External Flashes

[cv01jw]

As I am expecting my new D40 later this week I have been looking through my old kit to see what is salvageable.

I have an external flash (Jessops 280AFN) which I used to be quite happy with with my 35mm SLR; will this still be useable with a digital SLR? I only ask because I notice that Jessops do a range of 'Digital' flashes and I assume this means they are different in some way?

Cheers

Jimmy

[mph999]

Be very careful, some older flashs have a high voltage across the terminals when they fire, bye bye camera ...

Anything power related (flashes, battery grip) that goes near my cameras is also made by Nikon. THe SB600 is an excellent flash, far far better than anything Jessops produce.

Martin

[stigmundfreud]

There is no difference in flash, they should all be pretty much the same. As mentioned you need to check the voltage but until recently I was using a 10 quid cobra.

You cannot go wrong with the speedlights, they talk ettl to the camera to really control the colour, the nikon kit can also be commanded by the camera (not sure on the d40).

The beauty of having a command module is you pop the flash onto a little tripod, point, shoot et voila. This was taken with a single speedlight tonight (albeit canon). I'd question what the digital in the label stands for, if you can afford it, go speedlight.

[cv01jw]

Having read a few reviews on the D40 it appears it does not have the function to command an external flash.

The Jessops flash I bought was for a Nikon F65 so I would assume the voltages etc are compatible. I have emailed Jessops to check though.

If it turns out to be crap then I will look into a speedlight.

Thanks for the comments.

jimmy

[Kermit power]

cv01jw said:

Having read a few reviews on the D40 it appears it does not have the function to command an external flash.

If by that you mean it doesn't have wireless control of an external flash, you can always get a generic wireless flash controller from China for around £20 on Ebay. Mine works perfectly! You'll have to use manual flash settings, but you pick that up pretty quickly with a bit of trial and error.

[stigmundfreud]

Sundays shoot. I took my IR trigger and Studio flash head, other guy took about 8 speedlights and his china triggers.

Lucky I took the studio flash as not one of the wireless china made triggers would work reliably. If you are going to buy kit, buy the best you can afford. If the best you can afford is cheap then save or look for used is my experience.

You might have had good results but I would never trust a cheap chinese patern part, you simply get what you pay for

[arej]

I'd be careful using that flash on your camera because of the voltage. The flash you have mentioned isn't on this website but it is very useful for others: http://www.botzilla.com/photo/strobeVolts.html. Going on the other 2 jessops flashes on there it looks like they have very high voltages (Canons must be less than 6V, don't know about Nikon). Jessops should hopefully be able to give you a better answer.
ETA: as a wireless flash, voltage is not a problem so often safer to get some wireless triggers and receivers.

Edited by arej on Thursday 26th February 15:58

[Kermit power]

stigmundfreud said:

Sundays shoot. I took my IR trigger and Studio flash head, other guy took about 8 speedlights and his china triggers.

Lucky I took the studio flash as not one of the wireless china made triggers would work reliably. If you are going to buy kit, buy the best you can afford. If the best you can afford is cheap then save or look for used is my experience.

You might have had good results but I would never trust a cheap chinese patern part, you simply get what you pay for

If you're actually doing it to make money, you can't afford a missed shot, you've hired a model or a studio or something like that, then I'd agree. However, if you're just starting, and want to play around, then I don't see a problem with the cheapo triggers. OK, every now and then they might miss a shot, but it's not the end of the world.

With your other guy though, if he had multiple speedlites, could he not slave the subsidiary ones to one mounted on the camera? Why did he actually need the triggers?

[AndWhyNot]

It's worth looking into a used Nikon SB-800 if you're serious about off-camera flash.

Keeps it in-house with Nikon. Can use on its own off-camera with a cheap trigger (Cactus V4 out soon - reportedly more reliable than the current crop of Chinese triggers). Can also convert your D40 to use Nikon's CLS which is a (infra-red) flash control system that gives you full control of flash power from the camera (or in your case the SB-800).

Not cheap, esp with recent price rises, but good value for the lighting flexibility it gives you.