mark liddell

I have emailed sekonic and apparently tehre are no plans to update radio triggering to works with controlTL channels :(

<p>I sold my AF-D and fully intended to drop the money on the AF-S but chose the Sigma over it. Initially I have VERY sceptial this lens would actually match nikon's G but tests on lenstip and slrgear as well as a lot of wedding pros convinced me.<br>

Against the AF-D the sigma handily blows in away in every area and equallys it in the bokeh terms. The D version is a 13 year old design that suffers badly from flare, is unusable for anything that moves and the corners wide open are very poor.</p>

The flash is meant to fire when you connect it up, it shows the system is ready and says so in the manual.

Auto ISO is very useful in manual mode. You can lock down the aperture, charge the threshold shutter speed by just changing the shutter speed on the camera (to allow for a change of lens length or subject movement) and auto ISO sorts out the exposure. Just remember when you step outside again or you will just get an ISO200 shot at whatever your manual settings are at!

Having used the D version for almost three years and just sold it for the sigma version I see no reason at all why anyone would buy the D. The sigma beats or trounces it in every area especially flare control (which was awful on the D), AF performance (with the D forget anything that moves) and corner sharpness all for around the same price. That is 15 year old tech vs current tech. I also bough the sigma over the new G which from test results has compromised centre sharpness or sharpness at the very corners at 1.4. I would not even consider the 1.8, the bokeh (main reason for buying these lenses) is poor.

 

I was very leery about buying a sigma lens but wedding pros were gushing over it and the test results from lenstip and slrgear convinced me. I sold my D version for not far what I bought it for new 3 years ago ;)

Vicki as others have said the basic pocketwizards just trigger the flash and no more. For a reception though you will probably set the flash power and leave it alone - lots of pros use the same triggers as you.

 

Fortunately you can use the D700's popup flash and the commander menu to control remote flashes using the CLS system. This is very reliable inside and also surprisingly good outside - I've been using it at weddings without any problems as long as the limitations are respected.

PW made no secret there would be firmware tweaks after the release - anyone not comfortable with that should not have bought. These devices are pretty complex so just like every piece of software in existence it will have incremental updates for new features and fixes. Look through the release notes are really there are no show stoppers there at all.

I don't have it but 5,6 would be the best starting point based on other nikon primes.

I had also steered well clear of sigma until reports and tests of the new 85mm 1.4 came out but it's still the only lens I would buy from them though.

If you do a lot of macro get a body that has live view

<p>Using 'fake' ISOs you may as well shoot at ISO200 and then push or pull the exposure setting in post.</p>

Would you buy a 6 year old car that had sat in a garage?

The third party alternatives just don't come close, just check out the test results. There is no point in putting cheap lenses on expensive cameras.

 

On the filter issue, just use stepping rings - all my filters are 77mm.

On my D700 at higher isos teh exposure is critical. An iso 800 image can look like an iso 6400 image is underexposed and pushed in post.

The AC3 does not do anything a master flash or SU800 on camera won’t but it is much smaller, cheaper and quicker. You can’t physically raise the popup flash with the mini or flex on the cameras. Hotshoe. You also can’t use the commander menu to make changes to power/groups etc. like you can using the popup flash as commander with CLS.

<p>Yup the zonecontroller is pretty much a must have with this system and really I'd like to see PW build this in to the mini rather than having a tower of plastic pods on my camera and an extra £70 outlay. It's so fundamental to the system</p>

<p>I would rent the 70-200 VRII and see if it solves the problem. It's an amazing lens, having the confidence it will nail the focus on moving subjects is worth a lot for the kind of shooting you do and getting a much higher % of in focus shots.</p>

The westcott apollo 28" is great for speedlights but do consume more power than a shoot through umbrella.

 

My SB800 is at 1/4 or even 1/2 power at f/8 at a close portrait type work. You don't have to use f/8 of course but outdoor in bright light you can struggle.

I have had mine a few days, 2xflex and 1xmini. The flex's are huge, I wouldn't want one on my camera so I'm glad I went for the mini though I'm not too impressed with the strength or rigidity with a heavy flash on it. No issues so far aside from wake-up; sometimes the first shot doesn't fire the flashes but I'm sure this can be easily sorted in the huge amount of software options.

 

As expected you need a flash or SU800 on the transmitter to control the remote flashes unless you want everything firing in TTL, the commander menu on the cameras with popup flashes will not do anything so the zonecontroller is pretty much a must buy when it arrives in Jan unless you want to waste a flash or £250 on the SU800 and deal with the extra weight.

 

I have to say I'm annoyed at having to spend what will be £620 just to do what CLS already does but with reliable radio.

You can use the sekonic to meter when using CLS as long as it is not really close and you are not using any of the flashes in TTL, I've done it often but I do use the IR filter over the commanding flash which probably helps since meters should not be very IR sensitive.

 

Put the SB800 in SU-4 (optical slave) mode.

There is nothing wrong with a 24" softbox at all, saying it isn't going to do much outdoors is flat out wrong, I and others use sotboxes this size as a go to modifier. They are really great for 1-2 people but will not cover full length.

 

If you want some examples of what a softbox this size will do search the strobist group of flickr for westcott 28", I'm pretty sure you will like the results. Also have a read here http://lightenupandshoot.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3&Itemid=23

Latest forcast in mid-Dec for them. The test program sounds fairly ood and PW's reputation has taken a battering on thecanon rf issue.

 

Looking forward to having maybe an exra stop of sun killing power.

GN is not a measure of power at all. It is a measure of brightness at a distance along the centre line, not the total light output. As the other poster indicated, if you have a flash and zoom it, the GN will go up but there is no standard for what the distribution is at any zoom settings. You could have two studio strobes, one on 600ws one on 300ws and if you put a reflector on the one outputing 300ws you could get a higher GN from that one despite the fact that the other is putting out twice the amount of light.

 

The power of a flash (watt seconds) is a measure of energy stored in capacitors of your flash unit.

 

Buy an SB800 imo, the SB700 is overpriced, lacking in features and lower powered.

Go for a used SB800, it's smaller, cheaper with the same power. There is a reason they have become so sought after on the used market.

Is this the new G lens or the old afd?

 

Either way with the razor thin dof expect to gets some out of focus shot unless the subject is static just how many depends on which version you have. My D700 (same af module as your D300) nails the af fairly reliably with the adf version wide open but if there is any movement or you are focus/recomposing forget it.

 

I have found that even with better than 20/20 vision, the D700 viewfinder with split image screen my af nails the focus more accurately than I can manually focus and I've come from MF/LF cameras.