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Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
The SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun is Nikon's successor to the popular SB-800 Speedlight. The high-performance SB-900 features a wide 17-200mm auto zoom range (larger than the 24-105mm zoom range of the SB-800), three illumination patterns, a newly designed and extra efficient operation with a LCD that displays full-information, and AF-Assist illumination which is compatible with the new generation AF-sensors. The Speedlight SB900 Nikon Flashgun delivers a high-speed recycle time due to its improved booster circuit and for the first time in a flash unit, firmware can be uploaded onto the Speedlight via a Nikon digital SLR camera. Used in combination with Nikon DSLRs, the SB-900 is Nikon’s core product in the Nikon Creative Lighting System and supports Advanced Wireless Lighting as a master or a remote Speedlight, allowing you to be truly creative.
Average customer rating:
(15 Reviews) 12
Rating Snapshot (15 reviews)
5 stars
15
4 stars
0
3 stars
0
2 stars
0
1 star
0
15 / of 15(100%)customers would recommend this product to a friend.
Customer reviews for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Review 1 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Meets the demands of the pro
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
4
5
Value for money:
4
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: AirImage
(Prestwick, UK)
Date:12 May 2010
I've used this product for: 6-12 months
Expertise: Expert
Pros: professional kit
Cons: none so far
"Top of Nikon's flashgun family. It takes a bit of a learning curve to find your way roung the controls and menus but once you've got your head round it, this is a great piece of kit.
Having the dedicated Master/Remote switch is brilliant - no more fiddling with deep menus (SB-800). This saves me so much time on hectic shoots.
Included dome diffuser is good and the coloured gel holder is a real bonus - no more velcro-ing or taping gels to my flashgun. I just cut my coloured gels to fit the same profile as the supplied gels and they work perfectly.
This flashgun is a great partner to the SB-800, and I recently bought a second SB-900 as well. Says it all really."
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Review 2 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Worth Every Penny
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
5
5
Value for money:
5
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: Chang
(Liverpool, UK)
Date:03 May 2010
I've used this product for: 1-3 months
Expertise: Intermediate
"Bought this as an upgrade for my old SB800. Impress the moment I got it. Major improvement are the control buttons and the menu access allowing quick operation."
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Review 3 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Professional power
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
5
5
Value for money:
4
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: Barry
(Glasgow, Scotland)
Date:01 May 2010
I've used this product for: 1-3 months
Expertise: Intermediate
Pros: powerful and versatile
Cons: fairly pricy but worth it
"I bought this to go with my new Nikon D300s. What a powerful pair. The menus of both are complimentary and makes for great ease of use. I love how the bounce flash produces such natural portraits. Auto FP High-Speed Sync (fill in flash with high shutter speeds) produces great natural looking portrait shots outdoors.
An extremely powerful and versatile flashgun that producues stunning results with my Nikon DSLR"
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Review 4 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
awsome
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
5
5
Value for money:
5
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: Woody020769
(Cumbria - Lake District)
Date:20 February 2010
I've used this product for: 1-3 months
Expertise: Intermediate
Pros: totally funtional, & totally versatile, with excellent battery life, plus i love the strobing function
Cons: no cons at all as it is totally flawless
"I wasnt in the market for any other flash to be honest. After reading the reviews and salivating over this flash for over 12 months. I am not dissapointed with the SB-900's capability in any way. If id looked at any other flash i would have felt like i was cheating!!
It is extreemly versatile and totally dedicated, almost nothing can go wrong. The regular functions work perfectly as you would expect with a flash with this price tag.
Having never owned a hotshoe flash before ive found that the strobing effect is amazing. Being able to totally control the nunber of flashes against the power output and the frequency of the burst to be totally fantastic. It has opened a whole new way of being creative for me, and i am having amazing fun finding out all the capabilities of this flash unit.
