Nikon Creative Lighting System Digital Field Guide E-Book

J. Dennis Thomas

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Serie: Digital Field Guide
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 268

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2009

Beschreibung

A full-color, go-anywhere guide to Nikon's entire array of creative lighting possibilities Nikon's Creative Lighting System is like having a low-cost, wireless, studio lighting system that's portable enough to fit into a camera bag. Although the possibilities are endless and exciting, setting up, synchronizing the equipment, and determining lighting ratios can be a bit overwhelming. Luckily, this Digital Field Guide has been completely updated to shed some light on the situation! Beginning with the basic functions of the Nikon SB-900, the SB-800, and the SB-600, the author then goes on to demystify the complexities of using multiple speedlights, adjusting flash outputs, and setting up a wireless studio. * Clearly explains how to get the best results when using multiple speedlights * Includes examples and unique advice on how to light specific subjects, such as weddings, wildlife, portraits, product shots, and corporate locations * Covers other Creative Lighting System components, such as Nikon's wireless commander and macro speedlights With this handy, on-the-go guide, you'll no longer be in the dark on Nikon's Creative Lighting System.

Leseprobe

Nikon® Creative Lighting System Digital Field Guide, Second Edition

Table of Contents

Quick Tour

Getting Started

Taking Your First Photos with a Speedlight

Chapter 1: Exploring the Nikon Creative Lighting System

Main Features and Functions

Anatomy of the Speedlight

SB-400

SB-600

SB-800

SB-900

Camera compatibility

Included Accessories

SB-900

SB-800

SB-600

Add-on Accessories

SU-800 wireless Speedlight Commander

R1/R1C1 and SB-R200

SG-3IR

Chapter 2: Setting Up Your Nikon Speedlights

Power Requirements

Nonrechargeable

Rechargeable

Navigate the Settings and Menus

Flash modes

SB-900 custom functions and settings

SB-800 custom functions and settings

SB-600 custom functions and settings

Chapter 3: Flash Photography Fundamentals

Understanding Flash Exposure

Key Terms

Basics of Using Flash

Achieving proper exposures

Flash sync modes

Flash Exposure Compensation (FEC)

Understanding Color Temperature

What is Kelvin?

White balance settings

Mixed lighting

Using Repeating Flash

Using Bounce Flash

Fill Flash

Simple Light Modifiers

Diffusion Domes

Bounce cards

Speedlights versus Studio Strobes

Chapter 4: Advanced Wireless Lighting

Flash Setup for Advanced Wireless Lighting

Setting Up a Master or Commander

SB-900

SB-800

Built-in flash

Setting the Flash Mode

SB-900

SB-800

SU-800

Setting Up Remotes

SB-900

SB-800

SB-600

Setting Up Remote Groups

SB-900

SB-800

SB-600

Making Adjustments on the Fly

SB-900

SB-800

SU-800

Chapter 5: Setting up a Portable Studio

Introduction to the Portable Studio

Equipment

Stands

Brackets and multiclamps

Umbrellas

Softboxes

Reflectors and diffusers

Backdrops

Filters

Transporting Your Portable Studio

Chapter 6: Advanced Flash Techniques

Action and Sports Photography

Setup

Tips and tricks

Concert Photography

Setup

Tips and tricks

Macro Photography

Setup

Tips and tricks

Night Photography

Setup

Tips and tricks

Portrait Photography

Indoor

Outdoor

Pet Portraits

Special Effects Photography

Setup

Tips and tricks

Still-Life and Product Photography

Setup

Tips and tricks

Wedding and Engagement Photography

Setup

Tips and tricks

Appendix A: Posing Considerations

Appendix B: Resources

Appendix C: How to Use the Gray Card and Color Checker

Nikon® Creative Lighting System Digital Field Guide, Second Edition

J. Dennis Thomas

Nikon® Creative Lighting System Digital Field Guide, Second Edition

Published by:Wiley Publishing, Inc.10475 Crosspoint BoulevardIndianapolis, IN 46256www.wiley.com

Copyright © 2010 by Wiley Publishing, Inc., Indianapolis, Indiana

Published simultaneously in Canada

ISBN: 978-0-470-45405-3

Manufactured in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

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About the Author

J. Dennis Thomas is a freelance photographer based out of Austin, Texas. He’s been using a camera for fun and profit for almost 25 years. Schooled in photography first in high school then at Austin College, he has won numerous awards for both his film and digital photography. Denny has a passion for teaching others about photography and has taught black and white film photography to area middle school students as well as lighting and digital photography seminars in Austin. His photographic subjects are diverse, from shooting weddings and studio portraits to photographing concerts and extreme sports; he enjoys all types of photography. He has written seven highly successful Digital Field Guides for Wiley Publishing and has more in the works. His work has been published by Rolling Stone as well numerous magazines, newspapers, and Web sites.

Credits

Senior Acquisitions Editor

Stephanie McComb

Development Editor

Jama Carter

Technical Editor

Ben Holland

Senior Copy Editor

Kim Heusel

Editorial Director

Robyn Siesky

Editorial Manager

Cricket Krengel

Business Manager

Amy Knies

Senior Marketing Manager

Sandy Smith

Vice President and Executive Group Publisher

Richard Swadley

Vice President and Executive Publisher

Barry Pruett

Project Coordinator

Patrick Redmond

Graphics and Production Specialists

Andrea HornbergerJennifer MayberryMark Pinto

Quality Control Technicians

Laura Albert

Melanie Hoffman

Proofreading and Indexing

Linda SeifertTy Koontz

To Henrietta and Maddie, the sweetest girls in the world.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Cricket, Stephanie, Courtney, and Laura at Wiley. Thanks to the folks at Precision Camera in Austin, TX, and Jack Puryear at Puryear Photography.

