Lessons of a flash

A while ago, I was finally able to buy an external flash for my Nikon D60. If you are not sure why an external flash is a big deal, I'll explain a bit why my new SB-900 flash is an improvement over the built in pop-up flash.

The pop-up flash on my D60 has a few limitations. One is the limited range, subjects that are too far away from the camera will not be lit up enough for a proper exposure.

Another limitation of the built-in flash is the proximity to the lens. This is a major contributor to the "red eye" seen in many pictures.

The last of the major limitations covered here is that the pop-up flash is uni-directional. That is to say it is not able to point in any direction other than straight ahead.

In spite of these limitations, the built-in flash has it's uses. For one, the fact that it is always with you, which is incredibly useful if you need to take pictures in dark or low light conditions.

Another benefit of the pop-up flash is that it can be used to trigger certain remote flashes like the SB-900. This allows you to get better lighting arrangements then you could with the built-in flash alone. With some cameras, that is a simple camera setting to tell the camera's built-in flash that it is a "master" for other "slave" flashes.

The Nikon D60 does not have this setting in the camera which means that the flash needs to understand that it needs to flash when it sees a flash. Sadly this is not a readily apparent setting in the flash. It is there, but it takes some digging to get to it. I will create a blog post (and maybe an Instructable entry) for this as I know there are probably some other D60 owners with an SB-900 flash and are trying to figure out how to do this.

Now is the time for your opinion. Leave a comment here with your thoughts on what topic I should tackle next:
- Step-by-step enabling SB-900 to work with flash control from D60
- Why off-camera flash matters (with samples)
- Enough with the tech talk, show me more animal pictures
- Something else