SB600 or Jessops 360AFD ?
Discussion
I bought a 360AFD upon the recommendation of many on here and TP on the basis that it's a good solid, but basic flashgun to learn the ropes with.
Having used it for a period of time, I concur with those views. There are some minor annoying niggles which I never quite worked out solutions to (TTL off camera, Manual mode when pointing in anything other than straight on), but these may have been down to user error rather than design faults.
I sold it on to a fellow newbie due to lack of use a few months back, and he is now using it to learn how to best make use of flashguns before splashing out on an SB900.
The only thing I would say is that you can pick up the 360AFN for much less money on ebay (where I sourced mine). There's one on there now for 35 pounds buy it now with free p+p, cheap enough to give it a go as an experiment and recoup your money when you're ready to buy the nikon gun.
Having used it for a period of time, I concur with those views. There are some minor annoying niggles which I never quite worked out solutions to (TTL off camera, Manual mode when pointing in anything other than straight on), but these may have been down to user error rather than design faults.
I sold it on to a fellow newbie due to lack of use a few months back, and he is now using it to learn how to best make use of flashguns before splashing out on an SB900.
The only thing I would say is that you can pick up the 360AFN for much less money on ebay (where I sourced mine). There's one on there now for 35 pounds buy it now with free p+p, cheap enough to give it a go as an experiment and recoup your money when you're ready to buy the nikon gun.
Creative lighting system
Basically it's the camera being able to communicate with (multiple) flashes and come up with all sorts of clever tricks to get you an image. Joe McNally is the master in that arena. Also complicated enough that there's a whole guide to it on the interwebs, well worth a read - all 10 articles or so.
http://nikonclspracticalguide.blogspot.co.uk/2008/...
Unless you're doing run & gun stuff, it's simpler to work manually. Short version is that changing aperture will affect flash and ambient, shutter just flash (flash duration is a lot less than your shutter). Therefore you can move the ambient vs flash by changing shutter and aperture in opposite directions.
The aquarium won't run away, so just shoot and chimp and spend the money on beer. Nikon flashes are nice if you've got money to burn, but the fact you're asking suggests you don't..
ETA: depending on what you decide are 'have to haves' feature wise, older non-dedicated nikon flashes, or even other off-brand solutions may be worth a look. FWIW I have a SB600, rarely use it, and almost never use 'star trek' mode, usually manual.
Basically it's the camera being able to communicate with (multiple) flashes and come up with all sorts of clever tricks to get you an image. Joe McNally is the master in that arena. Also complicated enough that there's a whole guide to it on the interwebs, well worth a read - all 10 articles or so.
http://nikonclspracticalguide.blogspot.co.uk/2008/...
Unless you're doing run & gun stuff, it's simpler to work manually. Short version is that changing aperture will affect flash and ambient, shutter just flash (flash duration is a lot less than your shutter). Therefore you can move the ambient vs flash by changing shutter and aperture in opposite directions.
The aquarium won't run away, so just shoot and chimp and spend the money on beer. Nikon flashes are nice if you've got money to burn, but the fact you're asking suggests you don't..
ETA: depending on what you decide are 'have to haves' feature wise, older non-dedicated nikon flashes, or even other off-brand solutions may be worth a look. FWIW I have a SB600, rarely use it, and almost never use 'star trek' mode, usually manual.
Edited by upsidedownmark on Friday 6th September 10:12
upsidedownmark said:
Counterpoint: Any old manual flash, and visit strobist.com. Manual flash is pretty simple with digital. Still don't know what CLS is doing half the bl**dy time, whole thing is too smart/complicated for its own good 
CLS is brilliant (brilliant, geddit!) indoors. It beats the hell out of reaching up to a flash on top of a lightstand, behind an umbrella, to manually change the flash power. Plus if you have more than one off-camera flash, then you can change the power of the both of them without moving from your shooting position. The only place it falls down is if you use it outdoors in bright light, in that case you can get loss of communication or misfires. Even this is solved by using something with a lot of grunt like a SB-900 as the CLS transmitter rather than the pop-up flash as the transmitter.
I find Nikon CLS great. It allows you to take quick off-camera flash pics of subjects which aren't going to stand around waiting for you. Want a quick flash pic? Set your Nikon camera in your right hand to use the pop-up flash in CLS mode to trigger your external flash in your left hand in TTL-metering mode to give you a corretly exposed, off-camera flash picture every time. It is really easy and quick once you get used to it AND you can can still do everything manually if you want to.
For the rather trivial (in context of the overall cost of photography) of £134 for a Nikon CLS flash and some £60 manual flash then the Nikon CLS flash would imho be a no brainer. The cost difference is peanuts for the extra features. I'd still look for a secondhand SB-800 however, that is a great flash, unf I lost mine
Still got 2 x SB-700s, an SB-900 and an SB-600 to keep me going though 
Oh another thing: with a Nikon flash you can use FP mode to take photos at shutter speeds higher than the X-sync speed (usually 1/200 or 1/250s). This is very useful for using the flash outdoors in daylight where 1/200s is not fast enough.
How do you trigger the Jessops flash off camera? Does it have an optical trigger? Is it a wire back to the hotshoe job?
Edited by creampuff on Friday 6th September 11:46
upsidedownmark said:
I guess it comes down to a lot of personal preference/how you approach things.
Not saying you're wrong, just a counterpoint/different view
A flash will just be a flash to those aquarium fishies Not saying you're wrong, just a counterpoint/different view
PS OP, I just looked at the specs of the Jessops 360AFD. Ultimately it does come down to how much cash you have spare but looking at the specs the things I see as limiting for this particular flash are:
- Only 5 x power settings 1/1, 1/2, 1/4, 1/8, 1/16 power. These are full stop steps; I'd like to have 1/3 stop steps. Industrial strength studio flashes often only have full stop steps, so maybe a desire for 1/3 stop steps is just me. May also not be an insue for aquarium photos as you can just move the flash forwards or backwards a bit to change illumination on those fishies. Would also like to have 1/32 and 1/64 power however.
- Can't see any mention of CLS support.
- Can't see mount clearly but it may be plastic; could break.
- No dumb optical trigger (but the SB-600 does not have an dumb optical trigger either; dumb optical trigger = flash goes off as a slave when it detects another flash firing)
Edited by creampuff on Friday 6th September 12:11
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