For some this may be common knowledge but today I was doing some experiments with the SU800 outdoors .
I had the SB800 on a stand behind me in remote mode firing at 1/128th power and kept changing the angle of the camera until it would no longer fire .
When they were both pointing toward that fence it fired every time even with the flash behind the camera - maybe it was bouncing the signal off the fence ?
Anyway I reached an angle when the SB800 would no longer fire ...
You kind of wonder why Nikon would make the trigger system facing directly forward which is the last place anyone would have their lighting .
Then I added something to the equation , without moving anything , which made it fire again ....
I had tried simply placing my finger in front of the SU800 and that worked , the signal bounced off my finger and triggered the flash behind the camera .
I just added this little white object in front of the SU800 which bounced the signal backwards and made the flash fire every time .
I see possibilities here , for the SU800 and SB800 , I think I could design something that attaches to each of them to send and receive signals from any angle - or at least increase their reliability in some situations .
04/10/2010
I did some tests to see what range the SU800 has in bright sunlight with nothing to bounce off . I measured it out as 19 large steps .
When I turned around it would no longer trigger , understandably , but I found that placing a wide angle mirror in front of the SU800 would trigger the flash but the range was now down to 7 large steps .
Not many people will ever need that range especially using flash outdoors but it's good to know what the limits are .
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I had the SB800 on a stand behind me in remote mode firing at 1/128th power and kept changing the angle of the camera until it would no longer fire .
When they were both pointing toward that fence it fired every time even with the flash behind the camera - maybe it was bouncing the signal off the fence ?
Anyway I reached an angle when the SB800 would no longer fire ...
You kind of wonder why Nikon would make the trigger system facing directly forward which is the last place anyone would have their lighting .
Then I added something to the equation , without moving anything , which made it fire again ....
I had tried simply placing my finger in front of the SU800 and that worked , the signal bounced off my finger and triggered the flash behind the camera .
I just added this little white object in front of the SU800 which bounced the signal backwards and made the flash fire every time .
I see possibilities here , for the SU800 and SB800 , I think I could design something that attaches to each of them to send and receive signals from any angle - or at least increase their reliability in some situations .
04/10/2010
I did some tests to see what range the SU800 has in bright sunlight with nothing to bounce off . I measured it out as 19 large steps .
When I turned around it would no longer trigger , understandably , but I found that placing a wide angle mirror in front of the SU800 would trigger the flash but the range was now down to 7 large steps .
.