1st external flash, need advice

[doulahallie]

Im at the point of buying my first external flash. Comparing the SB600 to the SB800.

Most of what I do right now is newborn, family, child portrait photos, but Ive had a few events, and hope to work my way into wedding work with time. Im not currently charging, or if I get money for shoots, its minimal, as Im learning. I can find used 600s on ebay for under 200, 800s for 300ish.

Question is- splurge and get the 800 or do you think for what Im doing, the 600 would be enough? Im not oppose to spending the extra for the 800 if its really the best options, just trying to get some advice.

[scootermcq]

The 800 is disco... the 900 has replaced it. What camera is this going on? I have both, and the 900 is a big heavy beast, so sometimes the weight & size makes me grab the 600, but if you are shooting at 200mm or need the extra power, it sure is nice to have the SB900

The 900 can take a room like this:



and do this:

[doulahallie]

Oh of course- D3100

[scootermcq]

Another thing is the 3100 does not have commander mode in the camera, so the slave aspect of either flash is useless, but.... if you add an SB600 later, the SB900 can work as a commander for the 2nd flash.

[doulahallie]

ah, ok, I had some confusion about this based on conflicting info I was finding. So the camera itself won't work in commander with the pop up, but am I understanding right that I can still get this feature, but it will just require 2 extrenal flashes?? Sorry if these are dumb questions, Im just learning!

[inkista]

Yes. For commander unit, you can use an SB-700, SB-800, SB-900, or SU-800 (kind of like a speedlight without a light on it). That's if you want to use CLS and have i-TTL. And you can use the SB-600 off-camera as the slave/remote flash.

However, you could also go with cheap-ass radio triggers, Strobist-style, for a lot less. But. You'll only have manual flash capability (translation: no cool features. No iTTL, no high-speed synch, no rear-curtain synch, etc.) The radio transmitter takes the part of the master, and you can still get an SB-600 off-camera, provided that your radio triggers attach directly to the hotshoe.

Right now, the current speedlight models are the SB-700 and SB-900.

The SB-600 & SB-800 only swivel 270 degrees, which can get annoying-to-disruptive when you're doing run'n'gun event photography and your go-to technique is bouncing the light. This is where you aim the flash head at a reflective surface to diffuse the light. If you can't swivel all the way around, you're limited in the surfaces you can choose to bounce the light from.

The SB-700 and SB-900 both swivel the complete 360 degrees.

The larger-numbered units have more power output, so you have more light and can throw the light further.

The SB-800 and SB-900 have PC sync ports, which allow for external syncing methods, like sync cables, and certain radio triggers to be used. However, your camera body probably doesn't have one.

If you're trying to suss out speedlight features, I wrote a post that gave short descriptions of some of the most basic ones.