which flashgun

In dim & distant days long ago I rand a Jessops, and prior did 2 years service at Fox Talbot in the Strand - so I'm more familiar with your analogue kit.... which OM bodies do you use... if TTL metering is possible with your kit then the Metz could save you time - but if you favour carefully set up shots with the ollies you could do worse than a Vivitar 283 or 285 and doing it the old fashioned way whilst the Nikon gun does its' duties on your D50....

During my 10 years in that retail sector I NEVER recommended a 3rd party flashgun to any Canon, Nikon or Minolta user, and I never had a customer come back wanting to swap - a few folk bought 3rd party guns though and came back to exchange againsst the manufacturer's own unit.
Not casting aspersions against Metz... just saying how I saw things.

Ultimately you could soon find yourself using the OM's less and less... a circumstance which could well point you towards the Nikon gun.

Wait for Rico to say:

"well *I* think that 'you' could do with READING the website(Ken Rockwell). HE'S a great bloke who "talks" (if you pardon the *expression*) through his viewfinder"

Then Garyi will reply:

"yeah, totaly f#*king agree. Rockwel realy f#*king rocks. I like the Sb800. On the many thousands of images I've shot of my dog, i find it fillsin bootifully"

Mick will demand we all buy a Leica and then proceed to advise us to buy a lens with f1.2 aperture and do away with flash. (Is he still around?)

Deane F will then debate for 8 pages whether we need flash in our lives.

Rockingdoc will then agree with anyone who write intelligently (regardless of advice).

JamieWednesday will get the punch line a week later.

And the rest?

Farking classic Count D!!!!

I agree with Mike1380 - I had/have a Metz but eventually bought the custom flash for the camera (E1 plus FL50), the reliability and extra functionability more than make up for the extra cost.

what about the SB400 SB400?

ken thinks it's great and so does his baby!

Eponymous flashguns are invariably overpriced and no more, and sometimes less, versatile than other brands.

The real trick is to learn how to use flash properly - and to ignore those who claim that available light is the only way to go.

I have the nikon SB600. The SB800 has the addition of being able to send remote commands to SB600s, otherwise you just as well get the SB600 for a D50.

Count.D has issues with anyone offering advice, and chooses not to offer any of his own. Most odd, perhaps he is unaware of what forums are all about.

Hear Hear garyi. I think he has a superfluous "o" in his handle.

ta for the input. I found the SB800 on microglobe for £229 whereas the Metz was £259. Read around a bit more and found a comparison between the two that said the results were a little better with the Nikon, so went with that - should be delivered tomorrow. The SB400 & SB 600 looked good but I decided to be done and go with the big-un.

Mike - you asked about my OM gear - I've got a 4Ti,4 and a couple of 1Ns and a bagfull of prime zuiko lenses (21,24,28,35,50,85,100,135,200 - only the 50, 85 and 135 are fast versions). I've got a T20 and T32 flash so although a compatible Metz was a nice idea, it's not like I don't have TTL flash available.

I find myself using the D50 for people shots where I can take loads of pics and browse through them at leisure, especially for the kids when they won't sit still for more than 2 secs. Capture NX seems to work really well with the RAW output, the control points are really intuitive and seem to give really natural results for brightening faces and that kind of thing.

However I still find myself using the OM stuff quite often. It helps that with a single prime lens it's so much smaller than the D50 and looks less nickable. Also if it gets broken or nicked then, especially with the OM1s it's only £100 - £150 that's gone. Finally I still seem to prefer the results from film on landscapes & buildings, especially with B&W. Somehow the D50 (even when shooting RAW) seems to have less colours and less brightness levels in its pallete. Can't really describe it, but even grainy negs somehow look more 'real'. Finally I just love how much more intuitive I find the manual OM stuff - if the scene's a bit bright then just tilt the camera down a bit to get the correct exposure, and I love the solid mechanical feel.

thanks for the advice
Phil

Phil you will be delighted with the flash. I don't know if there is a Wilkos near you but they sell 2500 AA rechargeables for £8.99 about 10 quid cheaper then jessops.

People say that ideally you want natural light and thats fair enough, but sometimes the situations calls for a flash so you might as well have a goody, it makes a hell of a difference indoors.

I agree with anyone who writes intelligently, regardless of advice.

I also use SB800s with my Nikon 'cos for an amateur, a collection of strobes that talk to each other and do all the thinking about exposure for you is what you want. Just don't expect to get away with only one strobe.

quote:

Originally posted by Nigel Cavendish:

The real trick is to learn how to use flash properly - and to ignore those who claim that available light is the only way to go.

Certainly should know how to work with available light before you start pissing around with flash, though.

,

quote:

Originally posted by Deane F:

quote:

Originally posted by Nigel Cavendish:

The real trick is to learn how to use flash properly - and to ignore those who claim that available light is the only way to go.

Certainly should know how to work with available light before you start pissing around with flash, though.

Getting the best out of on camera flash is tricky and requires lots of trial and error to understand the quirks of the cameras metering system. Most DSLRs are unreliable at metering with flash - both Canon and Nikon have issues. Taking the flash of the camera will give much more pleasing results with better light and shade across the subject.

The great thing about available light is you can see the effect the light is having on the subject before you press the shutter. With flash guns you don't have the luxury...

Stepping up to studio flash with modeling lights gives the best of both worlds. Being able to see the effect of each light and having full control over all aspects of the lighting.

