint system which is more robust.

They come with LION batteries and have fantastic transmitters with group iTTL control. They are also more cost effective. Check them out at Adorama.

https://www.adorama.com/fplfsmzl2nk2.html

Click to expand...

Yes, I'll likely pick up a few Godox units for those reasons, but I'm still curious to understand how the native radio functions work (or don't) with SB-5000's off camera if for no other reason than curiosity after reading through the murky D850 manual.

Regards,
Mike

After quite a bit of hunting I found most of the answers to my own questions in the D850 Menu Guide which is a fairly substantial additional D850 manual that doesn't come with the camera (downloadable from the Nikon web site). After reading it I was able to determine the following:

• With the WR-A10 set you don't need to have any flash unit on the camera hot shoe to control remote radio speedlights (I didn't think so, but that wasn't 100% clear in the regular manual).
• With SP-5000's you can put one or more into Group A and one or more into Group B and, via the D850 menu, select relative ratios between the two groups (1:1, 1:2, 1:3 and so on) via the Quick Wireless control menu.
• If you have a third group you can also dial in the compensation for that 3rd group via the camera menu, but can't set a relative ration for the 3rd group.
• You can indeed the flash settings in the viewfinder for the remote wireless flash units by pressing the Info button, and change the flash settings using the Info button (don't know which), but quite nifty!

Regards,
Mike

Michael Firstlight said:

Just unboxed my D850 and pouring through the user manual and camera control. Much is very familiar coming from my D800, but I do see that the D850 supports radio control and integrated flash with the SB-5000.

A few questions:

1) If I understand it, with an SB-5000 attached can one see and control the flash settings through the D850 viewfinder?

Click to expand...

Yes, the Flash lighting bolt appears and if you depress the compensation adjustment button a box appears and will switch from +/- to + or - as you make adjustments and the value of the adjustment in 1/3 stops appears to the left of the lighting bolt.

Michael Firstlight said:

2) If one had two SB-5000's and a WR-A10 attached to the D850, then can both speedlights be controlled without needing a speedlight physically attached to the D850's hot shoe?

Click to expand...

Yes, up to I believe 16.

Michael Firstlight said:

3) If, with a pair of remote SB-5000's plus a WR-A10, can the ratios of both remote speedlights be controlled in camera via CLS?

Click to expand...

Yes. I have three and to make things easy for me, I have each in a separate Group (A, B, C) and adjust the group flash output. I also have a white square of gaffers tape with the group letter on the back of each flash.

Michael Firstlight said:

4) Same as #3, but are the settings both remote speedlights viewable in the D850's viewfinder?

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No, with a SB-5000 turned on and in Remote setting the "Flash Control " menu is available and you scroll down to "Wireless Flash Options" and turn "Radio AWL" On. Then you will have access to the Group Flash Options and can set the "Mode" and "Compensation" for each separate group.

Michael Firstlight said:

Put it anther way, can I take two SB5000's and a WR-A10, make one my main light (Group A), the other a fill light, set the ratio of the fill light (as group B) (say minus 1-3) put the whole thing in iTTL along with 1/250FP sync, view the settings and change in the viewfinder, and shoot away with pretty much total control over aperture and shutter speed along with flash info/control through the D850's viewfinder?

Click to expand...

You can only adjust the overall flash exposure, as I understand it through the view finder by adding exposure comp. Once you have everything turned on ..

Press menu, tap Flash Control, tap Group Options, tap the comp field, add or substract power, tap OK and shoot.

Michael Firstlight said:

I've seen several Youtube videos so far (including Joe McNally's), but all seems to be fairly limited to using a single SB-5000 via radio control.

Click to expand...

When the SB-5000 first was available and I registered it with Nikon they sent me access to a McNally video where he used 16 separate flashes and about half were SB-5000's the balance were SB-910 or SB-900 I think and he lite a theater from balcony to stage making many adjustments without moving from the tripod.

Michael Firstlight said:

I am sure all of the above can be done with a few (much cheaper) Godox or equivalent speedlights plus a controller, but the (potential) ability to see and manage the flash settings through the viewfinder along with native CLS is intriguing.

Regards,
Mike

Click to expand...

Michael Firstlight said:

After quite a bit of hunting I found most of the answers to my own questions in the D850 Menu Guide which is a fairly substantial additional D850 manual that doesn't come with the camera (downloadable from the Nikon web site). After reading it I was able to determine the following:

• With the WR-A10 set you don't need to have any flash unit on the camera hot shoe to control remote radio speedlights (I didn't think so, but that wasn't 100% clear in the regular manual).
• With SP-5000's you can put one or more into Group A and one or more into Group B and, via the D850 menu, select relative ratios between the two groups (1:1, 1:2, 1:3 and so on) via the Quick Wireless control menu.
• If you have a third group you can also dial in the compensation for that 3rd group via the camera menu, but can't set a relative ration for the 3rd group.
• You can indeed the flash settings in the viewfinder for the remote wireless flash units by pressing the Info button, and change the flash settings using the Info button (don't know which), but quite nifty!

Regards,

Click to expand...

That last one is new to me. I will give it a try. Just took a look at that but if I am pressing the info button and have eye to viewfinder, I can not press any other buttons. However, pressing the "Info" button twice takes you directly to a Flash Info screen that shows each flashes setting and then pressing "iset" you get the "Group Flash Options. Maybe be quicker.

Michael Firstlight said:

Mike

Click to expand...

RoyC01 said:

Michael Firstlight said:

After quite a bit of hunting I found most of the answers to my own questions in the D850 Menu Guide which is a fairly substantial additional D850 manual that doesn't come with the camera (downloadable from the Nikon web site). After reading it I was able to determine the following:

• With the WR-A10 set you don't need to have any flash unit on the camera hot shoe to control remote radio speedlights (I didn't think so, but that wasn't 100% clear in the regular manual).
• With SP-5000's you can put one or more into Group A and one or more into Group B and, via the D850 menu, select relative ratios between the two groups (1:1, 1:2, 1:3 and so on) via the Quick Wireless control menu.
• If you have a third group you can also dial in the compensation for that 3rd group via the camera menu, but can't set a relative ration for the 3rd group.
• You can indeed the flash settings in the viewfinder for the remote wireless flash units by pressing the Info button, and change the flash settings using the Info button (don't know which), but quite nifty!

Regards,

Click to expand...

That last one is new to me. I will give it a try. Just took a look at that but if I am pressing the info button and have eye to viewfinder, I can not press any other buttons. However, pressing the "Info" button twice takes you directly to a Flash Info screen that shows each flashes setting and then pressing "iset" you get the "Group Flash Options. Maybe be quicker.

RoyC01 said:

Mike

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

Cool, thanks for the info - always nice to have someone that actually has the setup to confirm things. That last little gem with the viewfinder looks interesting - seems to have been buried in the doc - says what you can set via the info button varies with the flash and other settings (would be nice if they detailed that tidbit - maybe in the SB-5000 manual?