At night the SB800 is trying to give pulses of red light to help the AF. This is not very usefull ofcourse (as it is inside the housing).
Does this means that I have to give more light with a pilot light to avoid this, or can I pu tthis red light assistance out and then just add some light with my torch till focus is locked.
Anybody knows ? I just hate it the system is loosing time by emitting those useless pulses !
On my last nightdive thins ware really slow and I had to wait several second before I had focus and could take the picture (S).
Thank you for your attention to this post!
Hi Sven,
If I understand your question correctly, yes you can turn the "Wide-area AF Assist Illuminator" off on the SB-800 It's one of the custom functions, see page 67 of your SB-800 manual. The Icon shows a flashgun and the words AF.
You may also want to turn off the AF assist on your camera body if it has it and you have not already done so.
You can then just use whatever focus light you find convenient/effective. You'll know if the camera is struggling to find focus without needed to look for the AF assist lighting up on the flashgun.
