Nikon® Creative Lighting System: Digital Field Guide, Second Edition

Chapter 2. Setting Up Your Nikon Speedlights

As you may have discovered, there are quite a few settings that you can change on your Speedlights. Although you can just slide your Speedlight into the hot shoe of your camera and use the automatic settings and get decent shots, my guess is that you bought this book because you want to get the most of out your Speedlight or Speedlights.

This chapter walks you through using the different flash modes as well as adjusting the custom settings so that the flash operates exactly how you want it to.

The SB-900 control panel has been refined to make operating it much quicker than previous models.

Power Requirements

The power requirements are the same for the SB-900, SB-800, and the SB-600: four AA batteries. Having ample batteries for your Speedlight is very important. What's the use in having a wireless portable studio when your batteries die on you? You should probably carry at least one extra set of batteries for each Speedlight you have.

Note

The SB-800 can use five AA batteries with the additional SD-800 Quick Recycling Battery Pack.

If you're going to be using your Speedlights a lot, I highly suggest purchasing rechargeable batteries. The initial investment is a little more than standard alkaline batteries, but you make it back easily when you don't have to pay several dollars for batteries every couple of days. I recommend buying two sets of rechargeable ...