I have a D700 and a SB900.........I did a shoot today and was using the flash quite a bit. It kept overheating and shutting down. I am using better batteries for it.....but whats the deal? Is there a trick I don't know about? It was very frustrating having the flash shut down in the middle of a shoot....
Hot shoe flash just isn't designed for continuous use. The flash tube is encased in the flash head and there's no way to dissipate the heat. Not familiar with the specs. for Nikon but Canon recommends no more than 20 full power flashes and the thermal nanny kicks in after about 40.
This is one of those situations where hotshoe flashes have their value and studio strobes have their value. If you need to pop a lot of power repeatedly in a relatively short period of time then you should really be thinking studio strobes. If your Speedlight is overheating then you've only got one option: turn down the power or use it less.
jontiffin wrote:
I think the Nikon site has a blip about this on the sb900. It's a known issue.
Yes. Apparently the SB900 has a thermal cutoff switch that activates when the unit starts getting too hot. I don't own one, but supposedly there is a way to cancel this switch, but that surely doesn't seem like a smart thing to do!
