CLS Test 1

Ever since I’ve started shooting with the Nikon D2x and more recently the D3 I’ve kind of avoided ever really learning or fully embracing the speedlight control system Nikon calls the CLS(Creative Lighting System.) Basically it uses a series of pulses of light from the on-camera speedlight to control one or several off-camera speedlights. I’ve cautiously employed this system on weddings in manual/dumb slave mode but after reading Joe McNally’smost recent book The Hotshoe Diaries I’ve decided to start playing around with the possiblities of the other modes.

My over-sugared nephew and son were willing test subjects for this little experiment. Holding one SB-800 in my left hand(with the sensor pointing towards the on-camera flash,) another SB-800 on the body as the master and the D3 in aperture priority mode in my right I tried to get a sense of how it all works. The on-camera flash was set to — so that it would not fire and only control the hand-held which was being told to fire in TTL mode.

I found the results a little eractic, but when it worked it worked well. Tilting the camera up or down just a small amount, seeing a little more or a little less sky, caused the sensor to make extreme adjustments to the exposure and the flash output. As with all things there is a bit of a learning curve but I hope to figure this out soon so that I can continue to keep carrying less gear on my jobs. As I learn more I will post more.

(click to view images)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 20th, 2009 at 9:20 pm and is filed under Photography, Portraits, Tests and tagged with CLS, Jumping, Kids, Portrait, Test. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.