February 27, 2009

SU-800 Notes... (not a review)

Cliff Notes: Go out and buy one of these if you're a strobist!

I recently acquired the SU-800, as I was beginning to discover the strength, convenience, and versatility behind Nikon's CLS system. The SU-800 essentially act's as a commander unit for CLS compatible Nikon speedlights. Most folks who are picking up the SU-800 are the Nikon shooters with the pro bodies that don't have a built-in flash on the camera bodies, or are interested in doing macro photography (the SU-800 is included in the close-up/macro flash kit). I purchased the SU-800 individually for $250 through b&h photo/video.

I already have several SB-800's that have the commander functionality, in addition to my D300 which also supports and acts as a CLS commander. So why did I pickup the SU-800? Here are my reasons:

  • FP mode: This allows me to shoot beyond the 1/250 maximum flash sync speed
  • Speed: I'm able to quickly set/see my power settings with out digging through layers of menu systems
  • AF Assist: This allows me to focus even in dark or non contrasting situations
  • Blinkers: The SU-800 does not use pre-flashes therefore I don't wind up with as many blinkers when shooting via CLS.
  • Weight: Gotta do anything that I can to make the D300/Battery Grip/70-200 combo lighter!
  • Exposure: I won't have any on camera flash affecting the exposure or causing unwanted reflections
  • Extra Strobe: By not using my SB-800 as the commander, it frees up an extra strobe for me to use off camera, which ultimately saves me $$$$ ^_^
The SU-800 plain and simply rocks if you're a strobist. Go out and get yourself one of these puppies and enjoy shooting even more. I've found that the AF assist helps a great deal with the focusing. FP mode gives me the working flexibility that I need to kill ambient light as well as the shooting speed that I need for those large apertures without requiring ND filters. I can even combine shooting CLS with slaves, since there are no pre-flashes to prematurely trigger the slaves. The only limitation to that however is that I'm not able to sync beyond 1/320th. Which is still faster that 1/250th that I was limited to, but still not as versatile as FP mode. *oh wells* you can't win them all. Nonetheless, the SU-800 was a very worthwhile purchase. I was debating between the SU-800 or getting the SB-900 with it's simplified CLS interface (vs. the SB-800). The SU-800 won simply due to price point, in addition to some of the other added benefits aforementioned. Good stuff.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Good luck with the new blog. I enjoyed reading your first 3 posts.
You did make a mistake with your description of the su800. The su800 does not emit any visable preflashes, but it uses IR preflashes to control the remote flashes. These IR preflashes can prematurely trigger a speedlight in slave mode so mixing TTL CLS flashes with slaved flashes is problematic.
I have a d300, 3 sb800's 1 sb900 and a su800. You have to enable high speed sync in the camera menu. You will then be able to sync at speeds higher than 1/320 with the su800 and your speedlights. Of course you trade flash power for faster sync speeds.
I look forward to reading future posts.
Jeff Maanum
http://www.flickr.com/photos/33448956@N03/