In September I fooled around with the off camera flash. Since then I have not really taken advantage of it so yesterday I intentionally used it like crazy.

The Nikon family of cameras from the D80 and up support off camera flash using CLS.  This takes your pop-up flash and lets it be in commander mode.  This way the pop-up flash is not used to light the scene, instead it’s used to tell the nearby flash in remote mode to go off.

The results can be fun and you get a more naturally lit photo. The above shot was taken using the ceiling as my reflector.  It’s not a good example as I probably could have gotten the same results just pointing SB-800 straight up while attached to my camera but you get the idea.

During this get together I just left the flash on the table and pointed it up at the ceiling. I’m hoping with some more practice I can get better and have more fun. Lucky for me my friends and family are tolerant of the nut with the camera; I took almost a 100 pictures alone last night.