Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I bought a Nikon D3100 a year ago and just starting to get a little more serious about using it and have decided to take some classes and meet with some friends who have nicer cameras and know how to use them.

I found out that my aunt used to do photography and she gave me a White Lightning Ultra 600 Speedlight which I have no idea how to even use, but she gave it to me for no cost. Is it even possible to use this with a Nikon D3100.

Forgive me as I know nothing and not even sure where I would look to see if this would work with it. would hate to just get rid of it without know if it was even possible to use.

Any thoughts? What about any information on how to use something like this in general. Maybe it is somehting that I may not even use for years, but it is free.

Shawn

The Ultra 600's are great lights and they will work fine with your camera once you find a way to trigger it. If your camera has a PC socket you can use a wire. If there is not PC socket on the camera, you can get a hot shoe adapter (from PCB or any camera store). You can also use a flash on your camera (bounced away from the subject) on low power to trigger the Ultra's slave sensor.
You will need to use your camera in manual mode and at shutter speeds at synch speed or slower.
You might want to pick up a book on studio lighting but I think Paul Buff has a download somewhere on studio lighting that will teach you a lot too (it used to be included when you bought lights from PCB).
Have fun!
James

First, just to reduce any confusion in the future, the light you have is a studio flash, or flash. A speedlite (or speedlight) would refer to a hotshoe mounted flash.

Yes, the flash is certainly usable with the 3100. You will, however, need a way to have the camera trigger it. The basic way to do this is with the sync cord, which came with the light, but you may not have received it, and it may not be good at this point anyway. We do sell replacements. If you go the sync cord route, you will need a hotshoe adapter. This provides a socket for the cord, which is not present on that model camera. We also carry these adapters.

Another solution is an optical triggering device (basically a hotshoe mounted flash). These can be a white light flash, like a normal speedlite, or one that has an infrared filter on it. We do not carry these, but you may already have a speedlite. If it can be set to M mode, it will work. The pop up flash on that camera will not work (to my knowledge).

The best solution, in the opinion of most people, is a radio remote system, like our CyberSyncs. This involves a transmitter on the camera and a receiver on the light. This will be the most expensive option, but is often the most convenient.


Also, if the light has not been used in a while, you may want to exercise the capacitors. You can do this by lowering the power to minimum and firing the light 10 times or so. Then move the slider up a stop, and firing 10 shots or so. Repeat this process until you reach full power. I would do this outside or in a garage, as a capacitor failure could smoke or drip, as well as make a loud pop.

As for using flash units in general, http://strobist.blogspot.com/2006/02/we ... obist.html is a good site. This may seem like it is a speedlite based site, but the idea is to use what you have available, and the principles are the same.

We also have a "studio flash explained" section here: http://www.paulcbuff.com/sfe.php

My own advice: Free and possibly even worth it :D

The simplest, cheapest way to trigger the Ultra 600 with your camera is to use the camera's pop-up flash set to "manual flash" mode in the menu. See page 135 of your D3100 manual. Set the pop-up flash to minimum power to start with; that should be enough to trigger the Ultra 600.

(If you want to use the sync cord that people are talking about, you'll need to get PC sync adapter that goes into your hotshoe. The D3100 doesn't have a PC sync port built in. Other triggering methods also require that you buy some gizmo or other; the big advantage of using the pop-up flash is that it's cheap.)

You will also need to set the camera itself to manual ("M" on the top dial). This is pretty much universal when using a studio flash. Make sure you also turn "auto ISO" off in the menu. Set the ISO to 100 and the shutter speed to 1/200. Then you can experiment with different apertures on your lens and different power settings on the Ultra 600.

One last thing: Did your aunt give you a lightstand along with the Ultra 600? If not, you need to get one.

Thank you for the input to this point. The unit does work which is nice. I was able to set flash to manual at 1/32nd power and set the flash of without using the shoe adapter. Now I need to learn more about lighting. I am an average if best photographer, but this stuff really interest me. I am going to checkout some lighting books so that I can get a better understanding and see if I can get the grasp of how this all works.

When I was looking around on internet I see a lot of lighting kits with continuous lighting sources? Is this used in conjunction with the flash or is this used separately?

One of the things I want to do is take photos for things to sell on ebay. We have 2 kids and have lots of clothes and toys I want to list. I have some backdrops, but not sure if the continuous or flash is the best for something like this. Maybe this will all make more sense, once I do some reading, but I do really appreciate all the commments to this point!

Even really bright continuous light is very dim compared to even relatively low flash power. Even if you successfully matched power, you would then have to match color. With enough effort, sure, it is doable, but not really worth it.

You can work in speedlights or another flash unit. You can also use reflectors to bounce light around. You can also use your pop up as an on axis fill (though it will be pretty harsh).