SB-600 Tests : Indoors
I figured the first attempt that I would make at this would be to shoot indoors with a fairly low amount of natural light. Being home alone with Bailey I figured he would be a great subject for the tests. Judging by the fact that he turned his back on me after the first flash, I got the impression that he wasn’t as into it as I was.
I took a series of shots with my camera in Aperture Priority and in Shutter Priority but since there was such a small amount of natural light in the room, I had to go to shutter speeds less than 1/10 in order for the aperture to move from f/2.8 so I stuck with Aperture Priority as my shooting mode.
Below are the series of shots that I captured labeled with the exposure information listed on each. Some things to know about these shots:
- The maximum shutter speed that I could in this mode was 1/60 because that is the limit of my D90
- These are the RAW files right out of the camera and they have not been edited. Just re-sized.
- Nikon SB-600 was aimed to the ceiling
- Nikon SB-600 was fitted with a Stofen Diffuser
You can easily see the effect of opening the aperture here while leaving everything else alone. Personally, I like the shots at f/5.6 and f/9 the best. In this type of setting, I will stay within that range of apertures in the future.
What do you think?
You would think that the 2.8 would be lighter than the 5.6 and 9 but that doesn’t look to be the case. Do you know why that is?
Great learning series here.
I think that it has to do with the shutter speed being a little slow at 1/60 and f/2.8 so more flash and ambient light are getting in.
Paul,
I think you’re confusing yourself here.
This isn’t really a test of flash settings as much as a test of flash TTL metering.
The flash is adjusting it’s output in TTL (or whatever Nikon’s auto mode is – I’m a Canon shooter!) to expose the scene.
Taking these one by one.
1/60th f2.8 is a little underexposed – this is confusing the issue because it should be the same illumination as f5.6 and f9
When dealing with flash the aperture only controls the DoF – the flash takes care of the exposure by adding or cutting off illumination to match your settings – that’s why f5.6 and f9 look identical *exposure*. You’ve got even more DoF with f13 of course. But an identical exposure.
By f18 the flashgun is running out of power to effectively expose that tiny aperture so it can’t keep up – hence it underexposes. Moreso by f22 where what you are seeing is almost all ambient (at ISO400 1/60th f22 indoors that *will* be dark).
Put the flash on full manual power and redo the experiment. Keep shutter at 1/60th. You’ll see how it overexposes at f2.8 and hits a sweet spot where its correct then underexposes by f22.
PP
Great points!
I was not changing the setting on the SB-600, I was changing the exposure setting of the camera and the SB-600 was responding to these changes.
You are right, I should have mentioned that the changes are seen in the DOF between the f-stops and not the exposure.
The whole strobist/flash world is really confusing. I bought myself an SB600, but after using it once or twice, it just seems like too much hassle to me.
I really need to get back to my flash bit more..
Glad to meet you on Twitter