OK, all you photo gurus. I need your help. I have a Nikon Coolpix 8800. Nice camera in itself, but I have a feeling that its built in flash is holding me back. I would like to be able to take better pictures under limited light conditions. I did some research online and it seems that the two flashes that are recommended for this unit are Nikon SB-600 ($175) and SB-800 ($275). Keeping in mind that the funds are limited and I am not aspiring to be a professional akin to DiD, are these really my only options? Can I get something better for the price, or something of equal quality for less money? What should I look for in a flash and what are your suggestions?

 

I just did some checking around and it looks like your camera is compatible with both the SB-600 and SB-800's i-TTL functionality.

Based on that, I would recommend the SB-600 to you. The advantages of the SB-800 are that it can control other flashes (which doesn't mean much if you only have one flash on camera), it's a little more powerful, and it comes with some gels and a diffuser dome. To me, as a first flash, it's just not worth it to drop the extra $100 for that. I love my two SB-600's and don't really notice much difference in them compared to the SB-600. Sure the SB-800 may be a little more powerful, but at least in my experience you're rarely firing the flash at maximum output (even with the SB-600).
My $0.02, save yourself $100 and get the SB-600.

 

The only thing that scares me is I already have buttons on the camera that I have no idea what they do and constantly have to whip out my manual. Looks like these flash units have more buttons on them. Anyway, what is i-TTL and what does it do?

 

i-TTL stands for "Intellegent - Through The Lens", which means that the camera is performing an evaluation of the flash strength necessary based on the metering it's doing of the scene you're pointing the camera at. There are some more advanced features of i-TTL that come into play when you have multiple flashes, but with one on camera, the main advantage is a better matching of the flash to the requirements of the lighting available.

I wouldn't worry about the buttons. You can basically set it once to TTL and forget about it if you wanted to and get better results because the flash is substantially more capable than the pop-up flash alone (plus you have a head that pivots on the flash to direct the output for doing flash bounding which you can't do with the pop-up)

 

I'll of course agree with DiD and say that the SB-600 would be a good choice. But I should ask what it is about your low-light shots that you don't like? Solving it might not require you to buy a flash (but could involve some of those buttons), though I do think the SB-600 would work very well for you. Just being able to bounce the flash is a major plus.

Mark

 

A lot of my low light shots look more of a "here is a picutre of" vs. "here we are at". Hope that makes sence. I think a better flash will help out and augment my "personal creative shortcommings" .