There are no faults at all i can find with this flash head. The Build quality is solid and rugged, it looks and feels like you are getting value for money with every flash. And even battery power is very good too. i thought that with a unit this powerful and big the batteries would be used in no time but i couldnt be further from the truth.
if youve thought about buying this flash then just buy the damm thing, youve worked the over time, earned the money so go and treat yourself. you wont regret it, i promise, dont you deserve the best?"
1 / 1 people found this review useful.
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Review 5 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Top of the range flashgun
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
3
5
Value for money:
4
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: Jajabinx
(London, UK)
Date:17 February 2010
I've used this product for: 1-3 months
Expertise: Expert
Pros: fantastic results
Cons: complicated, manual difficult to follow
"Once you get your head around all the options , this can really work as the only lighting that you use. The manual is a bit difficult to follow and the options endless so you really need to know both the camera and the flashgun to get the best out of this unit."
1 / 1 people found this review useful.
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Review 6 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
If there is a better flash I would like to see it!
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
5
5
Value for money:
4
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: Crispsting
(Rayleigh, Essex)
Date:11 October 2009
I've used this product for: less than a month
Expertise: Expert
Pros: ease of use
"I have been using Nikon (and Canon) flashes for years and to be frank this model is light years in front of any flash I have used.
Previously you needed to have a degree to go through the flash menus to get the right light, make the unit wireless and remote or use as a master. With the SB-900 its a flick of the switch. Furthermore this flash is so powerful I am using it, with my other Speedlights SB-800 and SB-*0 instead of studio lighting. Works great.
The flash has lots of great features including intuitive gels. ie gels added to the screen which relay to the camera information so the white balance is adjusted automatically. Great idea.
Speedlight has a great zoom facility and you can even programme in the type of lighting. Great for the price.
The Speedlight is very easy to use and even if you have never used one before it works great just added to the hotshoe on your camera."
4 / 4 people found this review useful.
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Review 7 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Everyone Needs a Speedlight!
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
5
5
Value for money:
5
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: Shane84
(Gt Yarmouth, UK)
Date:28 August 2009
I've used this product for: 1-2 years
Expertise: Expert
Pros: allows fill flash for pro portraits and wildlife, allows bounce flash for pro indoor shots, improved range battery life & handling over sb-800, comes with great clip on diffuser, great built in bounce card, can be used with coloured gel filters, compatible with sc28 and sc29 for off camera flash
Cons: slightly bigger noisier and heavier than sb-800, a tad expensive... but worth it!
"Like many people, I bought my first speedlight (an SB-800) because back then I used slow consumer zooms and wanted less blurry shots when shooting indoors. How naive I was! Yes simply attaching an SB-800, or the SB-900 that I have now upgraded to, will instantly give you easily handholdable shutter speeds in even the dimmest light, but that’s only a small part of what a speedlight can do for your photography.
After dabbling with speedlights and Nikon CLS and their wonderfully infinite and rewarding learning curve for a few years, I almost never simply attach my SB-900 and blast my subject with direct light as I imagined it would be back then.
If I want to up my shutter speed, what I’m more inclined to do is to tilt and rotate my speedlight so that the light from it ‘bounces’ off of a ceiling or wall. With no suitable walls or ceilings, you can use a reflector if you have one and a stand or handy assistant to hold it. This technique, called ‘bounce flash’, gives you a much softer, diffused and natural light. Sometimes it can be hard to tell that flash has been used at all and the only slight give away will be that your shots will look so much better than you could have got with domestic indoor lighting.
Bounce flash alone is something that makes a speedlight like the SB-900 worth buying as it opens up flash photography without the risk of the tell tale, pale, washed out look of compact camera flash and surpasses the weak and inflexible onboard flash of even the most expensive SLR cameras. Even if you use fast aperture lenses as I do now, there are still times when a speedlight becomes a necessity. Especially when trying to freeze motion under the weak indoor lighting found in places like the home and sports halls.
The other key area that a speedlight will help with is Fill Flash. This is the technique of balancing your ambient light exposure with the amount of light coming from flash. When done correctly, Fill Flash is almost completely unnoticeable, but what people will realise is that your pictures will ‘pop’ that much more. I won’t tell them if you don’t!
