Thursday, June 7, 2012

SB900 Vs. SB910 - Which one is better for me

Before I write anything I'd like to state that I will not compare these 2 flashes on which one overheats faster than the other. If you want to see that just write SB900 Vs SB910 on youtube, tons videos should come up about that. 



This is a long post if you are interested please click on "read more" below.

However overheating was the issue that Nikon made SB910 and they are almost same in every way but the overheating. 

My Theory (Not proven yet)
If my research is correct then SB910 is bit heavier than SB900 and I can guess why, however this is just a guess. (Because I haven't opened up a SB900 and 910 before)
Back in late 90's I used to construct my own toy cars which works with electricity or gasoline and there was this special element that we put before the engine that absorbs the heat of the battery or heat that is created by electrical current. Well only the cars that used electricity (battery power) had that part.
What I believe is that Nikon put such thing like that element in the SB910 unit.
What I know is that will change the accuracy of the flash power, not the recycle time but the strength of the blast.  Well it might not affect the first full blasts but as the battery weakens the flash will become less powerful.

Ok, lets come to the facts which are proven. 


We all know that SB900 overheats way before the SB910. However its also proven that after when the flash unit is getting hotter it is actually dimming the power of the flash.

Well to a person like me who uses these flashes off-camera Manuel mode with Octobox, beauty dish and etc . . . dimming the power of the flash is really useless bad for the outcome.
Imagine if I start a photoshoot where my exposure reading from light meter is 1/125 at f/8 and ISO 200 and in the middle of the shoot I want to check if it is the same but now I am getting the meter reading of f/5.6 that is one stop different than the first reading. That is bad news for me, that can cost me lots of film and a reshoot in worse case scenario. (since i use Medium format Film I cannot chimp)

If you are a press photographer who shoots in "P"rogram mode with TTL or iTTL and have the flash on hotshoe then this will not effect you nor you will even realize that your flash power dimmed.

SB900 on the other hand it does not dim the power down when it is heating, thus you will always get the same meter reading from first to last blast. In anyways by the time the flash heats we need to change the style and (or) the makeup so the flash has time to cool down.

I think this is the main reason that Joe McNally didn't switch to SB910 and he is a Nikon Guy who uses only the latest nikon gear.

In conclusion I will not buy the SB910 and will look for a new SB900 to buy if i need to buy any of them.

1 comment:

  1. I heard about this, I prefer SB900 over the SB910 like you, but I use battery packs. Try them you will be a lot happier.
    By the way nice blog.

    ReplyDelete