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Home >> Photography >> Accessories Nikon SB800
Flash Over the years, I’ve gone through a few Nikon flash units, SB26, SB27, SB28, SB28DX, and now the SB800. When the SB80DX came out, it took a lot of willpower to not purchase it and honestly I’m not certain why I did not, as it was suppose to have worked more reliably for D-TTL flash exposure with the Nikon D100 camera. Also, as an occasional wedding photographer shooting F100 film cameras, I really should have had three Nikon flashes on the go incase of mishaps. Well, I finally learned my lesson in August 2004, when I knocked my original SB28 out of commission before the wedding even began. I “tossed” the two F100 cameras with lenses and flashes attached in the back seat of the car and the camera with the original SB28 got caught in such a way against the heavy 70-200 VR lens mounted to the other camera that the leverage caused the plastic flash hot shoe to give way. There has been some criticism in the past about Nikon flash shoes being pretty weak, but this is apparently by design. The idea being that it is much better for a cheap plastic part to give way than a more expensive and vital part to become damaged, i.e., the camera’s metal flash mount on top of the viewfinder housing. The actual damage to the flash mount was just the side slots that fit under the metal guide of the camera’s shoe. The central section of the shoe was okay, but a service call to Nikon Canada was still required and of course they advised that it is not a user replaceable part, requiring their expertise and $50. C’est la vie. I pulled my Vivitar 283 Auto flash off the bench and pressed it into service during the ceremony portion of the wedding and the prints looked fine. However, I didn’t really like having to keep track of aperture and flash settings all the time if I wanted to change the lens aperture. So for the most part I used f5.6 on my 24-85mm lens and to play it safe inside the large Catholic church, I set the Vivitar to output an extra stop of light over the calculator recommendations. Afterwards, I went with a single camera with the SB28DX and swapped lenses as required in order to enjoy the convenience of Nikon 3D Matrix fill flash. The results were excellent in the overcast light. With that experience out of the way, it was time to bolster the kit with a third Nikon flash unit just incase I become heavy handed again with my “tossing” of equipment around. I ordered the SB800 and looked forward to its increased features over the SB28. I also took to actually packing my gear in the appropriate case for the next wedding shoot and ensured that the case was structured to fit in with my fast in and out handling of equipment.
The SB800 is currently Nikon’s top flash unit having replaced the relatively short-lived SB80DX, which seemed more like a stop-gap flash to tide the criticism of Nikon’s TTL for digital photography, as implemented in the SB28DX. When Nikon introduced the D1 digital SLR in 1999, users could not use the then current SB28 in TTL mode. The SB28DX was introduced to provide what Nikon called D-TTL with D-SLRs, but serious users were dissatisfied with its quality. A decade’s worth of Nikon’s vaunted TTL flash technology with film cameras spoiled many photographers into believing that there would be an easy transition to digital, but such was not the case. The basic problem for TTL in the digital world is that there is…wait for it…no film available for pre-flash technology such as Nikon’s 3D Matrix or Canon’s E-TTL to work properly. Film TTL has the flash pre-firing imperceptible pulses towards the subject and then measuring the amount of reflectance those pulses have when they come back through the lens and reflect off of a known variable, the film stock. These pre-flashes work fairly well for the most part, but the game changed with digital sensors replacing film because digital chips did not have the same reflectance as film. This isn’t to say that every brand suffered problems with digital SLRs, as Fuji was lauded for keeping their implementation of flash TTL in the S1 and S2 fairly consistent with film flash TTL. And Pentax is apparently using the same kind of TTL flash with their D-SLRs as they have with their film cameras. The SB80DX stemmed the criticism towards Nikon to a large extent and flash exposure became more reliable with Nikon D-SLRs. It appears that this reliability is due in part to increased low-level pulses from the flash than with the previous DX flash units. In some cases these pulses are very perceptible before the main flash burst has occurred, e.g., in slow or rear curtain sync mode. With the introduction of the D2H, an updated flash technology called i-TTL was also announced. The basics of i-TTL capability sound awesome, but there’s one expensive little catch, none of the fine features of i-TTL are available to legacy Nikon camera users, only with the D2H and future Nikon film and digital SLRs. For detailed information about the SB800 and its i-TTL features, check out Rob Galbraith’s article. On legacy Nikon SLRs, the SB800 works exactly like the SB80DX it replaced, so it’s not chopped liver either, but what fun it would have been to have had