Video information about Nikon CLS

Since it took me a bit to understand how the Nikon CLS system worked, I think it could be of some use for those willing to master this powerful tool to watch these videos

The "Commander" use is for me the #1 choice both when I'm indoor and outdoor, especially when using the SB600 or the SB800, very reliable and powerful units. You can trigger your flashes either with the pop up flash of your Nikon or using the SU800 commander. The important thing is that the receiver, which normally is on the lower right end of your flash, can actually see the light from the pop up or receive the infrared signal from the SU800.

These videos are not new, they've been out for a while, as well as the CLS, but they are still of much use.

Horse Power anyone?

I wonder if any of you guys has ever entered the engine room of a big boat. Not a huge oil tank or alike, just a big sport fishing boat for example. I did that last week-end, nosing around the twin engine room of my friend's Fernando 58ft Hatteras. The original diesels have been stripped out the belly of the vessel and replaced with two flaming new 1000hp Detroits. Now, these, for a profane like me are quite impressive, they probably are 4 feet tall and 6 or 7 foot long and must weight a ton or two, God knows. anyway, is not the technical stuff that interests me, is what I can do with those fine pieces of machinery and my Nikon with or without my strobes.

I have to admit I'm a flash fanatic at least as much I am a flash dork. No clue how to use them, yet I insist and dare to. This is a series of images of the same stuff, none of them really successful but I have a moment in this lazy Friday afternoon so I enjoy working a bit on the Blog. I have spent zero time in editing the raw images, these are the basic jpegs exactly how they came out of the camera, just reduced in size.

This is the dark view, quite futuristic of the whole thing. Like a spaceship... The flash commander don't work so well when there's heavy metal stuff in front of the strobe, hence only the right flash sparked a bit of light. a too high shutter speed and a not too open f-stop did the rest.

I wonder why this one came up so green, I shoot in cloudy WB and should have been warmer, but maybe this IS warmer, for the light I was using... No flash here, just available light at f3.2

Only one flash fired here, the one on the right. f5.6 sunny WB

Here we have both SB600 working, one is low on my right and the other one is on top of the white cabinet. There's a lot of reflecting and shining stuff here, the light is bouncing all over the place but hey, this is a dork at work, don't forget this. f5.6 sunny WB

A couple of bonus images, this one I don't have a clue of what it is. I put the flash on top of it to spread some light from above. Looks pretty average to me. f4.5 Sunny WB.

At least I know what this is. Flash still above but eventually who cares, is not a good take.

These shots have been taken with a Nikon D80 and Nikkor 10.5 Fisheye. It was darn hot down there. I know is a dirty job but somebody has to do it :-)