Yes you can do Fill Flash with on-board flash, but with so little power; your flash range will be very short, often much shorter than you’d traditionally want for portraiture, definitely much shorter than you’d want for wildlife. A powerful Speedlight like the SB-900 allows you to use Fill Flash and maintain the correct distance for professional portraits, even in bright outdoor light.
Ever heard of the golden hour? The time just before sunset where light is soft and diffused. For an hour (or less) shadows soften and contrast lowers to a level that is more easily captured by photography, increasing colour, saturation and detail. You can easily get great results by taking outdoor portraits and wildlife photography in this narrow time window. Photographers in the know, however, know that they don’t need to wait on location for the golden hour if the shot that they need won’t wait. With fill flash, you can lighten and soften shadows, reducing the overall contrast of the scene allowing you to get the full range of the photo exposed properly.
This means no shadowy panda eyes, no shadows under noses, crow’s feet (no not the ones on the actual bird!) and laughter lines disappear under an even illumination and the main subject pops in a way that will make everyone ask how you did it. With a speedlight, you can take the golden hour with you wherever you go.
Even better, with the increased power that you get from using a speedlight over on-board flash, you can use much faster shutter speeds with flash. With AutoFP you can even exceed the Sync Speed of your camera (usually only around 1/250s) right up to its maximum shutter speed (usually 1/4000s or 1/8000s). This has the benefit of allowing you to use wide apertures to achieve narrow depth of field and subject isolation that are not possible when using on-board fill flash in bright daylight. This is the main reason that I carry my speedlight every day. It’s not a bodged method of increasing available light as most compact camera users use flash – Fill Flash from a proper speedlight done correctly is an artistic choice – and a VERY important and effective one.
If you’re into macro photography then a Nikon speedlight like the SB-900 will help you there too. Either mounted on camera and using the built in bounce card to reduce power or used off camera with the separately available Nikon SC-28 or SC-29, a speedlight’s Fill Flash will make your macro shots of flowers and bugs pop in the exact same way. It will also allow you to easily handhold shots at the tiny apertures required for macro to achieve adequate depth of field.
I should also mentioned that the SB-900 also adds 360degree rotation to the flash head as opposed to the oft annoying 270degree rotation of the SB-800 – no more having to remember which way to rotate the head when bouncing off walls behind you! The SB-900 also adds a little extra power over the SB-800 giving extra range, the zoom head now goes to 200mm instead of 85mm again improving range and battery life with long lenses, improved AutoFocus Assist that solves some problems that the SB-800 has with newer cameras such as the D300 and noticeably improved recycling times between shots.
Maybe most importantly, the SB-900 also now has more external controls which make this Nikon’s fastest and simplest handling speedlight yet. The instant ‘on switch’ is worth the money alone over the time consuming press… and hold… and wait… of the SB-800.
The most important thing that I have learnt from owning Nikon speedlights, both the SB-800 and now the SB-900 is that flash photography is not a fallback or a compromise for use only when ambient light, aperture and high ISO are insufficient. Flash photography is ambient lights less known brother and he’s an important part of your stylistic arsenal.
You must get fully acquainted with the use of flash in its many guises if you want the best out of your photographs and the SB-900, like the SB-800 before it, is a great way for anyone to do this."
5 / 5 people found this review useful.
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Review 8 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Top Flash
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
5
5
Value for money:
5
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: nikon0327
(cumbria)
Date:05 June 2009
I've used this product for: 6-12 months
Expertise: Intermediate
"this is the best flash on the market never lets me down and easy to handle, i have the sb-800 it is very good but the sb-900 knocks the spots off it.. Well worth the money......."
1 / 1 people found this review useful.
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Review 9 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Flash in the pan ?