access to the wireless channel based TTL that i-TTL offers. However, the SB800 still offers some welcome improvements over the SB80DX for other than i-TTL considerations. The SB800 comes with an accessory piece to allow replacing the battery cover with a mini battery pack. This allows a fifth AA cell to be a part of the power supply and this improves the flash recycling time from 4 seconds for a full power dump, to 3 seconds. However, a slight incovenience to have an odd number of cells to use, especially for rechargeable users like me. A gel filter set is also included to modify the flash color temperature or color cast and some users have commented very favorably in being able to shoot under florescent lighting and being able to match the flash output with a preset or custom White Balance setting on their D-SLRs. As with the SB80DX, the SB800 also comes with a diffusion dome to soften the light. This dome is basically the same thing as what Sto Fen has been marketing for many years now. While the Sto Fen are quite generic, save for some slight size differences to fit many flashes, the Nikon dome is custom for the SB800 because putting it on the flash automatically triggers the flash to zoom out its flash head to its widest setting of 14mm. The basic technical specs of the SB800 are:
Compared to the SB28DX
Similar size and shape with the SB800 having a bit rounder flash head - notice how the SB800 has no white light emitter for red-eye reduction, a feature that I always found to be superfluous, however, if you really wanted to do some red-eye reduction with the SB800, you could use the modelling light feature.
Rear
controls - the SB800 is quite simplified over the SB28 with only half
the buttons
A big difference between the new and old flashes is the flash foot. The SB28 at left uses a locking dial whereas the SB800 uses a locking lever, first seen on the SB50DX and SB80DX units. The lever is faster to lock and unlock and the flash mounts easier than the older flashes. Also, is the difference in how the flash feet are made. The SB28 foot is plastic and relatively weak and easy to break when pressure is applied. The SB800 foot is metal and appears much more robust, but that may not be such a good thing is a lot of pressure or leverage is exerted between the flash foot and camera hot shoe. Hopefully, I'll never have to test this theory out, as I did with my SB28.
SC28 TTL Cord This is the new replacement cord for the long-running SC17 cord. I bought this new TTL cord sight unseen and based on a presumption on my part that because I bought the SB800, I needed the SC28 too. Not really so from what I can see.
The most visible difference is in color, from the light grey cord of the SC17 to black on the SC28. The other difference is that the SC28 has the same kind of locking lever for the camera end of the cord as the SB800. The shoe portion for the flash looks almost identical to the SC17 except that a tiny little hole is found on the SB28 cord near the contacts of the shoe. This tiny hole (as pointed out above) is for the locking pin on the flash that gets lowered to secure the flash when the lever is locked on the flash. I suppose the lack of this pinhole could mean a possible slippage with the SB800 mounted on an old SC17 cord, but I don’t believe this holds any real world implications. I probably would have still bought the SC28 anyway though even if I knew this before. The SC28 is also cheaper than what the SC17 sold for ($70 versus $100) when I bought my cords many years ago. A SC29 cord is also available that has an AF illuminator built-in for the camera end of the cord. Normally, for a camera and lens to focus in darkness, it needs an auto focus illuminator, usually built into the flash unit. The flash has to be directly mounted in order for the lens and camera to see the AF illumination from the flash. Use the flash off-camera and the lens and camera can no longer see the AF illumination. The SC29 alleviates this problem by allowing for off-camera flash positioning thanks to a built-in illuminator at the camera mount end of the cord. The AF illumination is typically a grid of lines illuminated on the subject using light filtered red from the flash. This provides the contrast that the lens and camera require in order to focus in dark environments. An SC29 is useless for me as I always shoot in Continuous Servo Focus mode and the illuminator does not work in this mode. Continuous Servo allows the shutter to be released when you want, as opposed to Single Servo mode in which the camera will not release the shutter unless the lenses has locked focus on a subject. Usage As a photographer covering events, I like similarity in my equipment and that means using the same model of camera if I use more than one at a time and similar quality and sized lenses. For example, I would love to upgrade all my most used lenses to Nikon AF-S, specifically, the 17-35 and 28-70 f2.8 lenses to match my 70-200 VR. This would provide me with 77mm filter sizes incase I want to use a polarizer or other special effects filters more easily instead of dealing with adapter rings. All AF-S lenses means not having to remember and worry about whether I can instantly tweak focus manually or