Speedlight

Speedlight is the brand name used by Nikon Corporation for their photographic flash units, used since the company's introduction of strobe flashes in the 1960s. Nikon's standalone Speedlights (those not built into the company's cameras) have the SB- prefix as part of their model designation. Current Speedlights and other Nikon accessories make up part of Nikon's Creative Lighting System (CLS), which includes the Advanced Wireless Lighting, that enables various Nikon cameras to control multiple Nikon flash units in up to three separate controlled groups by sending encoded pre-flash signals to slave units.

Nikon's competitors like Canon and Ricoh use the similar name for their flashes. Both names indicate that strobe flashes produce much shorter and more intense bursts of light than earlier photographic lighting systems, such as flashbulbs, or continuous lamps used in some studio situations.

Nikon's Speedlight units are: (Update September 15, 2014)

D-TTL Units

I-TTL Units

Current models (guide numbers - ISO 100, 35FF):

(GN 59 ft, 18 m @ 27 mm) Nikon's latest smaller shoe mount flash unit which replaces SB-400. It is less powerful than SB-400 and uses AAA-size batteries. SB-300 is derived from the SB-N7, the same flash unit previously released for the Nikon 1 "multi accessory port", instead of the ISO 518:2006 hot shoe. Both SB-300 and SB-N7 have a variable angle 'bounce' head up to 120 degrees, but has no horizontal swivelling.

(GN 69 ft, 21 m @ 27 mm) The SB-400 is a lightweight and very compact shoe-mount flash unit, powered by only two AA-size batteries. It uses a 40mm xenon tube. Despite its small size, SB-400 is a very capable flash with a variable angle 'bounce' head (up to 90 deg.). The head lacks tilt movement which is common to larger flashes.SB-400 cannot be used in slave or master mode in Nikon's CLS system. It weights 127g (without batteries) and is mostly made in China.

(GN of 24m at ISO 100)

The Nikon SB-500 is a lightweight and very compact shoe-mount flash unit with coverage for a 24mm lens on an FX camera or a 16mm lens on DX camera and combined with 100 lux LED for video light, powered by only two AA-size batteries. SB-500 is a very capable flash with a variable angle 'bounce' head (up to 90 deg.) and rotates 180-degrees for soft lighting effects. The flash is part of Nikon's Creative Lighting System (CLS) with two-group/two-channel control and features the intelligent-TTL (i-TTL) exposure mode.

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