SB-600

JAW · SB-600

Was having a chat with a media teacher at my college who also owns a d50, and he said that the SB-600 does not work wireless with the d50. Is this true? If so is there a flash that will work wireless with the d50? If there isn't, is it still worth getting one, even though it will have to be attached by a cable?

Your opinons will be helpful!

Cheers,
JAW

Hamish

The only way to use i-TTL off camera is via Nikon CLS. To do so, the D50 needs an SB-800 on the hotshoe to fire & control other the other Nikon flashes. With the D200 & D300 you can use the on board flash. There are pros & cons to the SB-800 or on-board to control remotes - distance & angles available v weight being the main tradeoffs.

The remote flashes can be either SB-600s or other SB-800s (and probably SB-900s too).

So... your teacher is sort of righ but also wrong. You can easily get a set of Cactus V2 triggers & receivers off Ebay/gadget infinity for about £20 and use them to fire your SB-600 (or any other flash with the suitable attachments) off camera. Same goes for cables. Only downside is that you have to use M-mode on the flash.

FWIW I use both an SB-600 and an old Canon EZ540 off camera with eBay triggers despite being able to use a single SB-600 by CLS with my D200. Obviously I couldn't use the Canon one on a Nikon camera but it works just the same as any other one when it is set up manually and triggers are used to fire it.

Probably not explained that very well but hope it helps.

JAW

Right, using Cactus V2 triggers/recievers with an sb-600 sounds like the cheapest option, so probably best for me. You don't need a flash on the hot shoe with this option, right? What is the downside of using the 'm' mode?

Sorry for being such a dunce!!

Cheers for ya help, much appreciated.

Hamish

Yep. No flash on the hotshoe. The trigger goes on the hotshoe and the receivers go on the flash(es).

Downside of M mode is that you have to set the flash manually and can only change the flash using the flash. You can set rear sync/front sync/slow shutter in camera but the FEV adjustments do nothing.

The big advantage if M mode is everything that I just wrote in the sentence above. Once you have your flash set correctly then you will get the same exposure, providing other factors such as aperture and distance don't change. You can still change between front & rear sync flash on the camera if you need to. It stops the annoying habit of the flash output being slightly different with riders wearing different colour schemes.

JAW

Sounds good, i'll have to see if i can get hold of some at some point + get the sb-600 itself!