I stole my father's Nikon D90 this evening and headed out to stalk some bugs. My D50 has always, and continues to work perfectly, but I wanted to try out some off camera flash setups. Nikon's CLS or Creative Lighting System,a feature found in its newer cameras, allows you to trigger regular hot shoe mount style strobes wirelessly. This sounds great, but there are a few pratfalls to be wary of. One is the sheer amount of variability in your setup. For instance, I was shooting today while holding the flash in my left hand, both flash and camera on full manual. Tiny changes in distance and angle affect your exposure. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it's the whole point, right? The other trouble stems from the triggering nature of CLS. A light sensor on the off camera flash picks up the output from nearby flashes, triggering it to strobe. In certain conditions, such as evening light coming in at a low angle, the external flash can't "see" the other flash. A set of Pocket Wizards are officially on my wish list. Please see my blog gallery for more photos!
I stole my father's Nikon D90 this evening and headed out to stalk some bugs. My D50 has always, and continues to work perfectly, but I wanted to try out some off camera flash setups. Nikon's CLS or Creative Lighting System,a feature found in its newer cameras, allows you to trigger regular hot shoe mount style strobes wirelessly. This sounds great, but there are a few pratfalls to be wary of. One is the sheer amount of variability in your setup. For instance, I was shooting today while holding the flash in my left hand, both flash and camera on full manual. Tiny changes in distance and angle affect your exposure. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it's the whole point, right? The other trouble stems from the triggering nature of CLS. A light sensor on the off camera flash picks up the output from nearby flashes, triggering it to strobe. In certain conditions, such as evening light coming in at a low angle, the external flash can't "see" the other flash. A set of Pocket Wizards are officially on my wish list. Please see my blog gallery for more photos!
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