Nikon SB-400 Flash
To be honest, I hate flash. I hate the cold look, the bright foreground,
dark background and everything else. I hate the towering look of the classic
standalone flashes, they look too big and too unnecessary, it looks like I am
trying to look like a photojournalist.
As you can guess, I always try to get by without flash. If that means
setting ISO 800 or 1600, so be it. But that was not always enough indoors to
stop the motion and I was not wholly satisfied with the social photos indoors.
Looking around on the internet I saw the SB-400 mentioned quite a few times
for its compact size and ease of use. Since I never intend to mess around with
flash settings or something, this was immediately appealing. Also appealing was
the size and look of the thing, very compact and not so tall. Still, nice
gadget and all, I did not see a point in getting it until I learned that it can
do bounce flash. This is mainly for indoor shooting where you point the flash
head upwards and bounce the light off the ceiling. It produces much softer and
more natural light than a normal flash, or so I read. Since I want the flash
for indoor social shots, that swung it for me and I ended up getting one.
First impressions:
The flash itself is quite small and powered by two AA batteries. The head
part of the flash can rotate up to 90 degrees upwards for bounce flash. The
whole thing looks quite at home on top of the D40. It has no controls other
than an on/off switch and a slider to lock it on the flash shoe.
So, how well does it work?
Well, that rather depends:
When you have the head pointing forward (normal flash), it works not much
better than the built in flash. Yes, it is more powerful but so what? I bought
this thing for indoor shooting. One of the advantages is that it recycles much
faster than the built in flash. I have not done any measurements but it feels
like about twice to three times as fast. The problem is, you still get the
weird flash look.
However, when you point the head towards the ceiling, it is a whole
different story. The whole flash look is gone, and everything looks so much
better. Much softer and more natural light, you cannot really tell they were
shot with flash. And you get photos you actually want to keep! With flash!
Amazing!
Another great thing is the simplicity. You only ever have to turn the thing
on after attaching it to the camera. That is it! I don't understand at all how
the metering works, with direct flash and bounce flash and everything, but it
just does. What I mean is, when you bounce the flash, depending on how far away
the ceiling is you will get much less light on your subject than you would with
a direct flash. I expected to fiddle with that every time to get a good
exposure, but no, it just works; and works unbelievable well every time.
