D70 and SB-80DX?

[trainjunkie]

Howdy All,

I've been using a Nikon SB-80DX with my Fuji S2 for awhile and they have always worked well together. I recently tried the SB-80 on my D70 and they don't seem to play well together. The speedlight seems to receive no information from the camera such as ISO, focal length, aperture, etc. I have to manually set the ISO on the flash where on the S2, the two linked up and all the camera settings were correct on the flash. Is this normal with the SB-80DX and the D70 or is there a problem here? I've done the full reset on the SB-80. Nothing changed. Any insight is appreciated, I don't have the budget for the SB-800 right now so I have to make do with the SB-80 if I can.

Mike

[Igor]

Hi Mike,
should work. Try cleaning contacts on both camera and flash.
Sometimes my sb800 also shows stupid TTL (default) when mounted on D70, I have to unlock it (without turning off) and slightly pull back off the hot shoe. On some point it gets "alive" then I push it back and lock. Maybe this would help? :cheers:

[killians913]

Mike,

The SB-80 is "not compatible" with the D70. The D70 is looking for a device that can do iTTL and the SB-80 only does dTTL. You might be able to use it in the A mode with the S2 in M mode.

Give it a try and let us know how it works.

Lockett

[trainjunkie]

Thanks Igor and Lockett for your replies. Admittedly, being an "available light or studio light" guy, I'm a bit flash-tarded. But through this and other discussions, I found out that the SB-80DX is NOT D-TTL, or any TTL mode, compatible with the D70. It does work in A mode on the D70 but you have to manually enter the ISO whenever you change it, which I do frequently, and I know I'll forget.

I have an assignment this weekend that is too important to leave to chance so even though I rarely use on-camera strobes, I went out and bought a SB-800 this afternoon. Got it for 319.00 and there is a $25.00 rebate so not too bad a deal. It works great on the D70 so I guess I'll have a strobe for each body now or the option to use them in wireless master/slave mode for other circumstances.

Anyway, thanks for your replies.

Mike

[Swampy]

Oops. Missed this one yesterday. But you're correct, the SB80 doesn't work on the D70 in TTL mode, you did the right thing in getting the Sb800dx and you'll be pleasently pleased with it. Throw that 5th battery cover on there as well and you'll get much faster recycle times too.