Introduction

When Nikon introduced the Creative Lighting System in 2004, it was mostly overlooked. The focus was on the rapidly changing advancement of digital SLR cameras. This disregard was a shame because the Nikon Creative Lighting System was the most amazing development to happen to photographic lighting in decades. The ability to infinitely control the output of multiple lights and to be able to do it wirelessly, with full Through-the-lens (TTL) metering was almost unheard of.

The popularity of Nikon’s Creative Lighting System has grown exponentially in recent years with more and more people becoming interested in photographic lighting. The fact that these flashes can take care of most of the work for you at an affordable cost is a major factor in the popularity of this system. With the SB-800, the SB-600, the SU-800, and more recently the SB-900 and SB-400, no other company comes close to offering such a multitude of tools for specific lighting needs.

The main feature of CLS is the ability to get the flashes off of the camera and to be able to control them wirelessly. Nikon refers to this as Advanced Wireless Lighting (AWL). Quite simply, when you’re stuck with the flash mounted on the camera or even to a flash bracket, your ability to control the lighting is severely impeded — leaving you stuck with full frontal lighting.

With the CLS, you can direct the light. Thus, you can create the same lighting patterns that professionals achieve with expensive studio strobes, at a much lower cost. This is the key to professional-looking images: controlling the lighting to get the effect that you want.

The Evolution of the Nikon CLS

Nikon started toying with wireless Speedlight control in 1994 with the introduction of the SB-26 Speedlight. This flash incorporated a built-in optical sensor that enabled you to trigger the flash with the firing of another flash. While this was handy, you still had to meter the scene and set the output level manually on the SB-26 itself.

With the release of the SB-28 in 1997, Nikon dropped the built-in optical sensor. You could still do wireless flash, but you needed to buy the SU-4 wireless sensor. Wireless flash still had to be set manually because the pre-flashes used by the TTL metering system caused the SU-4 to fire the Speedlight prematurely.

In 1999 Nikon released the SB-28DX; this flash was made to work with Nikon’s emerging line of digital SLRs. The only change from the SB-28 was the metering system. The Nikon film-based TTL metering was replaced by DTTL. This metering system compensated for the lower reflectivity of a digital sensor as opposed to film’s highly reflective surface.

In 2002 Nikon replaced the SB-28DX with the SB-80DX. The changes were minimal, more power, wider zoom, and a modeling light. They also returned the wireless optical sensor. As before, although you could use this Speedlight wirelessly, you still had to set everything up on the flash itself.

When 2004 rolled in, Nikon revolutionized the world of photographic lighting with the SB-800, the first flash to be used with the new Creative Lighting System. The first camera to be compatible with the CLS was the D2H. Using the D2H with multiple SB-800s enabled you to control the Speedlights individually by setting them to different groups, all which were metered via pre-flashes and could be adjusted separately.

With the introduction of the D70 and later the D70s and D200, users could even control any number of off camera Speedlights using the camera’s built-in flash. Of course using the built-in flash had some drawbacks. Using the D70s, you can only control one group of Speedlights, and with the D200, you can only control two groups. Even so, this is remarkable. Never before could you use a Speedlight off camera while retaining the function of the iTTL metering. Today all of Nikon’s current dSLR cameras are CLS compatible. Although not all of the cameras allow you to control using a built-in flash, any one of the cameras can be used with one of the Speedlights that act as a commander to control any number of off camera Speedlights.

Eventually, Nikon augmented the CLS line with the SB-600, the little brother to the SB-800. While lacking some of the features of the SB-800, such as the ability to control Speedlights, it’s still an amazing little flash. Nikon also released a couple of kits for doing macro photography lighting, the R1 and R1C1. The R1 macro lighting kit has two small wireless Speedlights, the SBR-200, which you can mount directly to the lens via an adaptor. The SBR-200 can also be purchased separately enabling you to use as many lights as you want. The R1C1 kit is essentially the same as the R1 kit, with the addition of the SU-800 commander unit. The SU-800 is a wireless transmitter that enables you to control groups of flashes just like the SB-800 without a visible flash. Recently Nikon has rounded out the system by adding the bare-bones SB-400 and the newest flagship model, the SB-900.

What’s in This Book for You?

While the manuals that come with the Speedlights are informative and contain all the technical data about your Nikon Speedlight, they don’t exactly go into detail about the nuances of lighting — the small things and pitfalls you may encounter or the types of settings you might want to use on your camera and lenses.

That’s where this book comes in. This book offers you tips and advice acquired in real world situations by a photographer who has been using the Nikon Creative Lighting system almost daily since it was first introduced.

Initially, flash photography is often thought of with dread as mysterious and confusing. However, with this book I hope to dispel that myth and help to get you on the road to using the flash and CLS as another creative tool in your photographic arsenal.

Quick Tour

Many cameras come equipped with a built-in flash. Like any photographer who takes many photos with flash, you soon learn the limitations of these built-in flashes. Adding one or more Speedlights to your photographic arsenal enhances your photographic capabilities beyond what a built-in flash can provide.

Speedlights are not only useful in lowlight situations, but can be used in many other situations as well. Uses range from fill flash (which you learn more about later in the book) in direct sunlight to completely lighting a subject in the studio.

Right out of the box, a Speedlight can be used to capture dramatic portraits.