First Time Using D7000 with Off Camera Flash - ISSUES.

Hi Nikonites !!

So first, keep in mind, I haven’t had my Nikon camera for too long, so I’m still learning the ropes after making the switch from Canon.

Here is the gear set up that I had last night.

• Nikon D7000 with extra battery handgrip
• Nikon SB-800
• One see through umbrella, on a stand w/ a Flash Mounting Bracket Strobist Swivel Umbrella Mount Flash Bracket
• A set of wireless receivers for my camera to my flash that was on the stand.
• Two Nikon camera batteries that don’t seem to want to charge (side note: I recently realized that my Nikon battery charger was not charging, so I bought an aftermarket one. It arrived to my house about 2 hours prior to my shoot last night, so I didn’t have too much time to charge. However, I’m not even sure these batteries are CHARGING. I don’t recall the last time that I saw the battery charge above two hash marks).
• Shooting on Manual mode on my camera, and TTL on the flash.

ISSUE #1: While shooting last night, I noticed that there were a NUMBER of shots fired that came out black on my camera. Like completely black, no light whatsoever, including natural light. It seemed to only happen when I first picked up my camera after not using it for a few minutes. I thought maybe it was from the flash being in sleep mode, but there was NO light! Could these be caused by a low charge on the camera battery itself? (it was at about 1 bar of charge pretty much all night, and i kept rotating out my batteries in the charger to keep them alive during my shoot).

ISSUE #2: My flash was not firing a steady power of light. Ie: One shot would be perfectly focused. Then the next shot would fire less light, and the next even less light, and so forth. And then I'd get one PERFECTLY bright/exposed shot out of nowhere. lol I had brand new batteries in the flash.. is it possible that they just died quickly, and thus were causing an uneven distribution of light on each shot? I feel like I don’t normally run into that issue when my flash is ON camera so I was pretty confused by it. Is it possibly that the flash used more AA battery power OFF camera?

I am charging my Nikon battery all day today in hopes of checking on whether the batteries themselves need replacing. (Really hoping not!)

I’ve never worked with off camera flash lighting before, so some of these things were really baffling me last night !

I appreciate any insight into these issues, thank you so much !

:redface-new:

Low camera battery could cause problems, but I'd guess probably not with problems with the flash. You have a camera menu Setup - Battery Info that will give more precise state of charge.

You CANNOT use flash TTL mode with radio triggers. It probably flashes, but at undetermined power level. Flash must be in Manual mode M.

If you want TTL mode, then give up the radio triggers, use the D7000 Commander, and set Remote Mode on SB-800. See http://www.scantips.com/lights/awl.html

Issue 1 - black. This sounds like the flash is not firing, possibly due to the radio triggers. Did it flash? Take a similar picture with the flash turned off, see how black it is (oops, that is assuming camera M mode. If camera A or P mode, automation will just crank it back up with a very slow shutter speed).
If it was camera Manual mode, and ISO 100 and say about f/8 at about 1/100 second, normal room ambient ought to be about black (which is normal with no flash, due to severe underexposure without flash).

It is probably a good idea to put the flash on the hot shoe (excluding the radio triggers) while figuring out if it is a triggering problem, or something else.

Issue 2 - flash exposure should not vary, but it will if you have some form of bracketing left on from last time. If the word "Bracketing" rings a bell, verify you did reset it off.

It does sound like the first thing is to charge the camera battery. See the camera menu Setup - Battery Info.

Hmmm bracketing is definetly not something I've ever experimented with in the past.
Can low battery charge cause a flash exposure variation? (referring to the AA batteries inside the actual flash itself).

I was definetly in manual mode, at an ISO of 100, f/5.6 for a good chunk of the evening, and a shutter speed between 100-200 depending. We were also on a horror film set, so it was certainly dark in there. Because of the flash exposure varying, and that confusing me, I did a lot of manual adjustments throughout the night trying to compensate for that.

Keep on mind that the orig batteries have a sort of built-in "protection" circuit, that "informs" the camera about their (batteries') genuineness. This, in return, prevents "aftermarket" batteries from being used in cameras, unless such batteries are properly encoded (as to cheat on the camera). Could be the same in terms of (in)compatibility with non-genuine chargers.

But, I think the issues have something to do with the sync modes, rather than with batteries... Have you tried the "auto" mode as well?

kristentyler said:

Hmmm bracketing is definetly not something I've ever experimented with in the past.
Can low battery charge cause a flash exposure variation? (referring to the AA batteries inside the actual flash itself).

I was definetly in manual mode, at an ISO of 100, f/5.6 for a good chunk of the evening, and a shutter speed between 100-200 depending. We were also on a horror film set, so it was certainly dark in there. Because of the flash exposure varying, and that confusing me, I did a lot of manual adjustments throughout the night trying to compensate for that.

Click to expand...

You are going to need more information about the symptoms, but ISO 100 1/100 second f/5.6 ought to be black in a dim room if the flash did not fire. Therefore, I don't think "black" is the symptom of camera malfunction. Sounds like the flash did not fire. Watch it, see if it did or not. Batteries in flash and batteries in radio triggers also have to be fresh.

Batteries are always the first suspicion, but in my experience, a low camera battery does not work improperly, it just shuts down and quits. Try again, you need more information. It does not have to be in the same setting, and try to establish some information about what is happening.

