Can't get it right: D70 & SB800, SB80DX

[jettlich]

I've been using my D70 for 2.5 years now, and bought an SB800 2 years ago. I

do minimal "studio style set-up" photos. Most of my work is using natural

light, i.e., environmental/outside portraits & candids of family, my children,

and friends. Some professionally, most of it, for fun & self-learning...

 

Anyway, I just took some 4-yr old photos of my daughter, tried setting her up

inside w/ natural light coming from the window. I took some sample pics to get

the right exposure, etc., and it turns out the speedlight on my D70 seemed

better at producing brightness than my SB800! From what I've read/heard, this

flash should be able to light up a room! I then put my SB80DX w/ diffuser on a

tripod for more room lighting. My pics all turned out so dark. I'm very

dissapointed. My camera - in Manual mode, said (even w/ the 800 on my camera)

I needed to have my lens WIDE open w/ a ss of like 1/4!! Tell me how to use

those for pics of a 4-yr old! I just can't believe this is right . . . ?

 

Anyway, my husband is now starting to wonder (I've been complaining about this

not-enough-light issue for at least a year now) if there's a technical

disconnect b/t my camera & flash. I've mostly used the flash w/ TTL or TTL-BL.

 

I'm getting so frustrated w/ it, that I'm tempted to just not do anymore

inside pics or places that require more light b/c I'm tired of the problem! Is

using a flash this much of an art?

 

Settings or ideas anyone?

 

Thanks a ton, Jenna

[jonathan_ratzlaff]

Check out the site www.strobist.com for a start. Check to see what your camera is set at in terms of shutter speed and how your flash is set up. Set the flash syncronization to slow sync or rear curtain sync. Set the camera ISO to 200 Shutter speed does not make a difference with respect to flash exposrure.

 

I am not sure what lenses you are using, however a faster lens does help a whole lot.

Here is a test for your flash. Set the shutter speed at 1/60

If you are using a zoom lens set the focal length at 50mm and the aperture at 5.6

With the flash set at M with no diffuser you should have a range of 30 feet.

The problem arises when you use a difuser. This cuts the light level significantly Usually by two stops or more. Now instead of a range of 30 feet your range is cut down to 10 feet because the light is spread over a larger area.

 

One way to counteract this is to use a higher ISO setting on your camera. This will improve the range of your flash. Try ISO 800. Your image quality won't suffer significantly but the range of your flash will increase greatly

 

By the way I checked these settings with my SB26 which has the same light output as the flashes you have.

[picturesque]

You need to understand more flash theory and then re-read how to use the flashes (read the manuals). Get the book "Mastering Flash Photography" by Susan McCartney. Also of help is the article on on-camera flash at planetneil.com, under Technique. Hard to tell what is going on with your gear from your description except to point out that shutter speed has no effect on flash exposure, and the flash light's short duration can freeze subject motion (see dragging the shutter in planetneil article). TTL-BL should be used whenever you are designating ambient light as dominant, not when the flash is the only source of illumination. The SB80 isn't supposed to work with the D70, as far as I know.

[Rick Waller]

I don't own a D70, but I can share an experience I had last year when a friend asked me to help with his D70/SB800 problems. Seems that he could not get a well exposed image.

 

I shoot with a D2X and D2h and SB800's. Never had a problem. In fact, I find the SB800 to be uncanny in its ability to render great exposures with very little input from the photographer. A great flash; you can tweak when needed, but most times, just mounting and shooting results in great exposures.

 

So, I went to his place to see what the problem was. I spent 2 hours trying all sorts of things and concluded that the SB800 on a D70 just does not work that well. No matter what I did, when left to its own devices, the D70/SB800 badly UNDERexposed the scene.

 

I couldn't believe this was so; I tried every possible combination. I used my flash on his body and his flash on my body. My flash failed on the D70 and his flash worked perfectly on my D2x. WE set up side by sides using our 2 rigs mounted on tripods and metered manually and identically. MIne looked good, his did not.

 

I have no idea what was going on, but the only way that I could get a decently exposed photo using his gear was to set the D70 for +1 to +1.5 exposure comp.

 

I posted this little experiment on one of the sites (might have been the Nikon Forum on Photo.net - you might try doing a search), and a whole lot of people chimed in and agreed that they had underexposure issues with the D70/SB800 combo. Many concluded that Nikon intentionally programmed the D70 to underexpose a scene to prevent non-photographers from blowing out the highlights. Not sure I buy that explanation (seems foolish of Nikon to intentionally fiddle with the exposure of the body to anticipate less than pro usage), but I can tell you that my experience tells me that the D70 and SB800 is less than a a good match.

 

So - for what its worth - your problem may have more to do with the equipment you are using than on your photography skills.

 

Just something to think about.

[Rick Waller]

I found my original post on this subject when I first discovered the problem.

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00Dr6u

 

A quick search of Photo.net under "D70 underexposure" found these as well. It would appear that your problem is NOT unusual.

 

 

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00AOFC&tag=

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00C41R&tag=

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00HcnF&tag=

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=00AZ1R&tag=

 

http://www.photo.net/bboard/q-and-a-fetch-msg?msg_id=009q7R&tag=

[frank_skomial]

"I can tell you that my experience tells me that the D70 and SB800 is less than a a good match." - I do not know what you were doing wrong or the problem, but in my experience with D70 and SB-800 single or multiple flashes, the match is perfect. So is the match with D200 camera.

[pbase photo website]

I'll have to agree that the D70 and SB800 is a good pair. I now have a D200, but shot thousands of flash photos with the D70/SB800 combination. I assume you've already checked that the SB800 was in the proper mode (commander mode would cause dark shots) and no exposure compensation was dialid in.

I had a similar problem with the built-in flash on my D200 the other evening when I was getting dark photos. After a few minutes of thinking there was something wrong with the camera, I realized that I still had the flash set to commander mode from a previous shoot.

Good luck, and I hope you find the problem.