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Nikon D200 - part 4 of 1 2 3 4 5 6

by Mike McNamee Published 01/06/2006

Performance in the Field We took the D200 out on an all-day nature shoot, mainly chasing butterflies and dragonflies. Some of our efforts are tagged with the review of the Sigma 150mm macro and flash. Apart from some of the inevitable hunting at very close distances with subjects in the breeze, the D200 performed very well and we obtained some really nice shots. We found that this venture drained the battery rather quickly.

SB 800 Flash and the D200 in Commander Mode For the wedding photographer this is one of the most important features of the whole Nikon system. Nikon has dropped back from the 1/500th second synchronisation speed of the D70 for the more professional D200 and D2x cameras which are anticipated to have a harder life. We have written on synch speed in the past and indeed Terry Hansen covers the subject again in this issue. At 100 ISO, if you wish to use an aperture of say F2.8 (to throw a background out of focus) then you are likely to need a shutter speed of close to 1/2000th of a second, outside a normal synch speed. With its ability to synch at high speed, the SB 800 is ideal for just throwing a splash of fill into your efforts, an option that is not available on ordinary flash guns.

In addition, the D200 is able to control multiple guns and multiple sets of guns so that you can illuminate a dimly-lit dance-floor without the background guests looking like they are in a cave. The system is a little daunting at first glance and Nikon's John McDonald kindly spent some time with us, teaching us to set up multi-gun systems. Once you have done it the setting up really is rather easy, but don't look in the D200 manual, this is almost silent on the matter and neither is it referred to in the index or table of contents. There is a very snazzy demo on the Nikon website at (http://nikonimaging.

com/global/technology/speedlight/index.htm) and a full description comes with the manual for the flashgun itself (be warned the flashgun manual is about the same size as the camera manual!). In a nutshell, the D200 can be set to commander mode so that it controls guns or groups of guns.

It does so by tuning in to one of four channels. This means that you can have four Nikon cameras in operation (useful for multi-camera weddings although four might be over the top) without guests' cameras setting off your flashes and completely without trailing wires. The guns can be set up on their own little plastic stand which in turn can be tripod- or stand-mounted if so desired. In many instances the gun can be stood on a table, perhaps hidden behind a menu or table display. The clever bit is that each group can be switched from the camera position; if you press your camera depth of field preview button you get the modelling flashes from your guns, and when you make your exposure the i-TTL keeps everything under near perfect control! With the magic of digital you also get to look at the histogram to check everything is to your liking as well.

How many guns? This is a tricky question because the guns retail at between £200 and £300 so your total investment is going to be around the £1000 mark. Discussing it with John McDonald we decided that two SB800s and one SB600 along with an SK6A grip would make a good starting set.

This gives you three guns (plus the onboard as a backup) and, importantly it gives you a fill flash backup of one of the SB800s should you have an accident. If you like your flash to be more distant from your lens for fill flash, then there are any number of third-party brackets available and the SB800 will still work wirelessly with the D200. Anybody who specialises in Asian weddings (and a lot of our members do) might want to think about expanding the gun inventory yet further, to accommodate the predominantly indoor settings of these weddings.

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1st Published 01/06/2006
last update 09/12/2022 14:56:59

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