Strobies it's what your hotshoe flash has been waiting for.
Online tutorials for using Strobies products.

Setting up the camera

The first thing we need to do is set up the camera for the use with flashguns, in this tutorial we are using the Nikon iTTL flashguns and camera's.

But these setting can, and are easily transferred to almost any other camera manufactures equipment, such as Canon and Sony etc. Using these simple settings will enable you to copy the guide images shown later in this online tutorial.

 

With these settings you will get the best out of the Strobies Portrait kit.

1. Set the camera to MANUAL Mode (this is important)

2. Select the widest aperture on your lens i.e. f2.8

3. Select the Sync speed of 1/250th. or XSYNC as per your camera instructions leaflet.

4. Auto ISO can be turned on or off. (this would be useful at a wedding to have it turned on for instance) in small areas turn it off.

5. Set the White Balance to Flash or Daylight.

6. Select Matrix or Patten Metering.

Again these settings can be set on most cameras available today.

Setting up the Flashgun

Next we set up the flashgun for this we are using combinations of Nikon SB800 and SB900 Flashguns again these settings can be transferred easily to other manufactures such as Canon and Sony etc. Here it may be worth consulting you flashgun manual. Using these simple settings will enable you to copy the guide images shown later in this online tutorial.

 

Lets set up a Nikon SB900 to get the best out of the Strobies Portrait kit.

Having set the camera up now we can tune in to some of the best features available to us on these flashguns.

1. Place the flashgun on the camera and turn on the camera.

2. Rotate the Main switch on the flashgun to "ON" as shown on the right.

3. Press the MODE button until the rear screen of the SB900 displays TTL BL as highlighted in red.

This is an important step as this mode allows us to balance the light from the flash with the ambient lighting. This is called "Balance Fill Flash"

4. We are going to control the balance fill of the flash and ambient by using the +/- settings of the EV setting on the flashgun, this way we do not have to adjust "any" camera settings.

EV (This is called "Flash output level compensation") from now on it will be referred to as "EV"

5. At this point please remove both the soft dome and colour filter draw of the SB900. we will come back to this later in more advanced topics.

 

Now the "MAJOR BENIFIT OF USING THESE SETTINGS" are that we don't need to adjust the camera setting during use from now on, we will only adjust the "FLASHGUNS" "EV" Values by pressing the Button marked and rotate the dial in "EV" values of 1/3 rd of an f stop, in the image above you can see the the flash output power has been increased to +1.0 ev.

This means that the flashgun is pushing out 1 more f stop than a ZERO setting which with some of the Strobies products is required.


IMPORTANT NOTE : Images and colour's used on this site are for illustration purposes only and should not be relied upon to accurately represent actual products. Differences in colour/shade are impossible to prevent using current internet/computer technology.