Don't get me wrong, the SB-900 is friggin' great. Just giving some perspective. Ultimately what I'm saying is that you would ideally have both in your kit. I wish Nikon would give the SB-900 a greater range, like Canon's 580 which IIRC can go down to 1/250th power. If you're going to have one flash, go with the SB-900.
codeninja wrote:
Oh well, I set my mind on getting SB900...and, this...
If this is your only worry do not despair, it can be "fixed" by cutting the ISO down one stop or stopping down the aperture. Because the difference will not be more than that. Unless you must absolutely positively must shoot at the highest ISO and widest aperture you can possibly can at close range. Which you won't.
panos.v wrote:
However, given that the SB600 only goes down to 1/64 and given that the SB900 is about 1 stop more powerful than the SB900 then 1/64 on the 600 is the same as 1/128 on the 900. So I'm not really sure where the perceived advantage comes from. It is a much bigger issue when using the pop-up flash on some cameras. Even though the pop-up flash is weaker than a SB600, the pop-up can only dial down to 1/16 so the minimum output will be more than a SB600 dialed down to 1/64.
FWIW, I just confirmed that the difference is about a stop, but you can throttle the SB-600 down to 1/128th using CLS, so not sure where you got the 1/64th number. I never adjust the power on the flash itself. If it can go down to 1/128th through CLS, I think it's safe to assume it can do the same attached to the camera using iTTL.
As for compensating by changing ISO or Aperture, well, duh. The case in which this is an issue for me is when I'm shooting fill indoors and I'm using the ISO/Aperture that gives me an optimal shutterspeed. So while I could "work around" the issue by tweaking the ambient exposure, it likely means I'm going to get more motion blur and thus more ghosting, etc.
R. Francois wrote:
oh the Sb900 has a nice star wars sound too when a full flash is emitted. KA SHEEEW, leaving your subject toasted. How cool is that?
And thats all the reason I needed to get the SB-900
Sam Bennett wrote:
FWIW, I just confirmed that the difference is about a stop, but you can throttle the SB-600 down to 1/128th using CLS, so not sure where you got the 1/64th number. I never adjust the power on the flash itself. If it can go down to 1/128th through CLS, I think it's safe to assume it can do the same attached to the camera using iTTL.
How can you set the SB600 to 1/128? The manual controls on it only go to 1/64. Do you mean via the menu on camera when using commander & manual CLS? If CLS can indeed set it to 1/128 then yes, the output will be less than a SB900 at 1/128. I'm really curious now to find out what's going on.
panos.v wrote:
How can you set the SB600 to 1/128? The manual controls on it only go to 1/64. Do you mean via the menu on camera when using commander & manual CLS? If CLS can indeed set it to 1/128 then yes, the output will be less than a SB900 at 1/128. I'm really curious now to find out what's going on.
Yeah, I'm talking about through the camera in Commander Mode. I verified that it is throttling down a step between 1/64th and 1/128th. So, it would seem to me the 1/64th limitation you're talking about is just when adjusting the flash manually. An artificial limitation.
Sam Bennett wrote:
Yeah, I'm talking about through the camera in Commander Mode. I verified that it is throttling down a step between 1/64th and 1/128th. So, it would seem to me the 1/64th limitation you're talking about is just when adjusting the flash manually. An artificial limitation.
How bizarre to limit it via firmware like that! Perhaps they saved a couple of cents by using an LCD that can only display the two digits of 64, instead of 3 for 128.
