Nikon Coolpix 8800 when used with Nikon SB-800 external flash

Yeah, the best answer may be off camera flash positioned so it won't
cause reflections in the image. That will make the pics look better anyway.

 

What Usenet binary NG do you like to visit where I could
put up some of "the good, the bad, and the ugly" images?
I could post to alt.binaries.photos or alt.binaries.amp.
Iffn ya can give me an idea of where you could look, I'll
gladly post a couple dozen shots. For now, please read my
comments to your comments...

chrome....

Well, at the risk of being rude and argumentative, I
understand your point fully, and agree with it, but this
just /isn't/ what I'm seeing!

Clearly, flash onto chrome or into headlights or nailing
the old-fashioned wide WSW tires /will/ fool the flash's
sensor, and it'll cut off the pulse way to early. I can
live with that by changing positions and/or fixing the
milder underexposures during post-processing.

But, my "black cat in a coal bin"-style images simply do
/not/ exhibit any signs of where extreme flash glare
might've bounced back to the flash and caused it to
prematurely shut down. Here's a way I might be able to
"prove" this: I can take a left 3/4 view of a car and
it'll be within +/- 1 stop, can't get better than that.
So, I move to take a right 3/4 view and it's black. Or,
vice versa. Or, I get a decent exposure on one car, move
to feet right or left and shoot another car - under the
exact same lighting conditions - and they can vary up or
down by 6 or more stops.

My first digital was a FujiFilm 4900, a state-of-the-art
4.5MP, that I bought in January, 2001. All I ever used
was its tiny built-in strobe. While I didn't get great
pictures because of the flash's low power, they were
almost always within 2 stops, easily fixable, and highly
consistent. So, yes, I believe it /is/ possible.

... So I would think manual settings are by far the

No, I'm afraid what you say here simply isn't true. It
hasn't worked like that on my 5700 with Sunpak 433 and
hasn't worked with the 8800 and SB-800. True, I have more
control on Manual, but neither camera/flash combo will
consistently give me good results, even when I pace off
the distance accurate to maybe 10-15%.

I honestly don't know any pros who use flash, at least
not a single flash mounted on the camera. The people I
know, while not pros, will shoot with a flash held to the
side on an extension cord, or put the camera on a tri-pod
and use two flash units.

I understand fully the limitations of a single flash, but
it just ain't as simple as you might like to think.

I'll take a look, although I'll comment now that auto
shows are /much/ easier to shoot than museums! That's
because they are so bright, the auto exposure system in
the camera gets a lot of help and the flash isn't much
more than fill in many cases.

Thanks for the warning!

You're completely right. The camera store manager just
grabs the camera, shoots a dozen /perfect/ shots at
various things in his large store and say "works fine for
me, why not buy a Canon DSLR?". Well, dude, come with me
to the WPC museum with /whatever/ camera you're touting
and let's see /you/ do it!

Thanks, please also see my post from last night where I
say I'm throwing in the towel and taking the 8800 back to
the store for refund.

Iffn you have some recommendations for a /good/ EVF pro-
sumer camera and flash, I'd be very interested. I just do
not want a DSLR because no matter what anybody says, you
just can't visualize composure, focus, and flash exposure
adequately in a DSLRs back LCD.

 

Paul Rubin commented courteously...

I'm sorry, Paul, but you're just gonna have to trust me
on this - /ain't/ flash off reflective objects! If this
were a binary NG, I could post dozens of shots from my
old Fuji 4900 or my current Nikon 5700, in many
environments, that do work. Then, post the nearly
identical situation where the 8800 fails miserably.

To conclude, I am very relucatantly going to return the
camera for a charge credit. I fell in love with the feel
and the features of the 8800, not the least of which was
higher quality, less noisy images and many more MP
resolutions to choose from. But, I just can't live with a
camera that isn't reliable.

Thanks again for your help and comments.

 

Here's a bunch of questions, that may or may not help . . .

