Sunday, July 12, 2009

Su-800 and Sekonic L-358


If you are planning or have purchased a light meter and thinking that it would be best friends with the Nikon SU-800 think again. Apparently the signals that SU-800 (yes you heard me right) transmits to other slave flashes under CLS fools the light meter and all you get is "E.u" which means under expose and I thought this issue was only when you use a SB-800 / SB-900 / pop-up as a commander. Going to scour the net for a resolution while waiting for a response from Sekonic on this. I have a strong feeling there is no workaround. Sigh.

p/s: will post further reviews on the L-358 later, but base on the feedback, specifications and price this is the one to get. Key features includes weather proof, pocket wizard module so you can trigger your pocket wizards via this baby, and last but not least flash in percentage contribution to ambient light (very neat).

4 comments:

  1. i'm wondering if you set full manual on the flashes.. would it work? including on the camera?

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  2. You will still need a mechanism to trigger it. I am 100% sure if you use SB-800 or SB-900 to trigger remote flashes the light meter will register the pre-flash as oppose to the actual flash. But what surprised me was SU-800 IR beams gave the same issue. A workaround for this is to use a SC-29 cord or equivalent with the SU-800 and point it away from the light meter.

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  3. Hi
    Yes you are right I have just brought the l358 and I am having the same
    Problem . Looks like I will be buying a pocket wizard grrrrrrr

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  4. I've found that if you use your SB 800 or SB 900 in SU4 mode, it will be ok.

    Mount the SU800 on your camera, don't matter with the mode selected for each group, and set your flash as manual. I try it with a sekonic L758 and it's ok.

    I hope I was clear.

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