Nikon D-70 camera.F-8, 250, Manual Mode. Keep getting blowouts with my strobe lighting system. What’s the prob

Flash Lite Strobes, 300 IX, very intermittent problem

I guess the first question (before you damage your camera) is do you now what the trigger voltage is? Nikon DSLR’s use trigger voltages of 12v. Canon DSLR’s use trigger voltages of 6v.

Higher trigger voltage can fry digital cameras electronics and those incidents are covered by warranties.

Now a second question; do you have a link to your strobe? I could not find it in the Internet.

In order to get proper exposures using flash units, you have to know the guide number of the flash or use the guide attached to the back of the flash.

You can make some adjustments to manually correct your problem.

Two things you can do. Since your images are blown-out, stop the lens all the way down to f/22 and put your subject out at 10 feet and make your first exposure. If it is still overexposed, then move back until you are 20 feet away and shoot again. This should darken the image a lot. Then start shooting images opening the aperture at half-stop increments until you get your perfect exposure.

Or you can buy a new flash unit is designed for digital cameras, has a trigger voltage of 12v and automatically adjusts the exposure for distances and f/stops you choose.

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Photography Equipment – What’s in my camera bag?

This is a question that I’m asked often and it’s a hard one to answer. When I travel I tend to “travel light”, often only carrying one body and 2 lenses plus assorted other paraphernalia. When I have the luxury of travvelling by car or boat I tend to carry more, closer to what I have listed below. So, here’s my rant about what’s in my bag. Any comments?

To start with, I use Nikon cameras. I’m often asked why I use Nikon rather than Canon and the answer goes back about thirty years when I first started doing photography seriously. A friend had a Canon F1 with a motor drive and I had a few simple Nikon F’s, no meter, just the basic cameras. What struck me about the Canon was how heavy and bulky the package was. Now, this is nothing against Canon as the equivalent Nikon at the time was likely just as heavy and bulky. Being on a shoestring budget for many of my early years I acquired a large quantity of used Nikkor lenses and other miscellaneous camera system components.Years later Pentax came out with a fancy little professional camera, the Pentax LX. The lenses were good and sharp, everything was lighter than the equivalent Nikon equipment and I sold all of my beat up Nikon gear and temporarily switched to Pentax. While I thoroughly enjoyed using the Pentax equipment the set-up suffered from lack of development and the bodies had a tendency to have their shutters crack at inopportune moments. It was time to switch back to Nikon again.

With the digital age it was clear that Nikon or Canon would get my business. In most ways it was a no brainer for me, I had all these Nikkor lenses, why reinvest in a completely new system? That’s why I’m still using Nikon. Is Nikon better than Canon? My guess is that any of the modern cameras can produce great images with a good photographer operating them. All these systems can also produce terrible results with an incompetent photographer operating them. As well, I have started using many third party lenses that can be purchased for many different systems. I guess it really comes down to personal preference.

So what’s in my bag? I’ll start with the weird and accessory items:

Toshiba notebook (only if required, a few days away from computers is healthy), I’ll tell you what’s on the computer at a later date
Cable release
USB reader
2 USB cords (I either lose them or they are a little finicky)
250 gb hard drive
160 gb hard drive
Garbage bags (lots)
Band aids (these are useful for more than just patching up my body)
Lens cleaning fluid
Lens cleaning paper (in truth, I almost always use my shirt or other old clothing, underwear (clean) etc, I know….)
Permanent marker
BC Ferry schedule (may not be useful to many of you)
An old magazine or two (for the road, usually something other than photography like Air & Space or Vintage Motorsports)
Lightweight gloves
Super duper LED flashlight
Visa card, “can’t leave home without it”
A few leaky pens and,
a pair of small scissors and a knife (that I have to remember to remove before boarding an airplane).

Camera Equipment:

Nikon D300 body
Nikon D2X body
Sigma 10-20mm
Nikon 17-55mm
Sigma 30mm f1.4
Sigma 50-150mm f2.8
Sigma 150 macro
Nikon 300mm f4
Nikon 85mm f1.8 (not used often anymore)

Battery chargers for two cameras and flash unit. (why these can’t be compatible boggles my mind, in a perfect world…)
Nikon SB800 flash
Manfrotto monopod
Manfrotto Carbon Fiber tripod
Manfrotto Head

4 – 8gb Compact Flash Cards
2 – 4GB Compact Flash Cards
2 – 2 GB Compact Flash Cards

There you go, nothing fancy and all totally abused. Am I missing anything? Well, a 500mm lens sure would be nice, maybe a fisheye, donations are always accepted.

About the Author

Are you interested in learning photography? Free demo The 123 of Digital Imaging Suite

Kevin Oke is a professional nature and travel photographer with over 30 years experience. When not travelling he writes on his blogs, Nature Travel Photography and Kevin Oke Photography. Kevin is available to answer questions about photography on his Photography forum.

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I have Nikon FM2 i need to know if im taking picture right!?

i found this old camera in the attic and decided to take some pictures, but i dont have any flash that is manual and would work on it so im taking pictures with out the flash in my house, im only using the metering system thats on it, i think i took took 3 pictures on apurtures of 3.5 and shutter speed at i think 2 and i put it on the tripod? are the pictures gonna come good or just blury or dark?

I have an FM2, and they’re really easy to use once you get used to them. Okay, you mentioned the metering system in the camera, so you must have good batteries in it. (Cameras should not be stored long time with batteries in them, by the way) Anyway, as long as the internal metering is on the circle, not the + (overexposure) or – (underexposure), your pictures will be good. The circle means you have the correct exposure for the lighting conditions. For indoors, use your lense’s widest aperture (smallest number). Then just use the shutter speed that makes the meter go to the circle setting. If your shutter speed is below 1/60, then you will need a tripod, or you pictures will show motion blur (unless you’re really good at holding your camera still).

Experiment with one or two rolls of 24 exposure or less (cheap film is okay until you get the hang of it.) See what you get and adjust accordingly.

By the way, do you want a flash for your camera? I have one I can spare.

Oh yes, if you do need new batteries, it takes two of those little button batteries (A76, I think). They go in the bottom.

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