I still have my SC-17 flash cord from my F4/F100. Can I use it with my D800 no problem? The only thing I found on the Nikon Support pages is that the TTL might not work well and that the camera should be set to spot metering (?).
Anyone using the SC-17 with D800 (and SB-910)?
The SC-17 works fine. It is exactly the same as the SC-28 (just extension of four shoe wires), except it does not have the pin lock lever on the shoe. It still works fine though... the flash foot pin is spring loaded, so just drop it anyway, and it is not going anywhere.
I normally always use Center metering. The Matrix/Center/Spot business is about the ambient, and the flash has its own system.
I was puzzled what you may have seen on the Nikon site? I think it must have been this:
https://support.nikonusa.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/59
which says:
Using the SC-17, SC-28 and SC-29 with i-TTL compatible cameras and Speedlights
When an SC-17, SC-28 or SC-29 cable is used for off-camera flash photography with i-TTL compatible cameras such as the D70 or newer DSLRs, correct exposure may not occur if using i-TTL Balanced fill-flash. It is recommended to select spot metering in order for the camera to use standard i-TTL flash metering instead. This will improve consistency of flash exposures when using off-camera flash photography.
That is not about just the SC-17, it is about off camera flash with TTL BL mode. TTL BL direct flash watches the D lens distance info to safeguard against overexposure. An off-camea flash is NOT necessarily at same distance from subject as the lens, so that difference could fool the D lens distance (which has troubles being correct itself).
The idea is that switching to Spot metering changes the flash metering mode from TTL BL to be TTL mode, which ignores D lens distance. Some flashes have a menu to set TTL or TTL BL (and could simply switch to TTL), but SB-700 and SB-400 do not... Spot metering is all that is available to them. But this is NOT in any way only about the SC-17.
And the flash system never does Spot metering, it only switches to TTL mode, which is similar to Center metering, and TTL only differs from TTL BL in that TTL is not reduced to not overexpose the ambient. Indoors, the ambient is probably too underexposed to matter if Spot or not, due to the 1/60 second Minimum shutter speed (which does not affect flash).