not, as with older screw-driven lenses. Same concept holds for flashes. Right now with two SB28 units, I don’t have to worry about how to change settings quickly and efficiently, but things "might" get hairy if I have the SB800 on one camera and a SB28 on the other. I just might have to break down and buy another for a matched set J My first real use of the SB800 was for a wedding and everything worked swimmingly. I wasn’t working in really low light levels, so I could not test the fast recycling benefits of the fifth battery, but I cannot recall having to wait for the flash to recycle at all. The extra bit of weight and size of the fifth cell was of no consequence on the F100/MB15 already weighed down by the 70-200 VR lens. Often times I used the wide-angle diffuser on the flash even though I was using the telephoto zoom lens. When the distances were longer then I push the diffuser back in and used it in zooming flash head mode. Other than that, I only changed settings from standard TTL to Balanced Fill-Flash mode, as I moved from indoor to outdoor settings. Ah yes, this is what Nikon calls its 3D Flash now, Balanced Fill-Flash. Any differences? Well, the prints from that first wedding shoot turned out really nicely with the most subtle fill flash I’ve seen. There have been times when I take photos using the old Matrix 3D mode outdoors that the flash use is nice but somewhat obvious. To my eyes the SB800 offers more natural looking fill flash photos. At times it was hard to notice if any flash had even been used, but a tiny little catch light in the eyes or a glint off eyeglasses confirmed that the flash did go off. Nothing about the performance of the SB800 with the F100 would cause me any concern, as it just simply rocks and continues Nikon’s very strong tradition of providing excellent flash exposure with film. For digital, it seems okay, but just as I’ve grown accustomed to using the Stofen diffuser on the SB28DX, so too am I going to continue using the omnibounce dome on the SB800 when I’m doing some casual snapshots. I just like the way the light seems to be a bit more abundant and powerful with the omnibounce than without. The effects are subtle, as you can see in the comparisons below between a direct flash shot versus an omnibounce shot set to 45 degrees, but the light is softer and there’s a bit more brightness. Both images were obviously edited exactly the same way. Where there aren’t any walls to bounce the light around then the differences between the omnibounce shot and direct flash are truly subtle in terms of end result. Unedited images straight from the camera show that the omnibounce shot is brighter, but a bit of quick editing can have both shots looking so close to each other that one is left with having to choose from a very subtle color shift to decide which is subjectively better. Sample Shots with the D100 D-SLR My aunt, uncle and cousins graciously modelled for me in the shots below. Speed and convenience were my concerns, not art, so you'll excuse the unimaginative posing.
Softer light than direct flash thanks to white walls and ceiling all around to help spread the light. Shadows are pushed down and overall, the omnibounce shot just looks "cleaner." Indoor Low Light
The omnibounce shot is still slightly brighter than the direct flash shot with a very subtle color difference (both given the exact same editing), but I don't consider these to be of any significance as the direct shot could be edited to be similar to this one. The lack of white walls and ceiling narrows the gap considerably. Incandescent and Gel Filter
With direct flash you get harshness in the subject no thanks to a point source of flat light. With the shot at right, using the Nikon orange gel that came with the SB800 and slow sync mode we reduce the harshness while adding in some color for the subject. Note though that one has to have the white balance set for incandescent, as well as doing some contrast and color edits to fully neutralize the shot. * In case you're wondering why there are still shadows in a slow sync flash shot, I used rear curtain slow sync to ensure the the subject would not move prematurely, but didn't even think about the fact that I would cause a shadow to happen because the flash pops after the ambient light exposure. Oops! Outdoor Fill Flash with the D100
Update: After some thought and further review, these sample shots really don’t offer anything meaningful to see what the SB800 can do with digital fill flash. The issue is that you don’t really get a sense that the ambient light shot really needs any fill flash, my apologies for the sloppiness. All in all I like the SB800 and I'll certainly be gunning for a second unit next season to keep some consistency in my dual camera wedding kit. I really like that Nikon has kept the price at the same level for its top flash units over the years. Nikon flashes have been in the CAN $500 to $550 range since I first got into this with the SB26 unit back in 1997. This despite the large leap from the SB28 to the SB80/800 class of flashes. |
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Correspondence & About this website Copyright © 1998-2008 Edwin Leong |
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