Nikon CLS Advanced Wireless Lighting is actually very capable. It handles all the functions you can do with a Nikon Speedlight attached to the camera’s hot shoe except the RPT flash. Specifically, Flash Value (FV) lock, FP high speed sync, modeling flash all work seamlessly. It even works when you use mirror-lockup function on the camera. In the part V of the series, we will look at the FV lock function.
Flash Value (FV) Lock
When you push the FV lock button (on my D200, I assign the FUNC button to FV Lock), the camera will initialize the pre-flash sequences to determine the flash output amount for all groups involved. Then you can recompose and take a photo without causing incorrect exposures for off-center subject. This is fairly straight forward in regular TTL flash mode but more complicated in wireless lighting setup due to the extra communication requirements. To illustrate the flash sequence when FV lock is used in Advanced Wireless Lighting, I use a simple example in which Master (a Nikon D200 in Commander mode) is set to TTL mode and remote group A is also set to TTL mode. I first pressed the FV lock button, then pressed the shutter release button all the way down ~1 second later. Read More…
After going through the boring parts of the series (Part I, Part II, Part III), in which I described the “secrets” of Nikon CLS Advanced Wireless Lighting, I will discuss some real world examples this time using Nikon CLS Advanced Wireless Lighting. The examples are intended to show some of the common issues people may have seen.
To run the test, I mounted a SB-800 Speedlight on one end of the Nikon SC-28 TTL Remote Cord, then mounted them on a light stand using the 1/4″ thread of the SC-28. If I connect the flash to the camera’s accessory shoe, I can use the available flash modes offered by SB-800, such as TTL/BL, TTL, etc. I can also disconnect the cable from Camera and set the flash as a remote unit that I can control using the camera’s built-in flash as master. This setup allows me to run the test without moving either the flash or the camera. Read More…
In the first two parts (Part I, Part II) of the Nikon CLS Advanced Wireless Lighting series, I have showed many examples of the pulse communication sequences but didn’t go into details about them. In part III, I will discuss the detailed coding scheme used by Nikon CLS Advanced Wireless Lighting system.
From the previous examples we know that there are several command types the master flash unit emits to control the remote flash units. To avoid interference, the optical pulse sequences start with a channel indicator so only remote flash units belong to the specified channel react to the commands. This channel indicator always contains 3 pulses. After examining the distances between pulses, I found that all the distances are results of a unit distance multiplied by integers, except for the channel indicator pulses, which contains 1x, 1.5x, and 2.5x unit distances between pulses. It appears that the optical wireless communication uses a hybrid coding scheme. After the channel indicator, the pulses confirm to simple binary format, pulse for “1″, no pulse for “0″. So it is quite easy to figure out what’s going on. Read More…
In the Part I of the Nikon CLS Advanced Wireless Lighting series, I described the very simple and inexpensive setup I used to capture Nikon CLS wireless flash sequences and showed you some captures of the simplest form of wireless flash communication. I then detoured to talk about some trivias about the Nikon non-wireless i-TTL flash process. Going back to the series again, I will talk about the flash sequences with remote flash(s) set to TTL mode.
All the tests below were conducted using the built-in flash on a Nikon D200 in Commander Mode. The flash sync mode was set to Front Curtain. The exposure mode doesn’t really affect the results if the shutter speed stays within the sync speed limit of the camera, which is 1/250s. The sequences are slightly different in Rear Curtain flash sync mode with shutter speed slower than 1/2 second. I will get to it later. Read More…
I started the series of posts about Nikon Advanced Wireless Lighting (see Nikon CLS Advanced Wireless Lighting, Part I) but quickly realized that there are some interesting aspects of the non-wireless intelligent through-the-lens (i-TTL) system as well.
The i-TTL system typically works like this: immediately before firing the main flash, the flash fires a series of pre-flashes. The reflected light from the scene is detected by the camera. Combined with other information from the camera’s 3D Color Matrix metering system, the camera determines a proper flash output and fires the flash.
Nikon’s i-TTL has two modes: Balanced Fill-Flash mode and Standard mode. The Balanced Fill-Flash mode automatically balances the output of the Nikon Speedlight and the scene’s ambient light while the standard mode ignores the background and tries to bring the scene to a standard level. The standard mode is automatically activated when spot metering is selected. Read More…
Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS) is a complete lighting solution with the latest Nikon Speedlight flashes. The system consists of the following core functions: i-TTL Balanced Fill-Flash, Flash Value Lock, Auto FP High-Speed Sync, Advanced Wireless Lighting, Multi-Area AF-Assist Illuminator, and Flash Color Information Communication. For a quick descriptions of each functions and CLS basic capabilities, please check out this Nikon support link.
Advanced Wireless Lighting allows photographers to control their Nikon Speedlight flashes from a distance without wires. Compared to other wireless trigger or optical slaves, the Nikon system make it very easy to control up to three remote flash groups that can have unlimited number of flashes per group. For each group, you can remotely setup the flash in TTL, Auto Aperture (AA), Manual modes, or turn it off completely without the need of walking up to the flash or running any wires. Read More…
One of our readers, Desmond, is a curious person. He found out through his tests that some of the common understandings of the Nikon TTL/BL flash mode may not be accurate and some facts even appear to contradict the voice of an expert. For example, Russ said that “… TTL-BL does not work correctly when the background is darker than the subject.” However the tests from Desmond showed it worked just fine.
You can read the complete tests results and his conclusions at his blog or watch the following Youtube video for his demonstration.
At beginning, I was a little skeptical. However the test results are pretty hard to dispute. Perhaps the conclusions are wrong but there has to be a better explanation of the results.
We should all blame Nikon who never seems to have come out with a clear technical explanation of how the Creative Lighting System (CLS) including TTL-BL mode works. What Nikon tells us is the typical nebulous description such as “…Balanced Fill-Flash is performed. The flash output level is automatically adjusted for a well-balanced exposure of the main subject and background.” (SB-800 Instruction Manual).
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I came across this excellent resource recently. It was written by Russ MacDonald for practical use of the Nikon SB800 Speedlight with the D200 Camera. However the guide contains very informative and general information about Nikon Creative Lighting System (CLS) so users of other Nikon DSLR cameras and Speedlights should also benefit. With his engineering background, Russ explained the Nikon CLS in great details with very in-depth but easy to understand language and well thought out examples. Enjoy! Read More…
, then mounted them on a light stand using the 1/4″ thread of the SC-28. If I connect the flash to the camera’s accessory shoe, I can use the available flash modes offered by SB-800, such as TTL/BL, TTL, etc. I can also disconnect the cable from Camera and set the flash as a remote unit that I can control using the camera’s built-in flash as master. This setup allows me to run the test without moving either the flash or the camera. 
