btw, D40x, D40 and D60 need AF-S lenses, just a correction to the original post. . .

 

How can i improve these shots?I think their ok but could be better, not sure what im doing wrong or ways to improve. Taken with a Canon 30D.

rest of the pics here: https://www.evolutionm.net/forums/sh...d.php?t=319543

 

^the 1/26th of the white front plate is distracting. i would have also moved the car down in the frame, its a little too centerish. other than tha just try t find some nice backgrounds. its not a bad photo but it doesnt make me go "wow"

 

Can someone talk about flashes. I was using a D50 with a 50mm, using 20 and 30 shutter at night and the pics still come out very dark. I was thinking about purchasing an add-on flash to get stronger lighting since the built-in sucks.

 

you can go 2 ways. if you got the money best thing to do is buy a sb-800 speedlight and play with that and when you can buy a couple sb-600 for off camera flash. that way the sb-800 will work as a slave and trigger the 2 sb-600 so you can work with the one on camera sb-800 and have 2 sb-600's as off camera flash.

if you dont ever see you self getting that car into it just pick up 1 sb-600 for on camera flash but know the sb-600 will not work on camera as a slave so you can not use it to trigger other flashes but i will tell you this if you master off camera flash it will be the best investment you can make.

read....

http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/03/lighting-101.html

 

also please post one of the images you are talking about. just resize dont edit it any.

 

Ch@Dbee I hope you don't mind but a slave is the flash that the commander controls. A commander controls multiple flashes using Nikons creative lighting system (CLS). The only camera's that are considered masters or commanders are the D300, D700 and if I am not correct the D3 as well. You can command any slave using the SB800 or SB900 if you don't have one of the bodies I mentioned. I have a D300 and use it to command two SB600's and a SB800. And if I need to I use the SB800 on camera since the D300 uses the popup to send out strobe commands to the slave units. Again I hope you don't mind Ch@dbee......

 

dont mind at all good sir

all i was saying is yes the sb-800 will trigger other flashes but if he buys a sb-600 on camera it wont work as a slave and he will be restricted with off camera lighting.



Money being no object, I think the Nikon SB-800 is the best speedlight on the planet. It should be, for the $300.00+ price tag. But money is usually an object, and what you have to consider is whether an SB-800 is worth, say, three SB-26's.

But if you already have an SB-800 (I have a couple) there is no reason you should not squeeze every penny of value out of it that you can.

I love my old SB-26's in part because of their built-in slaves. They are pretty sensitive - certainly good enough for close quarters. And I use that feature in conjunction with Pocket Wizards whenever I am using more flashes than I have receivers.

A good example is this shot, which used six flashes. Three were PW'd and three more were slaved. Thank you, SB-26.

But the ordinary slave in the SB-26 cannot hold a candle to the superslave built into the SB-800. We have talked about accessing it via the SU-4 mode on the Flickr groups, but never on the main site. So let's take a look at exactly how to do that right now, and see just how good it is.


How To Slave an SB-800

1. First, turn on your flash.

2. Now get into the submenu by pressing and holding the "sel" button for 2 seconds.

3. Arrow right (the "single tree" button) to get the upper right quadrant highlighted.

4. Push the select button again.

5. Scoll down ("-" button) until "SU-4" is highlighted.

6. Push "sel" again to select.

7. Push and hold "sel" for 2 seconds to get out of the submenu.

8. Your flash will now say "REMOTE."


You are now in SU-4 mode, a legacy, wireless, quasi-TTL mode for which the SB-800 is backward compatible. But you are not going to use it for TTL. By pressing the "mode" button you can toggle between automatic and manual. Choose manual.

By pressing the "+" or "-" buttons, you can change power in 1/3-stop increments all the way to 1/128 power.

You now have a flash that'll slave to any other flash. You want to use both in the manual mode, so they will not influence each other's output.

As far as I can tell, the "eye" of the slave is the circular optical port on the left side of the lash if you are facing the front of the flash. So you will want to rotate the flash body so the window faces the master flash.


So, How Good Is It?

This thing rocks.

So, if you have a mix of SB-800's and other flashes, PW the others and slave the SB-800's. They work great together. If you slave an on-camera flash, make sure you set on manual and avoid TTL preflashes. This thing is sensitive enough to fire from those little winks.


SB-600... Meh, Not So Much..

Here is the bummer: The SB-600 does not have this feature. I can only guess that it was neutered. It has all of the hardware built in because of the CLS capabilities. I think they could have done it for free (or darn near) but for some reason chose not to do so. So now I have to go out and buy the 2x-as-much SB-800's.

Oh, wait. That's a reason right there...

C'mon, Nikon, unleash the SU-4 mode in the next version of the SB-600. You don't short change people on flash features -- you're the Good Guys. It's the other guys who do things like that.

Oh, and while I am thinking about it, to get out of SU-4 mode, do the following: Go into the submenu the same way as above, and scroll up to "off" from "SU-4." Hit "sel" to choose it. Press and hold "sel" for two seconds and you are back to normal.

Try it out. It's amazing.

And every SB-800 owner should know about this feature. If a flash costs as much as a car payment, you should know everything it'll do. So please help to spread the word.

 

those are sick pictures.

 

What do you think of the Manfrotto 190XPROB Tripod?

Review

 

i have it with the manfrotto compact ball head and i love it. great tripod for the money. pretty stable and a great piece to have. i had a 20 buck walmart tripod for a year and broke down and bought this a few months ago and was VERY happy, so much easier to work with!!!!

i give it a

 

Looks like an excellent tripod from an awesome brand so I'd say as well

 

so how much does a rig cost

 

I have the Bogen / Manfrotto 055X PRO and the Slik AF 2100 PISTOL GRIP HEAD. I love the height and adjustability of the 055 and the Slik pistol grip compliments it very well and is easy to use.

 

Pmed you....and I'd trade ya for some CF pieces!