Which flash?

[BirgerH]

Whew, thanks for all the replies, this flash stuff is confusing to say the least. What I have gathered is TTL helps set up the flash? Will it work with HSS?

TTL has nothing to do with HSS. HSS is a high Speed Sync. That means your flash instead of emitting one single burst under the sync speed emits multiple busts while the shutter slit is traveling across the sensor plane. But it does it at much lower power per burst. Over all one HSS volley equal to one Full Burst in supplied power so it will need 1.5 sec to reset. I have tried manually 1/128 power in HSS and could only take one shot in a burst of shots.

TTL is a metering related function. So now if TTL tells your flash to use more than 1/128 it might not make it depending if your shutter speed is too high.

The Ad200 from my little research after reading these posts is much brighter than the rest so what's the down fall? Does it have TTL? If I'm using HSS is TTL even still in play? I'd imagine I'd be using HHS a lot since I'd need my shutter speed way up to shoot wide open or close to it right?

Well, not necessary. You can use modifiers to reduce the flash power and still have your shutter speed in the sync with the flash. For example point the flash in to umbrella or through the umbrella. And since you are using the flash off camera you can also increase the distance between the flash and your subject. There are many things you can do to create exposure you want.

if I didn't go with AD200, are these other flashes stong enough in HHS with just one flash?

Read above.

isnt there a way to make my cannon flash fire once it sees another flash? Could be way wrong on that. Thanks for all the help guys!

Yes, if you buy receiver for Canon running at the same frequency and on the same channel as transmitter. It will not be TTL, obviously, but you can trigger it in the manual mode. You might even be able to change parameters on your Canon flash remotely.

I also want to say that HSS is not a very reliable way to set exposure since flash decides how much power per burst it needs to supply to cover your shutter speed. There are variations in each burst. So don't assume you can just crank the shutter speed up to lett less light from the flash in to the camera if your aperture is too bright. I would personally rely on light modifiers for consistency than HSS.

Nahhr - this must be down to personal likes (and experiences and skills with manual flash settings) - because changing shutter speed does not change the TTL flash metering - and with that, it doesn't change flash output in TTL - just like in manual

I am setting my camera and flash in manual, not TTL. And by experience I already know how much output I want from my flash and what shutter speed to use. It also works well if part of the subject is lit with a strong sun especially if the subject is blonde. TTL-BL will not be able to handle that. But exposing for the sun and filling with the flash works fine.

It might (no - it does) invoke if using TTL-BL - might be the reason for your "not very reliable" - then again - if using TTL-BL, you don't need to change the shutter speed - the automated blending of camera and flash metering of the subject "should" give you a perfect exposure of the subject - almost always - even if you change shutter speed .

Also, personally I don't like TTL. It can be easily fooled if you have a mixture of bright white and dark black in the frame.

Not sure, why it should - more than manual (external) flash metering. The mixture, you mention, will be a challenge to every kind of shooting - my experience (because I'm not experienced manually flash settings - and think it will be quite a learning session ) is, that Nikon's iTTL solutions are actually doing a brave job - including their fill flash implementation.

Put a white woman and a black man wearing white shirt next to each other. Let's see what happens. Either she is going to get whiter or he is going to get blacker. And if she gets whiter so will his shirt gets overblown.

Maybe - but why would that be different from you doing the metering? And the flash setting?

Because of your experience and skills - yes, I'll buy that. If you're skills are better, than an automation, which I believe they are, you will have a better result of these hard conditions - though most hobbyists do not have these skills better than the automatic system - and I certainly am no exception

What I do is shoot on manual and very my shutter speed from 1/125 to 1/250 which gives me a full stop difference. So for example if a white person in front of me with the bright white skin I shoot at 1/250. I the person has darker skin all I do is use slower shutter speed but nothing else changes. Changing shutter speed is very quick.

I'm not questioning the use of manually metering and setting when using flash - personal skills always beats automated functions somewhere somehow, I'm just not excluding the Nikons CLS as a very (in my case, anyway) useable solution

Sure, if you have an even light Nikon CLS works fine but I don't shoot in even light often.Few places I shot red carpet they use hot spot lights from the ceiling and you never know where your subject is going to stand.

Expose for the hot spot and the subject will be underexposed.

This is exactly the point - You are not exposing for the subject using TTL - the camera is doing that (the cameras flash-metering, which is not shown to you, but send to the flash). Your exposure is for the background (ambient light) - make that be exposed for your like, and the cameras flash-metering will take care of the subject - the method depends on the TTL-mode selected.

By varying the shutter speed I can quickly fix that later on by reducing Highlight in post processing to make photo usable because the highlight spot is not overblown.

You can as well do that, when using TTL - it will not invoke on the flash output, when using TTL-standard, but in TTL-BL it will regulate the flash output to always expose the subject right (by taking the ambient metering of the subject into account, but not the ambient metering of the background) letting the changed shutter speed darken/lighten the background.

 

[Reimar Gaertner]

Can I just weigh in here about the SB-700? I got it to replace the on-board flash missing from the D850. I'm a little miffed that I can't get regular TTL with matrix metering, but have to switch to spot meter to get it. Otherwise I'm stuck with TTL-BL, which still works for bouncing and fill flash without the -1.7 or so EV compensation.