If it's so bright, if you blocked the flash's output with
something opaque, would the result be a dark as the underexposed
pictures you were getting? If you check the shutter speed and
aperture, either in-camera or using EXIF data, is there a difference
between the shots where the flash worked properly and where it
didn't? When the pictures turn out very dark, did the flash fire
weakly or not at all? Is it possible that the problem is not with
the camera or flash but with the environment? Something that might
effect an SB-800 but not a simpler built-in flash? In other words,
if you found another place to take pictures of cars that is as
similar as possible to the auto show, would some of your pictures
still come out dark? Maybe even the same building used for the
auto show, but on a day when there's no show taking place.

 

ASAAR commented courteously...

First, ASAAR, I returned the camera and flash for a Visa
credit, but I'll try to answer your questions for any
lurkers who may be listening in.

First, traditional auto shows, such as NAIAS (North
American International Auto Show, formerly called the
Detroit Auto Show, are simply awash in lighting -
flurescent/incandesent over head, fill lighting from top
and sides, even spots. They are /bright/, enough that you
can easily shoot available light at ISO 200 if you have
steady hands and/or stabilization on the camera/lens.

Typical museums, such The Henry Ford, in Dearborn,
Michigan, the WPC I talked about, Petersen's in LA, etc.
are /very/ dark places. There's some windows but they
cause even more problems from backlighting the car. To
shoot available light in a museum, you definitely need a
tripod and long exposures; high ISO isn't a good idea
because of noise.

If the auto show or museum is at all busy, crowd control
is a very big problem, as are museum curators that don't
like people setting up shop getting in the way of other
visitors. It /can/ be done but it is neither easy nor
fast.

The brightness problem I am talking about is /not/ from
the flash, it's from window or high-intensity ambient
lighting. I'm really not sure, but it kinda looks like
the 8800 (and, my 5700) appear to use the flash output to
do the TTL, /not/ the normal AE, hence changing from
Matrix to Center Weighted or Spot does not appear to help
at all.

So, if the flash were causing over-exposed pictures all
the time or a large percent of the time, I could cut the
EV on either the flash (+/- 3) or the camera (+/- 2). In
other words, I could quickly "calibrate" the lighting for
a particular set of pictures.

The SB-800 comes with both neutral density and diffusers,
which I undoubtedly would have used, perhaps with a
polarizer, but I never got that far, as severe
underexposure far outweighed uneven lighting and flash
glare challenges.

The short answer is No. The reason is that 5700s and
8800s set the aperture wide-open, which varies as to
focal length of the zoom, then use the length of the
flash burst and shutter speed to "modulate" the exposure.
Besides full manual, I could also shoot Aperture or
Shutter priority, keeping an eye on the mins for correct
exposure. I did do those things, but to no avail.

Further, the SB-800 has iTTL, Auto, Manual, and Guide
Number modes, with the usual definitions. Again, I tried
all 4 but was unable to consistently get good exposures,
in fact, there were cars that were way under no matter
what I did!

No, it fired, but it looked OK to me. It is imposible to
judge the length of the pulse either through the EVF or
by holding the camera at arms-length and just observing
it.

Again, on both the 5700 and 8800, I can switch to the
built-in Speedlight by just turning off the external, so
that isn't it at all. In my view so far, the problem is
two-fold: environment is a biggies, but not one a
photographer can control, so ya has ta do the best ya
can, and there appears to be an issue with the underlying
algorithms in the entire series of Nikon EVFs, beginning
with the 5700, through the 8600 and 8700, and now to the
8800.

I don't think the engineers at Nikon are dummies, hardly.
I just don't know if they tried what I'm trying to do.
Iffn they did, they probably used a 2nd slave flash, and
probably set the camera manually. It is /very/ hard for
me to believe the engineers ever went to museums, whether
cars or the Smithsonian, or the Science & Industry Museum
in Chicago, or where ever.

