Z6 flash compatibility

Needa

Senior Member
Challenge Team
Pages 411 and 412 of the Z6/Z7 Reference manual indicate it is compatible. Download the manual and check out any caveats.
 

Danno

Senior Member
Cab anyone tell me if my existing Nikon SB900 Speedlight will be compatible with my soon-expected Z6??

It is compatible, but I am with @Needa. I downloaded the manual while I waited for my Z6 to show up just to get an idea of some of the differences. Congrats on the new camera. You will love it. I hope you bought a reader for the memory cards. That is the only way to process firmware updates. I would check the firmware as soon as you get the new camera. The latest is 3.0 and it is hard to say if it was downloaded to your camera body.
 

nikonjim

Senior Member
Thank you Danno. I was having visions of having to dispose of my Sb900 which I have grown so fond of over the past few years,and then have to learn the quirks of another gun.
I'll do what you did and download the manual ahead of the camera's arrival.
Best regards
Keep well
Jim
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
Well... High Speed Sync is limited at 200 on the Z... It doesn't have built-in CLS... If some asks if it's compatible with an SB900 that might be a Yes in that it'll fire... but that might lead to several more questions as to what features on the 900 do you want to use with that Z camera???
 

Danno

Senior Member
Well... High Speed Sync is limited at 200 on the Z... It doesn't have built-in CLS... If some asks if it's compatible with an SB900 that might be a Yes in that it'll fire... but that might lead to several more questions as to what features on the 900 do you want to use with that Z camera???

It is true that it is limited to a High Speed Sync of 200 but once I set mine to 1/200 Auto FP the shutter speed can go as high as I need to meet the circumstances. Also the Z6 is part of CLS. Looking at the manual the it prefaces the compatible speed lights with two paragraphs about CLS. That is in the manual on pages 179-181.

I cannot see any issues that would cause a problem although I do not have a 900. I use Godox flashes and triggers. By the way Fred, when did you get a Z6?
 
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Fred Kingston

Senior Member
The Z6 can fire a Nikon flash that's mounted on the Z6 and the flash in Commander mode can send CLS signals to other off-camera Nikon flashes... I'm having a hard time understanding how a camera without a built-in flash would send flashes in CLS to an off-camera Nikon flash in remote mode... IOW, with added equipment, the camera can send CLS signals to the off-camera SB900...
 

Danno

Senior Member
The Z6 can fire a Nikon flash that's mounted on the Z6 and the flash in Commander mode can send CLS signals to other off-camera Nikon flashes... I'm having a hard time understanding how a camera without a built-in flash would send flashes in CLS to an off-camera Nikon flash in remote mode... IOW, with added equipment, the camera can send CLS signals to the off-camera SB900...

As it says in the manual... without a flash it requires the SU-800. With the flash, like the 900, the flash can do it. That is on 181 of the manual. It does work. My manual is not the newest edition, so my page numbers may be off a bit, but it is clear.
 

Fred Kingston

Senior Member
Yes...The SB900 will because it has a commander mode, like the SU-800...but there are many Nikon flashes that DON'T have commander mode... Just saying...
 

Needa

Senior Member
Challenge Team
My manual is not the newest edition, so my page numbers may be off a bit,

There is also a reference manual and a user manual. The manuals I have downloaded the reference manual is 472 pages and the user manual 242. Not sure if they are the latest.
 

Patrick M

Senior Member
Screenshot 2020-06-24 at 16.40.09.jpg
The SB900 is fine


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 

Paliswe

Senior Member
Nikon is not very specific with what's compatible, especially when it comes to CLS. Yes it's compatible but only to a certain extent.
You can put any SB500-SB910 flash on the camera and it works. If you want to use CLS you can do that with any of these flashes but only if you control them from the flash, i.e. you have no use of the CLS controls in the menu.
If you want to use the CLS controls in the menu, the only flash that can be a master is SB500. Then the other flashes, SB600-SB910 works as remote flashes in two groups, A and B.
I have only experience with these flashes and cannot say how it works with the radio controlled flash systems.
 

spb_stan

Senior Member
There is one incompatibility that is bothersome, the SB900 AF Assist light does not trigger when mounted on a Z body. The only AF Assist light available is the small green light on the body that is blocked by any of the better lenses. For those shooting events or other flash uses, AF is depended on ambient light and not the very effective patterned near IR light put out by the SB series of flash or any of the brands that are compatible with the SB control logic.


I have 7 flash units, 3 SB900 and Yongnuo YN-968n and another I forgot the brand name. All of them work well with my wireless triggers and commander from Yongnuo 622 Tx master and tranceivers. They all trigger their assist lights in the shoe of any Nikon DSLR but none of the Z camera send the serial signal through the shoe contacts to trigger the light. I asked a forum about this and was told no mirrorless trigger assist lights because of some filter in front of the sensor.


That made no sense so I set up a test in a completely blacked out room, and mounted a D850 on a tripod and used my Z6 hand held to attempt to focus on a target in the pitch black room with a focus chart on the wall. I wanted a baseline verification that the Z6 would not focus at all Then I mounted a SB900 on the D850 and pressed its AF-on button to initiate IR assist light. I put the Z6 in Focus priority for shutter release, pressed the release and as soon as I pressed the AF-on button on the D850 the Z6 snapped into focus and triggered the shutter. So the sensor has no IR filter and the rest of the AF system responded to the patterned assist light.


I connected an oscilloscope to the shoe contact to read the serial data stream of the D850 by connecting a remote flash cable with shoe male and female contacts at the ends and after lots of test conditions to isolate the data pattern to flash assist light trigger I tried capturing the same stream from the Z6 and it was not present. Later someone posted on a forum that one model of GoDox speed light with a new firmware update worked but I never saw any replies by the OP when a number people wrote posts asking for more details.
That was 2 years ago and I was not happy because I shoot a lot of events where ambient light is poor so depend on that IR assist light for accurate AF. I never tried it in an event so took both the D850 and Z6 so I would be sure that at least one of the cameras would work. As it turned out, much to my surprise, the Z6 could AF on much lower light than the D850 and shot the whole event with the Z6.


I wrote to Nikon asking about this problem and they responded with a form letter saying they would pass on my comments to Japan. I figured they changed the data stream to only work with later Z dedicated flash so people would have to buy the more expensive Z enabled flash instead of the very competent 1/6th price Chinese flash. I like the SB900 but here they are $700 each and my $120 YN968n has built in video light and 2.4ghz 622 transmitter master/slave receiver built in.
The bottom line is that the Z6 can AF down to -6ev in AF-S mode so I can use it in pretty dim light but I still want the patterned assist light. In the studio it would be nice to not have to use the modeling lights all the time so I still want an assist light that works with Z bodies because the D850 and 18 top lenses are going to be sold to cover a Z7 2 plus 70-200 2,8 S and a 50 1.2 S so it will be an all-Z kit and all top S lenses.
 
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