I Really need help- SB-800 PLEASE

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lukewoodford

FYI, I am Luke Woodford.....by Luke Woodford
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Luke Woodford
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OK as i mentioned in another thread im photographing a friends band tomorrow night in a theatre with a good stage. I have a D300 with the SB- 800 flash, im very new to photography but been studying lots and lots about the camera and using it.

Today i wanted to learn the basics about the flash. As i get to page 30 in the SB-800 manual my batteries run out (they are recharging but wont have long to learn before tomorrow!) Could someone please give me some advice on what settings to have the flash on as i reckon im only going to be able to get a couple of hours practise before the gig. I understand it takes a while to learn everything but it would be helpful to know roughly what settings etc. Thanks loads in advance!

Luke
 
If I were you, I would search the forum for general advice on gig photography. Flash can remove all the "feel" from gig photos because of the harsh lighting it can give. You might do better to set a high ISO and shoot using available stage lighting. Expect quite a low hit rate. Good luck! Take plenty of spare sets of batteries, just in case. AND a spare for the D300.
 
I've had best results shooting fully manual and then putting flash onto manual and adjusting them all until you get the best balance between venue lighting and flash. I try as much as possible to keep the flash subtle. If you do longer exposures you can use the flash to freeze the motion whilst getting nice blurs before or after depending on how you set your flash up.
 
Make sure you do a mix - with and without flash. Whack the D300 at ISO 3200, f2.8 on your lens (assuming you can) and you'll get some corkers, especially if you convert to black and white.

As robby says experiment with the flash settings too. Set your on camera flash setting to 'slow' or 'rear' curtain too to get some good effects (you'll get light trails but if you do it right you can freeze the action too).
 
im using a 18-200mm VR but also have a 50mm 1.4 coming in the post tomorrow. This is going to be very interesting, at least im doing it for free! Thanks for everyones advice, id be stuffed without this forum! If anyone else wants to add anything feel very free!
 
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