Nikon CLS Range?

DekHog

DekHog

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Derek
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Since getting my D200 I've been considering moving over to using the CLS system with a couple of SB-800/900's - I use Skyports at the moment with SB-28's, but have read that the CLS system only has a range of 33ft! Can anyone confirm that this is correct?
 
That IS the stated maximum range.
 
Hmm, I suppose I could keep the Skyports in case I needed more range - I wouldn't normally use that range anyway, but it would be nice to have the option.
 
Hmmm that is at least 10 x as far as they advertise
 
doofer said:
Watch this guy testing and decide for yourself whether 33Ft is a bit conservative or not :)
Click to expand...

Thanks - looks good to me. It appears that 33ft is more than a bit on the conservative side. :thumbs:
 
cowasaki said:
Hmmm that is at least 10 x as far as they advertise
Click to expand...

Where CLS falls down is when it's used in direct sunlight, even the elcheapo Ebay optical triggers will work fine if you place them in a heavily shaded area the way he did in the video.

If he'd shot from the shade and had the 900 out in the sun he'd probably been hard pushed to get it to work at any great distance, if at all.

If we ever get any sunshine up here again :lol: I'll have a go and see what sort of range I can get using the same set up that Bower used....
 
if you just want a CLS slave flash, the sb600 does everything that the sb800 can do (yea you lose 2/3rds of a stop....no big deal), for quite a lot of money less, especially now that the 800 has been discontinued. If you've got the D200, you can use the built in flash as a commander so don't even really need a 800/900 on camera as a commander unit.

The key thing with cls basically is just to make sure that the sensor is pointing in the right direction. Other than that, it's a really good, dead simple system to use. And as you said, if you ever are doing something that needs the range, you can use your skyports and just rock it manually.
 
Sensor pointing in the right direction? So CLS is line of sight and not wireless as I thought then? Will have a look at SB-600's; those 800/900's are pretty pricey pieces of kit!
 
What he means is that the receptor sensor on the flash head is pointing towards the camera...you turn the flash head, because it is TTL it doesn't matter which direction the flash foot aND FLASH HEAD ARE POINTING IN RELATION TO THE CAMERA, SO JUST MAKE SURE THE BATTERY DOOR IS ROUGHLY TOWARDS THE CAMERA SIDE.

wITH cls TRIGGERING, IT DEPENDS ON THE SURROUNDINGS TOO - OPEN BEACH WILL REQUIRE LINE OF SIGHT, oops! sorry. If there are walls or other solid objects, windows, cars etc - the signal will bounce around a fair bit and you can go round corners - you find out as you go along. Much cleaner system than using radio triggers - but they will work over several hundred meters and through walls - you can put lights outside and fire the CLS through a window at the off camera flash though.

SB600 is fine for off camera stuff.
 
Thanks to all for your replies - looks like the CLS will be more than enough for my needs. Have ordered 2 x SB-600's today, so the old manual flashes can go now methinks... bloody pain in the ass running back and forward to adjust the power settings anyway! :D
 
Don't forget that if you use the CLS on MANUAL you reduce the delay quite a bit....just remote trigger optically as you are controlling M, you don't need the preflash signals, so the shutter delay is removed....for action stuff that is important.
 
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