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So I decided to buy a cheap flash to experiment bouncing flash on walls or ceilings. I can't stand flash in pictures so I thought this would be a great way to try, and seeing these things are barely 60$ on eBay it wasn't much of an investment to see if I can deal with it.

Now I just put the flash on the camera, set it to "auto" and the pop-up flash tries to come out even though the flash is mounted on the camera. I thought that the "auto" mode would use the mounted flash instead of the pop-up flash, and then I could adjust the flash settings depending on what I want.

If I set it to "auto no flash" then the mounted flash doesn't fire.

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When using a third party speedlight such as your NM930 there is no communication between the camera and flash so the camera has no idea the flash is there, so it pops up the onboard flash as usual. It will dutifully close the circuit across the hotshoe to fire the flash when the shutter opens but that's it.

If you use a Nikon flash the flash talks to the camera using extra contacts in order to set the flash power according to how much light from a preflash comes back down the lens.

The solution to your problem is to shoot manual or semi manual and set the power yourself (it's a bit hit and miss 'till you get the hang of it!)

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  • Makes sense, just a bit disappointing though :) I guess it'll help me spend time learning all the manual settings! – ruinernix Feb 9 '12 at 22:50
  • Most hot shoes have a switch on the ground rails that closes when a flash, even a non-TTL manual one, is mounted on the hot shoe. So the camera should know something is mounted on the hot shoe, even if it can;t communicated with it via TTL. – Michael C Apr 26 '16 at 4:40
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When you say "Auto" I assume you mean the mode dial is on the green camera icon. As you've discovered, the pop-up flash will try to fire if the camera thinks there isn't enough light.

To manually control the flash settings, you should use the P, M, A, or S modes.

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Exactly, if you want to shoot in " AUTO " mode then shoot in " PROGRAM" (P) mode. This is the closest you can get to auto, and you can change parameters as well. Biggest perk, you will not have to worry about the on camera flash popping up. This works for third party flashes as well as flashes designed for your camera (Nikon, Canon, etc)

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