Anyway, the thing is that wretched dial on the back sticks into my forehead when I look into the viewfinder in landscape mode. Man is that painful! I may have to stick with my SB800s for this camera (I wanted their extra horsepower for off-camera duties).

 

[HP1999]

Looking flor flash for outdoor portraits, I don't want to break the bank and will use it off camera. What flash system would you recommend. Just a hobbyist. Camera is a D750 if that matters. I also have a cannon speed light ex400 can I make that work with it? I know very little about flash. Thanks!

 

[SushiEater]

Whew, thanks for all the replies, this flash stuff is confusing to say the least. What I have gathered is TTL helps set up the flash? Will it work with HSS?

TTL has nothing to do with HSS. HSS is a high Speed Sync. That means your flash instead of emitting one single burst under the sync speed emits multiple busts while the shutter slit is traveling across the sensor plane. But it does it at much lower power per burst. Over all one HSS volley equal to one Full Burst in supplied power so it will need 1.5 sec to reset. I have tried manually 1/128 power in HSS and could only take one shot in a burst of shots.

TTL is a metering related function. So now if TTL tells your flash to use more than 1/128 it might not make it depending if your shutter speed is too high.

The Ad200 from my little research after reading these posts is much brighter than the rest so what's the down fall? Does it have TTL? If I'm using HSS is TTL even still in play? I'd imagine I'd be using HHS a lot since I'd need my shutter speed way up to shoot wide open or close to it right?

Well, not necessary. You can use modifiers to reduce the flash power and still have your shutter speed in the sync with the flash. For example point the flash in to umbrella or through the umbrella. And since you are using the flash off camera you can also increase the distance between the flash and your subject. There are many things you can do to create exposure you want.

if I didn't go with AD200, are these other flashes stong enough in HHS with just one flash?

Read above.

isnt there a way to make my cannon flash fire once it sees another flash? Could be way wrong on that. Thanks for all the help guys!

Yes, if you buy receiver for Canon running at the same frequency and on the same channel as transmitter. It will not be TTL, obviously, but you can trigger it in the manual mode. You might even be able to change parameters on your Canon flash remotely.

I also want to say that HSS is not a very reliable way to set exposure since flash decides how much power per burst it needs to supply to cover your shutter speed. There are variations in each burst. So don't assume you can just crank the shutter speed up to lett less light from the flash in to the camera if your aperture is too bright. I would personally rely on light modifiers for consistency than HSS.

Nahhr - this must be down to personal likes (and experiences and skills with manual flash settings) - because changing shutter speed does not change the TTL flash metering - and with that, it doesn't change flash output in TTL - just like in manual

I am setting my camera and flash in manual, not TTL. And by experience I already know how much output I want from my flash and what shutter speed to use. It also works well if part of the subject is lit with a strong sun especially if the subject is blonde. TTL-BL will not be able to handle that. But exposing for the sun and filling with the flash works fine.

It might (no - it does) invoke if using TTL-BL - might be the reason for your "not very reliable" - then again - if using TTL-BL, you don't need to change the shutter speed - the automated blending of camera and flash metering of the subject "should" give you a perfect exposure of the subject - almost always - even if you change shutter speed .

Also, personally I don't like TTL. It can be easily fooled if you have a mixture of bright white and dark black in the frame.

Not sure, why it should - more than manual (external) flash metering. The mixture, you mention, will be a challenge to every kind of shooting - my experience (because I'm not experienced manually flash settings - and think it will be quite a learning session ) is, that Nikon's iTTL solutions are actually doing a brave job - including their fill flash implementation.

Put a white woman and a black man wearing white shirt next to each other. Let's see what happens. Either she is going to get whiter or he is going to get blacker. And if she gets whiter so will his shirt gets overblown.

Maybe - but why would that be different from you doing the metering? And the flash setting?

Even metering requires skills and most important time.

Because of your experience and skills - yes, I'll buy that. If you're skills are better, than an automation, which I believe they are, you will have a better result of these hard conditions - though most hobbyists do not have these skills better than the automatic system - and I certainly am no exception

What I do is shoot on manual and very my shutter speed from 1/125 to 1/250 which gives me a full stop difference. So for example if a white person in front of me with the bright white skin I shoot at 1/250. I the person has darker skin all I do is use slower shutter speed but nothing else changes. Changing shutter speed is very quick.

I'm not questioning the use of manually metering and setting when using flash - personal skills always beats automated functions somewhere somehow, I'm just not excluding the Nikons CLS as a very (in my case, anyway) useable solution

Sure, if you have an even light Nikon CLS works fine but I don't shoot in even light often.Few places I shot red carpet they use hot spot lights from the ceiling and you never know where your subject is going to stand.

Expose for the hot spot and the subject will be underexposed.

This is exactly the point - You are not exposing for the subject using TTL - the camera is doing that (the cameras flash-metering, which is not shown to you, but send to the flash). Your exposure is for the background (ambient light) - make that be exposed for your like, and the cameras flash-metering will take care of the subject - the method depends on the TTL-mode selected.

