I do have plenty of pictures taken in high speed FP mode using my Nikon speedlight flashes but I can’t post them here. Fortunately I can post a few samples taken with a Nikon SB-600 on a D200 using my very own son for the following pictures. You need to set the FP mode on your camera, don’t go crazy looking for the setting on the flash because you wont find it. If you are using a Nikon D200, check on page #160 from your En manual. FP photography is as easy as regular flash photography. You must be careful however not to push your flash unit to the limit, flash output is limited and most likely the flash will work almost as double to produce a balanced exposure.
Actually, my camera is in FP mode full time. In that case if I come accross a situation where the shutter speed goes beyond the top 1/250 of a second, I can concentrate on the picture taking rather than the technical stuff. Don’t be afraid of boosting your ISO for pictures like these. The pictures below were taken in ISO 800 and I used a Nikon 105 F/2 DC lens to capture the images. I had shutter speeds of up to 1/4000 and it was a breeze using the Nikon SB600 for the pictures, this flash works in tandem with my SB-800 and although it has some limitations compared to the top-of-the-line SB800, it is equally capable. The reason why I used the SB-600 for these pictures is exactly to demostrate that @ $229 (approx street price) is as capable as the over $110 more expensive SB-800.
FP stands for Focal Plane and spreads the exposure over the transit time from the curtains in order tu use very short exposure times, in this case @ 1/4000. The higher the shutter speed, the weaker the output starting with a loss of around 1 stop at around 1/2000 sec. These pulses of light coming from your flash are much weaker than a single pulse of light at regular/normal ‘syncronizable‘ shutter speeds.