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
5
5
Value for money:
4
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: Norm
(Edinburgh UK)
Date:09 April 2009
I've used this product for: 1-3 months
Expertise: Intermediate
Pros: ease of use, customizable, power
Cons: none
"I dont think so - this is it - this is THE ONE - they dont get better than this
First off, I've only had it a month and not used all its features but I've used this more than the SB-600 I've had for a year and gee whizz WHAT FEATURES WHAT SIMPLICITY
Right away no fiddling about for setting it to remote - just turn the switch
Want less power? Press and turn
Want to zoom to 200mm ? Press and turn
I could go on and on and on but if you're thinking what I thought - oooh £300+ for a FLASH ???
S T O P T H I N K I N G
Just do it - Nikon have the real deal here"
1 / 2 people found this review useful.
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Review 10 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
SB 900
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
4
5
Value for money:
4
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: PJones
(Doncaster)
Date:11 February 2009
I've used this product for: less than a month
Expertise: Intermediate
Pros: build quality performance
Cons: price takes time to master
"I bought this speed light a month ago, and although I have not yet mastered it my experience so far I have been very pleased.
The flash itself has a wide range of functions with the flash able to reduce the flash down to as little as 16% for close up work and Macro and on full power it can cover an area of about 100 yards, although I have not yet used this function.
The other main advantage for professional photographers is the wireless advantage in which you have the option to combine up to three flash units
all in all I am so far very impressed. It is a little expensive but compared to the Sigma similar flash unit or the Nikon SB 600 it is worth the extra money."
all in all I am so far very impressed. It is a little expensive but compared to the Sigma similar flash unit or the Nikon SB 600 it is worth the extra money."
1 / 1 people found this review useful.
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Review 11 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
SB900 - Great on and off the camera
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
4
5
Value for money:
5
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: adman
(London, UK)
Date:11 February 2009
I've used this product for: 1-3 months
Expertise: Expert
Pros: wireless, accurate
Cons: big
"I have a Nikon D700 and was using an SB-600 only when I really needed to as I'm not a fan of flash photography.
I was asked to do a job where I needed additional lighting and had limited space so I picked up the SB-900 to add to the SB-600.
I used both flashes off camera controlled via the Nikon D700's built-in "Creative Lighting System".
The results were brilliant. Both flashes can be controlled via the camera body. No need to change any settings on the flash unit. Takes a little time to learn the mens on the camera but once you got its easy and simple. Even shooting through diffusers the the exposure was spot on.
I'm now looking at getting a 2nd SB-900. Buy one... you won't be disappointed."
4 / 4 people found this review useful.
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Review 12 for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Sb 900
Overall Rating:
Ease of use:
4
5
Value for money:
5
5
Build quality:
5
5
Written By: canadiandave
(Newcastle)
Date:31 January 2009
I've used this product for: less than a month
Expertise: Intermediate
Pros: stinks of quality
Cons: expensive feature too rich but wonderful!
"I picked up my SB900 on Monday, it's now Saturday and I'm beyond convinced, I'm in love! Yep, it's not cheap at £300 but compared to the £200 I paid last year for my trusty Sigma 500 it's well worth it ! make no bones the Sigma is a smashing flash, but not in the same league. the Nikon's guide number IS higher but it seems to go beyond that, it's just a better quality of light. Wirelessly, which is what I'm after , it's spot on, if a little hard to learn (4 instead of 5 stars) but great once sussed as I run it (and the Sigma) via an Interfir IR trigger on light stands with umbrellas. On camera it's spot on again, but like all the others I don't like the TTl BL fill flash, it's just not up to it so I go for ttl bog standard and use the EV up/down
All in all I'd say, get one, as your main flash, but don t spend the extra for them as secondaries, get a 600,400,sigma or a metz. But as a main, it stinks of quality and if i lost this one I'd get another one first thing in the morning !"
1 / 1 people found this review useful.
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Ratings-only reviews for Nikon SB-900 Speedlight Flashgun
Based on the average of (3) ratings-only reviews
Overall RatingAverage score:
Would recommend? Yes 3 out of 3
Ease of use:
5
5
Value for money:
4.7
5
Build quality:
5
5