I am needing some input from some of you Nikon D200 users. I thought I had posted this but can not find it. My wife is the photographer of the team, I am just the geek so I may not use the right termenology. Kelly just started using a Nikon D200 for her photography business. Before she was using a Mamiya 645 AFD and never had this problem. She has been noticing that "sometimes" when shooting in the studio with the camera in portrait configuration, she gets a black space across the left side of the image. This looks like failure for the camer and studio strobes to sync but it does not do it all the time. She uses the Nikon D200 with a wires strobe trigger, and two Sunpak MS-4000's. She never sees this when the camera is in landscape mode.

Has anyone heard or experienced this?

This is my second post, 1st original. Great site and looking forward to learning lots and meeting many of you!


Kelly's Photography

I don't do a lot of studio work so YMMV

Sounds like a synch issue. You can Increase the synch speed in the custom menu fuctions, and that may help. Perhaps there is a loose connection in your wires, too. I don't think it is the sunpaks

Best of luck

Eric

In the studio, using studio strobes, you need to shoot in Manual mode with a shutter speed of 1/250 or less, and an aperture set according to the strength of the strobes. Hopefully you have a good light meter for this.

Hope this helps...welcome to OSP!
Bentley

The D200 has a high speed sync mode that allows you to use a shutter speed that is faster than 1/250. Look for it under the custom menu (don't have my camera with me) and give it a shot.

Amos is correct about the high speed sync feature on the D200. However, it only works with the Nikon Speedlights that support it. Studio stobes would be limited to 1/250th of a second as per Bentley's post.

Another possibility; and I am only mentioning it because it has happened to me more than once.

The PC cord might have slipped down in front of the lens before the shot was taken.

I know it seems like a stupid thing, but in the "heat of battle" so to speak, it can be overlooked quite easily.

Take care,

Richard

Richard,

You're right. I forgot it only works with Nikon lights.... "DOH"

Bentley,

We have been using the manual mode for the flash using her Sekonic L-358 light meter tethered to the strobes. The readings we usually get are f8 @ 1/125. We might try the 1/250 as I think that is what the D200 defaults manual to. It just seems strange that it only happens in Portrait configuration. I will double check the sending unit on the camera to assure that it is not loosing a good contact when she turns it on its side. We will also try this weekend using the pc sync cord in the portrait configuration to see if it still does it. I have contacted Nikon and that is their first request. To take the "unsupported" wireless flash triggers out of the equation. Probably a good idea but as I said you would think it would be that way no matter what the configuration.

Thanks for your input.

Bruce

Kelly's Photography

Richard,

We have not been using the PC Sync cord but a wireless trigger that has no cords attached to the camera. I will check the mounting of the transmitter though. We will try the pc sync cord to see if that helps though.

Thanks for your input. All help is appreciated and no thought should be left out when brainstorming.

That is strange...can you post an image so that we can have a better look?

Bentley

I will when I get home tonight. It does look classical sync problem though but why only in portrait and why not all the time then?

Attach a shot later tonight.

Thanks for the replys.

the cable problem happened me once, and when i was processing the pics i was thinking what on earth. but knowing me i got out the cleaner and started puffing the lense thinking that there was something wrong!!

Someone else had that same problem (only noticeable on verticals). I've forgotten what their resolution was. However, I still think it's the sync speed. Sync speeds depend on both the speed of the camera's shutter curtains and the length of the pulse that the strobe puts out. Studio strobes put out much longer pulses than on-camera flashes, which is why there are different nominal sync speeds for them. And some strobes put out very long pulses when being used near full power. (That's why some strobes cost so much more than others.)

Look at the shutter speed in the EXIF data and you can tell if it's sync speed or not.

I just wanted to post a brief update. I have not been able to get my wife's camera to reproduce the "problem" she was having. I removed and reattached the wireless flash transmitter from her camera. That may have been as simple as it was. I checked all the setting and did notice that in manual flash setting, the shutter speed is controlled by a thumb dial at the top right. It could be when she was flipping the camera to portrait mode she was hitting that. I will look at the pics to see what the shutter speed was. She doesn't have another shoot sceduled until Friday. I will assume the problem fixed if she does not have that problem again. I will though find one of the previous shots to post for you to see what the problem was.

I am noobie here so bear with me.....how small do I need to get the file to post on here. I have a small program I use for websites and email called ShrinkPic. Will that be good enough?

Thanks for everyone's help. I sure am looking forward to learning more from all of you. Hopefully I can get Kelly to sign up for herself or at least sign on and post with me.