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With Ni-MH batteries, you must
fully charge the batteries before
you install them into your
Speedlight. If one of the batter-
ies in the set becomes dis-
charged before the others, the
discharged battery goes into
polarity reversal, which means
the positive and negative poles
become reversed, causing per-
manent damage to the cells
rendering it useless and possi-
bly damaging the Speedlight.
The SB-800’s Quick Recycling
Battery Pack enables you to use
five batteries in order to shorten
recycle time between flashes.
Flash Modes
The Nikon Speedlights function with several
different flash modes. These modes differ
based on which model of Speedlight you’re
using. The SB-800 has far more options
than the SB-600 does. These different
modes enable you to customize how your
Speedlight reacts to your specific camera
settings.
Both Speedlights offer backwards-compatible
flash modes for use with non-CLS Nikon
digital SLRs and Nikon film cameras. The
non-CLS cameras include the D100 and D1
series Digital cameras and film cameras,
such as the N80 N90s/F90x, and the F100.
These next sections cover which camera
operates with which flash mode.
Pressing the Mode button
repeatedly cycles through all of
the Flash modes available on
that particular camera model.
i-TTL
i-TTL is the newest and most innovative
flash mode by Nikon. The camera gets most
of the metering information from monitor
pre-flashes emitted from the Speedlight.
These pre-flashes are emitted almost simul-
taneously with the main flash so it looks as
is the flash has only fired once. The camera
also uses data from the lens, such as dis-
tance information and f-stop values. i-TTL is
available on both the SB-800 and SB-600.
DTTL
DTTL was the first flash metering system for
the Nikon digital SLRs. DTTL also relies on
monitor pre-flashes and distance informa-
tion, but was basically a minor improvement
on the film-based TTL metering system. The
way the system worked, the pre-flashes
were read while the shutter was open, mak-
ing it impossible to relay information to
other flash units. The Nikon i-TTL metering is
done before the shutter opens enabling it to
send information to off-camera units via
pulse modulation, which is a series of brief
flashes of light that go off in a specific order
that transmit information back and forth
between the Speedlights. These pulses are
emitted so quickly that they are almost
undetectable. DTTL is available on both the
SB-800 and SB-600.
The early Nikon Digital SLRs use DTTL
metering. The D1, D1X, and D100 use the
DTTL metering method. Although these
cameras can be used with the SB-800 and
SB-600, they cannot take advantage of the
Nikon CLS. The fact that the SB-800 and SB-
600 can be used with this flash mode
means that they are backwards compatible.
Tip
Tip
Chapter 2 ✦ Setting Up the SB-600 and SB-800 31
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