In any situation you still need to understand how your camera works

Graham.

Phil,

You'll have to consider upgrading your lens if you have the kit lens. Kit lenses give generally an image quality from mediocre to correct but not great. I'm a Canon guy, so i do not know the specifics of Nikon. dpreview.com forums may help you...

On the flash subject, both Canon and Nikon flashes are so advanced in talking with the camera that you can set aperture and speed manualy to give the effect you want (whatever the light is), and the flash calculate the light it has to output for a correct exposure at the focal distance you have set. You won't have this synergy with a third party flash.

What did impress me with the flash is how quickly you can focus up in low light. On the d50 it will throw out a small white light to aid focus if its low light, with the flash on it throws out lines of strong red light which enables AF to focus up a heck of a lot quicker.

Manu

thanks for the lens comment. The two reasons I went with the D50 rather than the EOS350 or 400 was that the D50 just felt so much more 'right' and solid in my hands (despite being bigger) the other reason was the I could get the better 'kit' lens (I can't remember the details but it was the one that generally came with the D70 rather than the D50 and cost about £150 more), it got significantly better write ups than the Canon kit lens. Now I agree that it's not comperable to say my lovely OM85mm f2 - but it's not at all bad. I think my next purchase will be a Nikon 50mm 1.8 - should be a great portrait lens with the 1.5x multiplication factor. After that maybe something wide - but then you're talking big bucks if I stay with Nikon.

Like I said earlier, I find myself using the D50 for people shots, kids parties etc, and the OM gear for out and about stuff.

thanks again
Phil

Phil,

Congratulations on your purchase. The SB800 is a wonderful flashgun and one which I've used for 3/4 years. When used with some Nikons the results are pretty unpredictable via ttl metering. This is due to the in-camera sensor measuring off the ccd surface, a problem known by Nikon and shared by many dslr's. However, with my D2x it's absolutely perfect every time. My only suggestion before buying, would have been to take your camera into a shop and fire several shots at dark/light subjects with this flashgun model, to make sure it works 100%. You wouldn't buy hifi gear on the recommendation of a mag. Or would you? If it's not accurate through ttl and balanced fill-flash with your camera, you've wasted your money. If it's so erratic, You'll be forced to only use it auto non-TTL.

I would like it more powerful, but the accuracy, ease of use and compact size make it my most used flashgun. My collection of hammer Metz stay in the bag 90% of the time.

You'll love the joypad, it makes adjustments so fast.

Use NM-HI batteries, the flashgun will recharge quicker.

There you go Gary, some advice. However, it doesn't surprise me that the person asking for advice bought the product within 6 hours of asking and probably wouldn't have listened to a thing anyone said anyway.

I agree

Rockingdoc,

Are you in agreement because of my advice or because my post was written intelligently?

I would be impressed if it was the latter, as I was always a maths person at school.

thanks for those that offered some advice, as I said I went with the advice to go for the Nikon. It arrived from microglobe within 15 hours and I therefore had it in time for my 6 year old's birthday party. Just plonked it on top of the D50, set the flash output for half a stop down to keep the highlights at bay, put the diffuser on the flash and pointed it at the ceiling and it worked brilliantly.
ta
Phil

If you do decide to go chicken oriental with it, the 800 will fire a remote 600.

dcount's predictions are dire, and I imagine are based on some fantasy inspired by cheap nasty substances. I was, in fact, going to say:

"Unless you really need the commander mode on your D50 (and are going to shell out for more expensive SB800's or SB600's), just buy one SB600. It's powerful enough for most situations, and will give you all that cool iTTL stuff. I have one and like it very much. It gets a good thrashing. Consider lashing up a diffusion dome or fold-up softbox, or buy an expesive one and get on with shooting photos. Having lashed up a diffuser for an old flash with success, I splashed out on a stoffen dome for my SB600 and use it most of the time. It's simple, and doesn't fall to pieces in the field."

I would then add:

"OTOH, if balanced flash isn't much of an issue (I'd suggest it is bloody great for family snaps and you can't walk past it for that), you could just go manual."

followed by:

"If you're going to go manual and are interested in the Vivitar 283 route, make sure you get the new one that's come out recently with the low trigger voltage (or find out how to tell if the used one you're looking at is a low-voltage model)."

"You might also consider Nikon SB28's (used), as they're grunty and inexpensive these days. They're rugged and reliable, and you can fire them with sync cables (bonus). They don't have an optical slave though (you need an SB80DX in the old ranges for that - unless you go SB800 and then we're full circle to lots of wedge and the Nikon CLS). You can also f*ck around with the strobe feature (yes also on the SB800) on occasion - I have a good laugh with mine. I even use it to take photos with."

and in conclusion:

"- take a look at Strobist, it's short on comedy (unlike dcount's posts); you should find some useful info and inspiration there (again, unlike dcount)."

cheers.

PS - yes you should buy the AF-50mm F1.8, it's a bloody bargain, and sharp as shit. Doesn't have the pleasing bokeh that purists appreciate but don't let that stop you; and isn't much good for indoor candids of kids (they like to be closer and the 70mm-odd effective is a bit of a constraint), OTOH it's light, compact, and gives you low-light capability (that you don't actually have to rely upon now you have the SB800)... HTH

Prime lenses are good discipline.

Best wide angle lens? Two steps backward. (Who said that?)