These places are generally all the same. What galls my
butt is that I can get itty bitty $150 P&S cameras to
work, as well as el cheapo range-finder 35's.

I don't want to belabor this point, but if you travel
even across-town and pay money to get in the building,
you're usually on a tight schedule, which doesn't help.
In the case of the WPC, I popped over there 4 or 5 times
since Tuesday, since it is only 15 minutes from my home
and I get in free as a DCX retiree.

So, that's a round-about way of saying that I
intentionally went to the WPC because it possesses, in
one moderate size building, /all/ of the various
available light and flash-mode photography.

I can shoot pictures in small rooms with aplomb. That
includes my house, close to museum small exhibits, in
stores, you name i. They work fine. But, it drives me up
the wall to take a picture of the left side of a car,
move 10 feet and try to get the right side or rear, and
have one or the other go dark.

For the time being, I'm gonna cool my jets and continue
to use the 5700, albeit now that I'm a little smarter on
how to get better results than I'd previously attained.

Then, later this summer, I start haunting the
manufacturer's web sites, dpreview.com, even here on this
NG, to learn what's coming up in September. Then, too,
I'd like to confirm or deny the "claim" lots of people
have that EVF cameras - specifically Nikon - just don't
perform as well with flash as DSLRs.

Being an engineer by education, that makes /no/ sense to
me at all! Still... One more time for any lurkers, my
/big/ hang-up with DSLRs are that I see /not/ what the
digital sensors "see", but rather what the lens sees.
Duh?! And, my experience is that trying to make a valid
judgment off the little LCD on the camera back just
doesn't cut it.

But, as part of my summer/fall planned investigation,
I'll definitely look at the latest crop of pro-sumer
DSLRs. I do have an open mind, it's just that no one has
been able to make me feel "warm and fuzzy" with through-
the-lens vs. EVF viewing.

 

My standards are relatively low for photos of static car exhibits.
Cars are dynamic, and I reckon a fair representation of a sitting car
is plenty good. So, I don't devote a lot of attention to museums and
car shows. I tend to see them when they are attached to some other
activity that means somewhat more to me.

Such an event was a tribute dinner at the Petersen, Phil Hill was the
honoree. It was a fine, fun, and fulfilling evening, hearing Phil talk
about the way it was during his ascent to the World Driving
Championship, first American to accomplish that monumental feat. Other
stars in the auto racing firmament adding their perspectives and
anecdotes included Dan Gurney, Carroll Shelby, Jim Hall, Bob
Bondurant, Bernard Cahier, Chuck Daigh, John Fitch (_via_ telegram).

Several cars the like of which Phil had driven were on exhibit, sort
of an endurance-race display, as that was one of Phil's specialities.
I pretty much felt obligated to photograph them, so I waved a cursory
camera in their direction and returned to the gossip and glad-handing
in the buffet line.

You can see some of what I recorded in the album at:
http://www.fototime.com/inv/4C7B4D180AEE178

There are 21 images, three versions each of seven exposures. None has
been manipulated in any way, other than resized in 10% decrements
(first seven) and Saved For Web at Photo Shop 30 quality (first seven
and second of each of the remaining pairs), or simply Saved As at full
size and Photo Shop jpg quality 5, to maintain EXIF data (first of
each of the pairs).

My philosophy, beyond preferring to photograph cars in motion and in
their natural habitat, has something to do with recording what you
found the way you found it. I pretty much avoid flash photography
unless there is no alternative. I'm not very assertive, so I don't
often try to push people out of the way, nor do I use a tripod in the
field, unless there is no alternative.

You'll see five hand-held (propped when possible) available light
exposures, two with a "digital slave" flash held high and
supplementing the on-camera flash. I don't like the flash pictures,
and am not much tempted to perfect the technique, given the
satisfactory nature of the first two photos in the album: I think the
GT40 and the Porsche fairly represent what was there, and is of
sufficient quality to meet my requirements, which include Web and
other monitor viewing, and low likelihood of big ol' prints.