Nissin MG8000 Extreme for wedding photography

In wedding photography, sometimes you find yourself in need of  making burst, not to miss important moments. Latest camera bodies, especially if coupled with “fast” lenses, allow to manage this scenario without any concern, even in poor light conditions. But there are circumstances when you must use your flash, and here comes the pain…

How many times has it happened to shoot a sequence, for example during the exchange of rings, to see your flash refuse to cooperate with a cute “overheat” message ?

Wedding season in Tuscany as well as in Florence, is mainly concentrated in the summer, with temperatures easily exceeding 40 Celsius degrees, not helping our devices in terms of heat dissipation.

Anyone who own a Nikon or Canon flash unit, or one of the many alternatives, will be hit at one stage or another by the overheating issue, even when least desired.

As a wedding photographer, I used Nissin Di866 units right from my very beginnings, being comfortable with their convenient color display and benefiting from their power (GN 60), using them both “on camera” (TTL or manual) and “off camera” (manual only). Despite their price, half an equivalent Nikon unit (SB-900 or SB-910), these flashes are designed for the pro market, offering a bunch of advanced features and a really good construction quality.

Unfortunately first generation Di866 units, but to a lesser extent even the “mark II” ones, terribly suffer high temperatures, forcing me to frequent stops during important moments of any of our wedding photo shoots. I was heartbroken, but the arrival of the new Nissin MG8000 Extreme has finally put an end to my frustration.

Nissin MG8000 : a wedding photography war machine

The Nissin MG8000 is equipped with a special quartz tube and has four ventilation outlets, allowing you to take up to 1000 consecutive shots at full power, according to the manufacturer, without suffering the overheating issue: of course I never reached such an amount of consecutive shots (…my camera bodies buffer stops much earlier…), but for all wedding photography practical purposes, it means you can shoot  bursts with your flash without losing a shot !!!

If you are interested in a detailed description of all the features of this flash unit, you can refer directly to Nissin website or to one of the many available reviews.

Conclusion
I would like to conclude sharing two useful and important details, you will not easily find online, with respect to Nissin flash for Nikon (for Canon shooters this topic is slightly different):

1. If you are considering to purchase a Nissin flash unit for Nikon, for  TTL “off camera” usage, you will need to know that at this stage, they work “off camera” only in manual mode and not in TTL, when connected to a  Pocket Wizard or Phottix transceiver. If you are looking for a great TTL off camera flash for Nikon, it’s better to go for the recent (and excellent) Phottix Mitros (or Mitros plus).

2. If you purchased a recent Nikon camera body, your MG8000 unit will need to be uploaded with the latest firmware (xx.xx.38.34 or later), otherwise you will experience many weird behaviors.

Maurizio Mannini