Lighting

[Electro]

Hi,

new to this forum, so im sorry if this is the wrong place.

I've looking into purchasing a flashgun for my Nikon F5 - to help with portraiture and sports work. (yes expensive with film, but just love the look) My plan currently would be to mainly use the flash off camera using something like cactus v5's. (allowing to add more flashes and remote firing in the future)

My problem is in choosing the flashgun; i've come to understand that if i want any type of auto flash compensation via ttl (?? ) for the F5, i would have to choose something like an sb-600/800. Is this correct?

I don't understand, whether i can get this setting if im using the flash off camera via radio triggers or not though.
If i cant (or if its a pointless setting) would i be best getting something 3rd party like the nissin di866 and spending the rest on a flash meter?

sorry for the massive splurge, ive tried looking through strobist (fantastic site!), however i cant seem to find much information on this subject regarding the F5 due to its age.

any help would be appreciated

 

[g7swz]

According to the manual for my Nikon SB-800 the Nikon F5 is not compatible with Nikon CLS or wireless iTTL. So many of the facilities of the SB-600, 700, 800 or 900 could not be used. You could probably save yourself some cash by buying an older Nikon flash gun or a Nissin etc.

 

[specialman]

If I remember rightly, the SB-28 was one of the speedlights that was developed at the same time as the F5; great flashgun that you can get for about £60 with full TTL exposure on the F5, although it lacks any off-camera functionality without the addition of a trigger device. The '600 and '800 will work too I'm sure.

Nikon did produce the SU-4 unit, which was a type of 'intelligent' off-camera flash system that worked using pre flashes to give TTL off-camera flash. They're about £40-45 per unit and work very well.... it was the system I used at one point and I managed fine with it, although it lacked the overall adjustments that CLS offers via a master flash unit.

If you want off-camera flash then I'd go down the route of a decent trigger like the Phottix strato.

 

[Electro]

Sweet. Thanks for the replies - really useful

time to go trawl the second hand market...