I have been shooing a mixture of Canon and Nikon speedlights for a while now, but I've always used them in manual mode. Old habits die hard I guess, and I've just been using them like my studio strobes, only they are much more portable.

Well, to cut along story short, I finally got enough Nikon speedlights today (with the arrival of my 900s) that I can probably do away with the Canon 'speedlites' altogether. So I thought I would have a play around with CLS.

The original plan was to fire the remotes using the D300 popup, in commander mode. It does indeed fire them perfectly. The problem is that the D300 light is ALSO flashing even though I have the built in flash set to '--' in commander mode. I had thought that this allows a pre-flash only, and does actually not fire the popup flash during the actual exposure. Well, this now appears not to be the case.

If I hold my hand in front of the popup flash (enough to let it fire the other remotes but block the subject) I get a nice dark subject (from the front). If I don't hold my hand there I can see the front of the subject is lit. Now, I KNOW it's coming from the popup flash because adding / taking away the lens hood effects the light path (i.e. the lower part of the subject is still in the shadows).

So, clearly either I have a faulty system or I need to hold my hand up and say I miss understood something here and please could some one point me in the right direction regarding the built in commander mode?

You're not missing anything according to Nikon. Note that the demo for setting the built-in commander is selected by clicking the lower left box at the link below.

http://static.nikonusa.com/speedlight_demo/index.html

http://www.nikonusa.com/Assets/Common-Assets/PDF/FastTrack_To_WirelessSpeedlights.pdf

Are you pressing the "OK" button after you set the command mode? If not, it will return to the previous or default settings.

Even though the built-in flash is in non-firing commander mode, it flashes to send information to the remote flashes. Of course, the power is very low in comparison to the other flashes. But in some cases it affects the exposure. What I did is buying the Nikon IR panel to prevent the light to affect exposure.

Easy fix.
Nikon SG-31R
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/410445-REG/Nikon_4905_SG_3IR_IR_Panel.html

Blocks the pop up but allows the remote flash's to, ummmm flash.

You might try a SG-31R...

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/410445-REG/Nikon_4905_SG_31R_IR_Panel.html

Darn! Beaten to the punch.

Thanks every one - so this would be normal then.... because I am so close... and I would not normally see it if I was at a distance....?

Yes, the blocker is your solution. Even though the master (popup) is set to not contribute any exposure, it will do so if your subject is close enough.

The pop-up has to give a sync flash, the others are not intelligent enough to know when to flash, that is the little light you see on your pics.

i sure you can turn the pop up down to -3 ev and still get cls.

louis fusco wrote:
i sure you can turn the pop up down to -3 ev and still get cls.

I tried it on manual at 1/128 and I could still see it..... so I think the popup blocker is the answer. I found it for £7.95 so it's no big deal. I will use some cardboard until it arrives.....

Again, thanks to every one for the prompt and helpful answers