Yesterday I was delivered one of the toys I bought when I still had a paycheck: a Nikon SB-400 flash to go with my Nikon D50 camera. I’ve taken only a few pictures with it but already I love it! The most noticeable thing is its compact size: about half the size of my previous flash. The next thing you notice is the lack of capacitor whine when its readying for the next flash – its absolutely quiet.

The SB-400 only needs two AA-batteries to do its thing, whereas my old flash needed 4. I tried loading it up with my NiMH batteries but it promptly spit them out. To be fair, I don’t know how healthy those old batteries are (they’re at least 10 years old) but with the amount of pictures I take having rechargeable batteries is a must.

Another cool thing about the SB-400 is that its smart enough to turn itself off when its camera host is turned off. That’s one less power switch to worry about. You’d think a feature as clever as this would’ve been standard on flashes for years now.

I took some practice shots yesterday with the flash. It can fire at one flash per second; probably faster if I set the camera to “machine gun mode.” Its certainly faster than the built-in flash.

The best feature of the new flash (and the reason I got it) is its ability to do bounce flashes. Lighting provides the flavoring for any scene. Having lighting options is essential for capturing an image. Bounce flashes provide a more natural look to most subjects: a nice, diffused light. It will do wonders for my indoor shots.

The SB-400 gets a big thumbs-up from me. Its small, inexpensive at $100, and provides most everything one could ask for in a flash. MT.Net says check it out!

(Thanks to Ken Rockwell for turning me on to the SB-400.)