In this case TTL will ignore the hot spot on the subject and you are going to end up with one way overexposed blotch on the face. So now your picture becomes unusable.

By varying the shutter speed I can quickly fix that later on by reducing Highlight in post processing to make photo usable because the highlight spot is not overblown.

You can as well do that, when using TTL - it will not invoke on the flash output, when using TTL-standard, but in TTL-BL it will regulate the flash output to always expose the subject right (by taking the ambient metering of the subject into account, but not the ambient metering of the background) letting the changed shutter speed darken/lighten the background.

TTL will only work if the light is even. It will ignore the small hot spots.

It is my experience, that for normal casual hobbyist flash shooting - the TTL actually works tremendously well but it is an automated system with the limitations related to it being exactly that.

 

[Parks71a]

I really appreciate all the help and now I think I have narrowed it down to the AD200 or the other on marketed under adoramas name made by the same company.

one I can put on my camera, the AD200 I cannot. I will be shooting senior photos or family photos and time will be on my side. I could be wrong here because I have zero experience with flash but people say off flash looks so much better so why would I ever put the flash on my camera for the type of shooting I intend?

Since 99 percent of my shots will be outside, I believe I'll be using HSS most of the time attempting to shoot into the sun and not having the subject a shadow. Since I will be using HHS, TTL will not even work, correct?

Then add to the mix of folks stating use a ND filter so I can shoot wide open, this does not fix the problem of the shadowing of the subject or am I missing something?

in lower light, say very close to dusk, this is where TTL will come in handy lighting the subject to match the background correct? No need for HSS here?

other than price, is there any reason NOT to get the AD200 vs the other one? Again, I really appreciate all the help. I have 2 senior photo shoots in a week and I want to be prepared. Unpaid since I'm obviously a begginer with this stuff. I usually shoot landscape.

 

[ClaudiusTheGod]

what really improves flash- is firing it through a big diffuser.

you want the source of light to be as physically big as possible- especially for anyone over the age of 25

whatever rules apply inthe studio, apply for flashguns too

 

[SushiEater]

I really appreciate all the help and now I think I have narrowed it down to the AD200 or the other on marketed under adoramas name made by the same company.

one I can put on my camera, the AD200 I cannot. I will be shooting senior photos or family photos and time will be on my side. I could be wrong here because I have zero experience with flash but people say off flash looks so much better so why would I ever put the flash on my camera for the type of shooting I intend?

What you hear and what is reality are two different things.

For example. Are you going to have background of some sort close behind?

If you put flash off camera it will give you ugly shadow on the side for which you would have to compensate with background flash or reflector.

Since 99 percent of my shots will be outside, I believe I'll be using HSS most of the time attempting to shoot into the sun and not having the subject a shadow. Since I will be using HHS, TTL will not even work, correct?

No, not correct. It depends on so many things that I can't even list here.

Then add to the mix of folks stating use a ND filter so I can shoot wide open, this does not fix the problem of the shadowing of the subject or am I missing something?

ND filter will cut on exposure not only of the sun but your main subject. So now you would have to compensate lost light with stronger flash.

in lower light, say very close to dusk, this is where TTL will come in handy lighting the subject to match the background correct? No need for HSS here?

Probably not.

other than price, is there any reason NOT to get the AD200 vs the other one? Again, I really appreciate all the help. I have 2 senior photo shoots in a week and I want to be prepared. Unpaid since I'm obviously a begginer with this stuff. I usually shoot landscape.

 

[HP1999]

I really appreciate all the help and now I think I have narrowed it down to the AD200 or the other on marketed under adoramas name made by the same company.

one I can put on my camera, the AD200 I cannot. I will be shooting senior photos or family photos and time will be on my side. I could be wrong here because I have zero experience with flash but people say off flash looks so much better so why would I ever put the flash on my camera for the type of shooting I intend?

Since 99 percent of my shots will be outside, I believe I'll be using HSS most of the time attempting to shoot into the sun and not having the subject a shadow. Since I will be using HHS, TTL will not even work, correct?

Then add to the mix of folks stating use a ND filter so I can shoot wide open, this does not fix the problem of the shadowing of the subject or am I missing something?

in lower light, say very close to dusk, this is where TTL will come in handy lighting the subject to match the background correct? No need for HSS here?

other than price, is there any reason NOT to get the AD200 vs the other one? Again, I really appreciate all the help. I have 2 senior photo shoots in a week and I want to be prepared. Unpaid since I'm obviously a begginer with this stuff. I usually shoot landscape.

 

[BirgerH]

Can I just weigh in here about the SB-700? I got it to replace the on-board flash missing from the D850. I'm a little miffed that I can't get regular TTL with matrix metering, but have to switch to spot meter to get it. Otherwise I'm stuck with TTL-BL, which still works for bouncing and fill flash without the -1.7 or so EV compensation.

No - as far as I know, the SB-700 can't disable the TTL-BL in matrix and center weighted metering.

Anyway, the thing is that wretched dial on the back sticks into my forehead when I look into the viewfinder in landscape mode. Man is that painful! I may have to stick with my SB800s for this camera (I wanted their extra horsepower for off-camera duties).