By many professionals, it is considered the most advanced flash unit when compared to its compact size. The Speedlights.net says that "for many professional photographers this flash is still the best hot shoe strobe out there today" with smaller size than the successor SB 900, but has bigger Guide Number 38 over 34. [5] These are the number of full-power dumps Nikon claims you can get if you wait as long as 30 seconds for it to recycle. In actual automatic use, you'll get thousands of flashes depending on your distance, since less power is used for each pop. The button controls have changed from previous Nikon designs, and ironically, instead of a traditional Nikon direction pad we now have a Canon-style control wheel. But you won't care, the new design is much, much better than before. They all work with today's F6, which also uses the same i-TTL CLS system as the DSLRs; this line refers to the traditional TTL mode of all other Nikon TTL flash cameras made since the 1980s. The Mode, Menu and the first three buttons below the LCD are lit along with the LCD. The power and OK buttons are never lit.

Non-TTL "Auto aperture" Auto mode: the SB-910 is smart enough to read the ISO and set aperture from your camera, and then uses its own sensor to set the exposure. If you need to recycle even faster, try the optional SD-9, which will get you right down to the one second cycle range. More light flexibility. You can zoom further (to 200mm), the flash correctly sets to the FX or DX angle of view, gels used in the flash will be corrected for in white balance by the latest cameras, but most importantly you can change the "shape" of the light from highly concentrated to evenly distributed (with a setting in between). This is actually the "big" thing. You have to shoot with the different settings to understand just how much we've needed more light modification from flash. Now that we have it, we'll want more.When I need more than one flash for serious lighting, I don't bother with these battery-powered things and use real studio strobes, which cost less and work so much better.

Lots of little touches that are a modest step forward. Faster recycling, better swivel, dedicated gel holder that impacts white balance correctly, the list of little things that were added or improved is quite long. Best flash interface yet. Tiny quibbles aside, Nikon nailed the controls. Faster to set, easier to set, easier to understand how it's set. Bingo. Unfortunately, you'll need to learn that last bit if you really want to use one of the more interesting aspects of the flash, the head head style (CW, STD, or EVEN, which stands for a tightly focused beam, a slightly focused beam, or an evenly distributed beam, respectively). Since the second button is only rarely used (for Times in repeating flash, for example), I would have been tempted to place the flash head style into that button when the button isn't being used, as it isn't for TTL shooting. Flash head style is something I want to play with a lot, but if the flash is in standby, for instance, I have to push one button, hold a second one, press that button again, use the control wheel, then press the button one last time to make a change. That's just a bit too much UI for what could have just been a slider switch.with AA Lithium, but only that much if you give the SB-910 as much as two minutes to recycle at the end! Distance-priority manual flash: you tell the SB-910 the distance (it reads ISO and aperture from your camera), and it calculates and sets the manual power level to use before you shoot.