Non-Dedicated Macro Flash with the 5700

I got the 5700 two weeks ago. I find myself doing a lot of macro shooting
but man it's tricky; the wind, shallow depth of field and focusing all make
it quite difficult.

Apparently flash could help--freezing motion while allowing small apertures
for depth of field. Problem is, of course, the built-in one would fire right
over the object and the lens would cast a shadow.

So, the thing is, I need an off-camera flash to take care of this but the
thing about the 5700--which I didn't know when I got it--is that it doesn't
really do TTL flash. It's kind of complicated apparently; I guess the short
version is that it's TTL in that you can set any aperture, but it's not TTL
in that it depends on a sensor in the flash head to measure light.

Question is--how is this going to work with close-up flash with an off-flash
unit--with the sensor much higher up than the subject? If I use a
non-dedicated flash like a Vivitar 283, would the 5700 act like any other
camera--with the 283's sensor handling the lighting issue--or would the 5700
STILL insist on using its built-in sensor which is useless in this case?

LRH

On Thu, 3 Jun 2004 18:15:02 -0700, "Larry R Harrison Jr"
<noone.DeleteThis@noone.com> wrote:


 >Question is--how is this going to work with close-up flash with an off-flash
 >unit--with the sensor much higher up than the subject? If I use a
 >non-dedicated flash like a Vivitar 283, would the 5700 act like any other
 >camera--with the 283's sensor handling the lighting issue--or would the 5700
 >STILL insist on using its built-in sensor which is useless in this case?


I am in the SAME position as yourself. When I bought the 5700,
knowing it had a Nikon hotshoe I assumed (silly me!) it would use the
features of Nikon speedlights. NOT TRUE!!! Very dissapointing. So
I purchased a much cheaper Vivitar 730Ni. It works well in most
situations.

But for macro there is a REAL problem. The non-TTL sensor in the
Nikon flash will NOT be reading the light from your subject. Even
with external flash "on" and internal flash "off",

Check out CK's wonderful Coolpix site... <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://tinyurl.com/2yo7r" target="_blank">http://tinyurl.com/2yo7r</a> ...
on ... <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/" target="_blank">http://www.cs.mtu.edu/~shene/DigiCam/</a>



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