Nikon i-TTL-BL Flash Setting

I am by no means am I the most perfect amazing lighting master guru guy.
However, the one thing about me is that I am always trying to learn and re-learn stuff. For example, I was just recently taking a look at Nikon's micro-site all about their Creative Lighting System (CLS) and wanted to brush up on my TTL knowledge.

One thing jarred my memory and reminded me of something that I meant to write about for a while now-- the i-TTL BL setting. See way back in the early days of Nikon's TTL flash technology that I can remember (circa 2002), the BL in i-TTL stood for Back-Lit. Today, Nikon re-branded it by now referring i-TTL-BL as meaning BaLanced Fill-Flash!

Here is the definition from Nikon: "Nikon's i-TTL (intelligent through-the-lens) Balanced Fill-Flash automatically balances the output of the Nikon Speedlight and the scene's ambient light.

Immediately before the main flash goes off, the Speedlight fires a series of monitor pre-flashes, which convey Information about the scene's lighting to the camera. Combined with information from the camera's 3D Color Matrix metering system, the information is analyzed to adjust flash output to balance the scene's ambient light.

All of this complex processing happens in a fraction of a second, before each exposure, to provide unprecedented levels of flash precision and performance."

I always have my flash set to i-TTL BL with my SB-900s. Why? Because I want my lighting to be balanced with the ambient light... I found that Nikon's technology does an amazing job at "knowing" what is going on in front of it and compensating appropriately. Granted, it is just 1s and 0s and it can be fooled but so can anything else with camera technology. It is important to think in advance and realize how much light you need (and want) in your image. For example, do you want a little catch light in the eyes? Maybe a little fill flash to fill in some wrinkles or harsh shadows or maybe you want to do some dramatic lighting like the pic below:



Image shot using the Nikon D700. Off Camera Flash (camera left) set to i-TTL -2ev to resemble a car headlight in this parking garage.

Attention Canon shooters: It's important to note that Canon's e-TTL II behaves in a similar way to Nikon speedlights. That's good news for you Canon flash guys.

Thanks for stopping by.
Mike