The Nikon Speedlight Still Impresses

Old Friend To The Rescue: My last assignment at the Fox Theater in Redwood City reminded me how truly great the Nikon SB-800 and its predecessor the SB-80 DX, were so far as design was concerned. My Nikon speedlights have been demoted to second tier for two reasons. First,  Nikon DSLR cameras are no longer my camera of choice for field work, and second, I usually need the higher output and faster recycle time of the Godox flashes and their proprietary lithium batteries. My years using Nikon speedlights have taught me to always carry spare batteries, or alternately, attach an SD-8a external battery pack if "sustained fire" was required. 

The event was a dress rehearsal of Peninsula Art's Hip Hop Nutcracker, and I decided to attend and use my three of my newly acquired Zeiss lenses on my Sony A7. Now manually focusing a lens mounted on a mirrorless camera is always a challenge, but add an indoor venue and one's troubles immediately multiply. Still, I was up for the challenge of high ISO settings and occasionally poorly focused images. As assurance, I packed an SB-800 speedlight, partly because the Sony A7 does not have a built-in flash of its own. Luckily for me, the speedlight that I grabbed had a pre-cut CTO gel taped to the head. I found a diffusion dome, stuffed it and the speedlight into a belt pouch, and considered myself ready.

To pass the time before the performance, I set about checking the white balance of the house lights. By changing from my normal Cloudy to the Incandescent White Balance Preset, I corrected the rendition to something closer to daylight. You can see the difference in this before and after comparison.

1/5 second, ISO 1600, Aperture not recorded. Fill flash with diffuser and  CTO gel installed, 45 degree inclination.

The final image was a little clinical, so I warmed it up using the temperature slider in the Adjust Color For Skin Tone option during post production. The flash had both the diffusion dome and the CTO gel installed. And now I had a base-line for any crowd images I might attempt after the performance. Incidentally, I made these images before the performance started. Photos and observations from and about the performance can be seen here.

1/8 second, ISO 800, Aperture Unrecorded. Flash assist.

Fast Forward: When the show ended, the cast members walked up the aisles, giving High Fives to as many hands as possible. I managed to re-position myself by the exit as the actors approached, and managed to get this single shot of when this actor paused long enough for me to establish focus and squeeze off a shot. The gelled flash with the diffusion dome gave me a color-corrected light source, and by tilting the head up at a 45 degree angle gave me a little more distance from the lens axis. I've used this technique before, and have found that it gives surprisingly good results considering its ease in application.

Reigning Champion: Here you can see the uncluttered control panel of the Nikon SB-800. It is the picture of exquisite simplicity. All of the buttons are raised and easy to depress. What's more, the buttons are always active. When you press the [+], it always increases the output by 1/3 of a stop. Likewise the buttons controlling the zoom angle. Multiple trees equals a wider spread, the single tree a narrower one. The [SEL] button serves as both "Menu" and "Select", since this gives the user access to the multiple options that are not frequently changed. The [MODE] button governs the four  flash control and output options: TTL, Manual, and Multi (stroboscopic), as you would expect on any flash. The fourth option, Aperture, provides non-TTL flash exposure output adjustment, a feature that nobody seems to have offered since the introduction of iTTL (Through The Lens) flash metering. Nearly all older Nikon speedlights (SB-600 and SB-400 excluded) have this feature, up to and including the SB-900. The take-away is that pushdown buttons are much easier to use than the rotating selection wheel/ring of the Godox, which I'll describe in a moment. This is especially important when you only have one hand with which to make your adjustments. Use your thumb to make your selections and the other four fingers to support the speedlight. Easy Peasy, especially when working in near darkness.

Original Photo can be found here.

The Young Upstart: The Godox flash is a far more advanced flash so far as features are concerned. I suspect that the engineers, when designed the basic body design for use over multiple platforms, chose to put as many controls as possible on the flash itself, making it easier to transition to different camera brands without having to adopt a different skills set. While the Nikon zoom and output controls require only a single touch for each increment of change, Godox makes it a three-step process. For example, to change the output you must first press the serrated rotating control wheel at the 9:00 position and rotate the wheel clockwise or counter-clockwise to increase or decrease the output. Finally, you need to press the unmarked center button to lock in your adjustments. Running and Gunning as I do, I usually forget this important last step, and later discover that my random movements across the back of the flash affected some change in the output. In my mind, that's way too much to remember.

I may rethink my flash carrying habits and start packing my Just In Case Bag in the trunk of my car. Everything I would need, including some spare batteries for my Fuji cameras, would already be there.