SB 600 or SB 800 ????

[Lori H]

I have a Nikon D300. I need to buy a flash. I know that the SB 800 are no longer being made but there seems to still be some available.... Which would be the better move??

I know the SB 900 is out there but a little more than I would like to pay right now. I am doing some portraits (family and friends) and a few weddings .... any thoughts?? Thanks.

[inkista]

I'd say the SB-800. Although it won't swivel the full 360° like the SB-900 will, you will still have more features and power over the SB-600, and a PC port if you want to go into off-camera flash.

[OsmosisStudios]

Buy the best you can afford. If you can get a 800, jump on it.

For the work I do, 2 600s is better than 1 900, so I'm opting for that.

[Lori H]

Are any and all SB800 fully compatible with my D300 or are there others things that I have to check on? My understanding was that it would work off camera now becuase the technology is built into my D300 to trigger the external flash is this not correct?? Thanks again for all the help Lori

[ARKreations]

The SB-800 is fully functional and compatible with the D300.
The 300+600+800 all play very nicely together. But given the choice, go for the SB-800.

[kirbinster]

Its all a matter of money. What do you feel the 800 gives you for the extra money that the 600 does not? If you can answer that question and value the difference then go for it. I have two SB600's and am quite happy with them.

[inkista]

Originally Posted by Lori H

My understanding was that it would work off camera now because the technology is built into my D300 to trigger the external flash is this not correct??

Sorry, didn't mean to imply you couldn't go off-camera without a PC port. Yes, your D300's pop-up flash can be used as a commander unit with both the SB-600 and the SB-800 through Nikon's CLS system. But CLS is light-based signalling at near-infrared frequencies. And it does have a few drawbacks.

The signalling system works much like the remote control to your television does. The receiver and transmitter need "line of sight"--the sensor on the flash needs to see the signals from the pop-up. So, hiding the flash behind a doorway, behind an umbrella, inside a softbox, etc. can sometimes cause problems. Indoors, it's usually not any problem at all, because the light can reflect around and off the walls and ceilings and still be seen. But outside, without bounce surfaces, the line of sight requirement can be a pain, and the range can become a lot smaller--especially in bright sunlight which can overwhelm the CLS signal. So, reliability can become much worse.

So most people who end up doing off-camera lighting outdoors or need 100% reliability eventually move to radio triggers. Radio doesn't require line of sight, and the range is much larger, and the reliability is better. Some radio triggers attach directly to the flash hotshoe, but some (Cybersyncs, PocketWizards) do not and require a PC port or other connection to a light, since some triggering systems presuppose a studio strobe, rather than a speedlight.

An additional capability the SB-800 has over the SB-600 is what's called "SU-4 mode"--this is a 'dumb' optical trigger. Unlike CLS which uses specific signals to enable a host of features, SU-4 mode simply tells the SB-800 to fire whenever it sees another flash go off. This can be a pain if you're around a lot of other photographers. But it can be really useful if, say, you wanted to travel light and only took your P&S camera with you or you didn't want to haul your radio triggers, or one of your radio triggers failed or had flat batteries.

I think an SB-800 becomes a better buy if you plan on using it on-camera. Because the on-camera flash go-to technique is bouncing. And bouncing increases the distance, so the extra power alone is going to be a good reason to get it. This isn't as much of an issue with off-camera work until you start shooting large groups/spaces, since putting the light on a stand and using a softbox or umbrella lets you use the light you have much more efficiently, but with bounce, you have to throw a lot of light away--there's no way around it.