Off Camera Flashes - Nikon 5100

[Garfieldcita]

Hello
Just got a Nikon 5100 and would like to buy a pair of flashes to used them as off-camera flashes for portraits.
The obvious thing for me to do (but not the cheapest) is to get the Nikon SB-900 and a SB-600. Since the equipment is a little expensive, I would like to know if somebody can help me with a cheaper option to go with.
YN-560 Speedlight Flash, and the Vivitar DF-383 are cheaper than the Nikon flashes, but if I buy one of these will I bee able to used them as slave flashes later?. Will I be needing a pocket wizzard?? Somebody please advise!

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Garfieldcita

Hello
Just got a Nikon 5100 and would like to buy a pair of flashes to used them as off-camera flashes for portraits.
The obvious thing for me to do (but not the cheapest) is to get the Nikon SB-900 and a SB-600.

Actually, if you wanted two lights off-camera, you'd need an SB-900/SB-700 and two SB-600s. Because the D5100 doesn't have a commander in the pop-up flash, you need at least one on-camera speedlight unit as a wireless commander if you're going to go CLS.

... Since the equipment is a little expensive, I would like to know if somebody can help me with a cheaper option to go with.
YN-560 Speedlight Flash, and the Vivitar DF-383 are cheaper than the Nikon flashes, but if I buy one of these will I bee able to used them as slave flashes later?. Will I be needing a pocket wizzard?? Somebody please advise!

You certainly need some way to pop the lights remotely. If you don't mind line of sight and range issues, you could use the built-in slave on the YN-560/LP160/whatever [If you get an SB-900/SB-700, you'll have SU-4 mode to do this) and the pop-up flash in manual. You could also use cheap radio triggers (where most of us end up) like the Cactus V5s if range, reliability, and line-of-sight ARE issues. Or you could go wired with a sync cord of some kind from your camera's hotshoe to the flash's hotshoe.

BUT. Nearly all of these methods are going to lose you a lot of features that you'd have with the more expensive setup. You're going to lose i-TTL (i.e., you will have to shoot with the flashes in Manual mode and learn to dial in the power output levels (and zoom) manually yourself. Consider it similar to shooting on your camera in M mode, vs. A mode.

You'll also lose high-speed sync. Your shutter speeds will be limited to 1/200s and slower.

You'll also lose remote commanding capability: you will have to walk up to the flash to adjust the power level--you can't do it from the camera back. Not so tough if your flash is a few feet away from the camera. A bit tougher if it's farther away, or high overhead in an inaccessible area (think shooting in a gym).

Be sure you're okay without having the bells and whistles before you go the cheapie all-manual Strobist route.

My general advice is that your first flash should probably be an OEM one (say, an SB-900 or SB-700), because on-camera you can use it with all the bells and whistles, bouncing like mad in event run'n'gun situations, AND you can take it off-camera for Strobist setups. Best of both worlds. Look for the cheapie manual flashes for your second, (and third, fourth, etc.) flashes [since you can't put more than one flash on your camera hotshoe at a time].

Last word of advice: don't start messing about with an external flash unit until you're dead comfortable with shooting with the camera in full manual mode. Be absolutely sure that you've got ambient exposure (iso, aperture, shutter speed) nailed. You should be able to slide stops around in your head, and know all the tradeoffs you're making. If you're not in control of ambient exposure, flash will be a serious puzzle to try and work your way through, because you're just going to be throwing flash-to-subject distance, flash output power, and ambient/flash balance into the mix as well. Ambient exposure is like learning to juggle three balls. Flash photography is like learning to juggle five while walking a tightrope.

[Garfieldcita]

Thank you for your reply, I really needed some guide on how to start with this.

I have taken a few courses on lighting but we used strobes, and a crash course of portable lighting showed me the advantages of using small flashes.

I did considered buying a SB-900, to use on camera, and I think I'm going to wait a little more before getting the other ones.

Once again, thanks for your help!

[ccting]

Originally Posted by inkista

....

Is that mean, my decision to by YN465 to learn on-camera flash using manual mode is correct? Anyway I believe by the time i have mastered the on-camera flash, the speedlight will no more working...then only i will go for sb900

I believe YN will come out some cheap commander for 5100 One day, .