Excuse the length, crisis averted for now but I need to solve the problem.

TLDR Question is this, does sb-700 have a useful life and I’m just at the end of it? Is there a better option for a Z5 and D700 that’ll just pop on and do TTL? Is there a setting on the godox tt600 I now own that will make it behave? What kind of flash setup can I grow into if I buy a radio trigger ?

I’d say I’m an enthusiast, but I shoot maybe 4 corporate events a year, so headshots, and some website photography as a side gig, mainly because I enjoy it. I was asked to do a wedding this fall and then a second wedding last weekend. Studied everything I could, found a couple photographers on YouTube and wound up having a really great experience the first wedding. I took no money and made no promises, but in both cases the people mean a lot to me and I wanted to do a passable (if not great) job.

So Friday night I’m at the rehearsal. I live many hours away so this is my first chance to scope the church. Obviously the light stinks (which I expected), it’s not like a 300 year old Catholic Church with natural beauty, it’s December in the Midwest so the outside doesn’t look great, just not a lot to work with. So I resign myself to having tighter shots of the couple and others and not relying on backgrounds. All I could think to do.

It’s 5:00 pm, my SB-700 turns off. I change the batteries which were already fresh, turn the flash on and off, turn the camera on and off, finally the flash turns on when not attached to the camera but WONT stay on as soon as it’s put on the hot shoe. (I don’t have a remote radio trigger). If I put it on the camera then turn it on it wont turn on either. Shit. This is on a Z5. I also have a D700, which has a pop up flash, so I put the SB-700 in slave mode and plan on having someone follow me around. It wont fire in slave mode either.

I’m 40 mins outside of a city with an admittedly awesome camera store at this point. They close in 45 mins. I call them, they say they have Godox in stock. I say whatever, if you’ll stay open I’ll take it. They sold me a tt600, they were closing, no time to test, long story but when I get to my hotel it fires, but it’s all manual operation, no TTL. I’m not willing to screw around with manual flash on someone’s wedding photos. And I’m not impressed with godox. BUT, the sub-700 now magically seems to work. So I think ok, worst case I have a D700 that at least has a pop up flash, but that is not even close to ideal of course.

Next morning, I’m setting up, and of course the sb-700 does not work again. I cleaned the shoe and connection, doesn’t help, I’m kind of freaking out.

Finally, the flash would stay on when in the shoe after I disabled the sleep function in the flash. It worked, I just changed batteries a few times. Made it through the day.

Question is this, does sb-700 have a useful life and I’m just at the end of it? Is there a better option for a Z5 and D700 that’ll just pop on and do TTL? Is there a setting on the tt600 I now own that will make it behave? What kind of flash setup can I grow into?

It’s a maze of products. I want something reliable. I want something I can throw on and not think about. I do a lot of high speed sync with flash portraits outside too. I almost never don’t use a flash unless I’m taking travel photos.

I would like to get remote flash triggers. I think it will improve my photography, so if that’s a factor, let me know.

Most fancy I get with flash is bumping down the power to suit my needs.