THE JOY of FILL FLASH

KC's head coach Dick Vermeil gets his team fired up. I used the Nikon SB-80DX for this image. While this older speedlight worked better than any other on the market, it was not 100% accurate. Remember that the objective of FILL FLASH is to CLEAN the subject not FLASH the subject. Dialed down -2 2/3 the speedlight adds just enough light to FILL in some shadows on Vermeils face. Enough to CLEAN him but not OVER POWER him.

  I almost always have the camera and or strobe set on REAR CURTAIN. Again this example is with the older SB-80DX dialed down -3. FILL with light, don't OVER POWER with light. I used a slow shutter speed of 1/30 and the Rear Curtain fill flash as the cyclist road by during the Sprint Finals at the Velodrome.

I used the NEW Nikon SB-800 Speedlight for the first time at an international wresting tournament. The competition showcased over 25 World and Olympic Champions and the USA Women's Olympic Wrestling Team. The arena was poorly lit and had an ambient reading of ISO800, 1/200 shutter speed, aperture f2.8. My sport strobes were all installed at other arenas so I decided to use the new SB800. I used the TTL mode and DIALED DOWN the speedlight -1 2/3. I exposed 1 stop under the ambient reading at ISO500 and 1/250th sec shutter. The SB-800 cleaned the subject but did not over power the subject. I set the White Balance on 4500K as was the color temperature of the arena lights. Backgrounds fell off the 1 stop and the action was frozen.

  Same settings for both camera and the SB-800. Without the FILL FLASH these athletes faces would be to dark. The SB800 dialed down 1 2/3 to CLEAN adds a perfect balance.