But you said TTL flash and radio triggers, which is an adamant no-no, it cannot work right. At best, the flash is always a constant unprogrammed middle power level, regardless if the scene needs more or less light. Which could let you think the result was varying, when the TTL was simply not programmed for TTL (TTL flash absolutely cannot work right on a simple manual radio trigger). I suspect this was the major issue.

WayneF said:

Low camera battery could cause problems, but I'd guess probably not with problems with the flash. You have a camera menu Setup - Battery Info that will give more precise state of charge.

You CANNOT use flash TTL mode with radio triggers. It probably flashes, but at undetermined power level. Flash must be in Manual mode M.

If you want TTL mode, then give up the radio triggers, use the D7000 Commander, and set Remote Mode on SB-800. See Using the Nikon CLS Remote Wireless Flash System

Issue 1 - black. This sounds like the flash is not firing, possibly due to the radio triggers. Did it flash? Take a similar picture with the flash turned off, see how black it is (oops, that is assuming camera M mode. If camera A or P mode, automation will just crank it back up with a very slow shutter speed).
If it was camera Manual mode, and ISO 100 and say about f/8 at about 1/100 second, normal room ambient ought to be about black (which is normal with no flash, due to severe underexposure without flash).

It is probably a good idea to put the flash on the hot shoe (excluding the radio triggers) while figuring out if it is a triggering problem, or something else.

Issue 2 - flash exposure should not vary, but it will if you have some form of bracketing left on from last time. If the word "Bracketing" rings a bell, verify you did reset it off.

It does sound like the first thing is to charge the camera battery. See the camera menu Setup - Battery Info.

Click to expand...

Wayne, just a quick question.. I know I cannot TTL with my inexpensive radio triggers but are there not more expensive triggers in the Yongnuo line and of course Pocketwizards???

Thanks (and I appreciate all of your detailed responses, they have helped..)

Pat in NH

I did not use Auto mode actually. I did do manual mode on the flash,, but same effect was going on.

I'll run some tests on that tonight, and see how that works.

and good to know about off-brand batteries!! I had no idea.

The charger DID seem to be charging the batteries, but it was hard to tell with them not having much time to really make much difference =/

Seems odd that BOTH of my Nikon batteries would suffer the same fate at the same time though.

WayneF said:

But you said TTL flash and radio triggers, which is an adamant no-no, it cannot work right. At best, the flash is always a constant unprogrammed middle power level, regardless if the scene needs more or less light. Which could let you think the result was varying, when the TTL was simply not programmed for TTL (TTL flash absolutely cannot work right on a simple manual radio trigger). I suspect this was the major issue.

Click to expand...

Ah ha.. .we may have found the culperit.

RockyNH said:

Wayne, just a quick question.. I know I cannot TTL with my inexpensive radio triggers but are there not more expensive triggers in the Yongnuo line and of course Pocketwizards???

Click to expand...

Yes, that is true, however I am out of my element on those, I don't have any of them, and I really don't know enough about them to discuss them. I know we are discussing higher prices than the cheapie triggers. All of the cheapie triggers, specifically any of those NOT specifically dedicated to only Nikon or Canon cameras, are all Manual flash only.

But yes, some PocketWizard models... the TT1 Mini and Flex, but NOT the standard Plus models. Also the Radio Popper PX model. These work by reading the Nikon Commander output, then relaying those infrared signals by radio, and then providing infrared output into the Nikon remote flash. Just a carrier, not a commander.

And yes, I think the Yongnuo YN622N radio trigger is TTL. And the Photox Odin also. I think these don't just relay the Nikon commander signals, I think they may instead be a complete replacement radio Commander.

WayneF said:

Yes, that is true, however I am out of my element on those, I don't have any of them, and I really don't know enough about them to discuss them. I know we are discussing higher prices than the cheapie triggers. All of the cheapie triggers, specifically any of those NOT specifically dedicated to only Nikon or Canon cameras, are all Manual flash only.

But yes, some PocketWizard models... the TT1 Mini and Flex, but NOT the standard Plus models. Also the Radio Popper PX model. These work by reading the Nikon Commander output, then relaying those infrared signals by radio, and then providing infrared output into the Nikon remote flash. Just a carrier, not a commander.

And yes, I think the Yongnuo YN622N radio trigger is TTL. And the Photox Odin also. I think these don't just relay the Nikon commander signals, I think they may instead be a complete replacement radio Commander.

Click to expand...

Again, thanks Wayne... I use cheap ones and do manual with my off camera flash ... I just wanted to make sure I understood correctly... Thanks as always!

Pat in NH

The Pocket Wizards such as the Mini TT1 and the Flex Five are a ton more money but they will do things like TTL, sinc with my camera as high as my shutter speed will go and are extremely reliable.

I am not certain here but you said you put the flash on "TTL" and the "Camera" to manual mode. Did you mean you set the camera to Manual Flash mode?

Also, are you allowing the flash to recover charge between shots? A flash will not fire rapid succession shots at its full power.

You have to have them both set to TTL or the camera has to be in Commander mode to use the flash off camera.

Also, as Wayne said, radio triggers are a no-no if they are not specifically designed as TTL capable transmitter units.

I shoot with my off camera flash using pocket Wizards and have the flash in TTL and the camera in "M" mode. This allows me to adjust the ambient light with the shutter speed and the flash with the F stop. This way I have control over them separately.