Nikon D800 Flash

Coverage and Range
A fairly powerful pop-up flash. Average exposure compensation required.

Coverage. Since the Nikon D800 doesn't ship with a kit lens, we didn't take our usual flash coverage shots. Nikon specifies 24mm coverage (16mm in DX format), though we've found flash coverage specs are usually quite optimistic.

Exposure. When it came to exposure, the D800's flash underexposed our Indoor Portrait subject somewhat at its default setting, requiring a +0.7 EV exposure compensation adjustment (which is about average for this shot). The camera's Slow-Sync flash mode produced a good exposure without flash exposure compensation (0 EV), though with a stronger orange cast from the background incandescent lighting.

Manufacturer Specified Flash Range. The Nikon D800's flash is rated with a Guide Number of 12/39 (m/ft) at ISO 100. That works out to about 19.8 feet at f/2.8 and ISO 200. As you can see in the flash range test shot above, the Nikon D800 produced a bright exposure, indicating the flash output rating is accurate.

Note: Our standard test method for flash range now uses a fixed setting of ISO 200, to provide a fair basis of comparison between cameras. This wasn't performed for the D800, as flash range is lens dependent, and the camera ships body-only in the US. We have however also begun shooting using the manufacturer-specified camera settings, at the range the company claims for the camera, to assess the validity of the specific claims. The specified range has been calculated for the lens and aperture used in the test shot above.