what is wrong with my Nikon?

Awww, exposure is looking okay in Photo 1

Photo 2. Why did the background just go dark?

Photo 3. What? Background and subject just went black!

Speed light mystery problem:

I have never had problems with gear until recently. There is nothing worse than your client thinking you are clueless when you are in the middle of a photo shoot. The last thing you want is your client to lose faith in you. I have had all sort of technical problems in the last two weeks. I was shooting a client and both speed lights decided they did not want to work. We literally had to stop shooting because the lights would not fire. I trouble-shooted everything...batteries, cables, connections, radio triggers...they still would not fire. The next day I plugged them in and they worked! I even bought new batteries and new cables; I had the same problem when I went to Santa Fe de Antioquia for a shoot last weekend. A famous photographer in the area told me, "there are physical problems and there are meta-physical problems; I think you are experiencing the meta-physical." So, today I borrowed three speed lights as back-up because I have an important shoot next week.

Another strange problem! See photos above.

Yesterday I was taking head shots for a girl interested in getting into modeling. The lights are firing and everything seems to be working okay. But every photograph has a different shutter speed. What is wrong with my camera? I know I am not changing the shutter speed dial. How can I go from 1/250 to 1/125 to 1/60 shutter speed? What? I was ready to send me camera to Nikon. My friend looked at the camera while we drinking beers later that night. "You dumb ass! You have the bracketing mode on!"

I was able to figure out the problem with different exposures. But, the speed lights..both of them working sometimes. I can figure this out. I switching speed lights, cables and possibly radio triggers. (by the way I tried out four different sets of cyber sync triggers. I have never had a problem. It does not make any sense that they would stop working now)

That being said. Yesterday I was interviewed by Victor Cajiao for his famous podcast: www.typicalshutterbug.com. We went over in-depth my use of speed lights.

note: I later discovered that the PC port does not work that well on the Nikon SB's. Solution: gaffer tape the connection to make sure it's good and tight