Sealife External Flash compatability

[mwilliams]

Does anyone know the reason why the external strobe isn't compatible with other camera housings? Is it because the screw mount on the bottom doesn't work correctly with other housings or that the other cameras have the 4 pre-flashes that cause the external flash to fire prematurely? I have an old sealife setup that was the cat's meow when it came out 4 or 5 years ago (1.6 megapixel). Now that I'm finally diving again and have a better digital camera, I hate to basically throw out a nice flash because it won't work with my new housing.

Also, does anybody have any tips on how to rig the flash so that it is compatible with my sony housing, whether it be a mechanical incompatibility error or flash error?

Thanks for the help!

 

[prskate2]

Well, the reason the External Flash does not work with other cameras is because it doesn't have a setting on the inside like the Digital and Digital Pro strobes, to adjust the number of pre-flashes the non-Sealife camera has. Since Sealife cameras only have one or none (Not sure) then that is why it works with all Sealife cameras.

 

[under water]

The newer digital cameras have a preflash to help determine exposure, reduce red-eye.. stuff like that. Your strobe must compensate by ignoring those.
I have found that in Manual mode, the Canon camera's do not use a pre-flash and you can indeed use your strobe with them.
So before you throw away the strobe, try it in manual mode. Let me know if that works.

 

[mwilliams]

That's a relief.... I was able to take off the pre-flashes by turning off the redeye on my sony.... hopefully this works.... maybe I'll take a chance now and get the sony housing, hoping that the housing screw-in and mounting bracket screw on the flash are compatible.

Thanks for the help

 

[under water]

That's a relief.... I was able to take off the pre-flashes by turning off the redeye on my sony.... hopefully this works.... maybe I'll take a chance now and get the sony housing, hoping that the housing screw-in and mounting bracket screw on the flash are compatible.

Thanks for the help

No need to take a chance.. Point the camera at the strobe.
If you take a flash picture of the strobe and it shows the strobe firing, you know it works. If it shows the strobe not firing, you know it doesn't work..
It's that simple.
You then just need to make sure that you can trigger the flash in your dive configuration which might mean a Fiber Optic cable of some sort.

 

[mwilliams]

No need to take a chance.. Point the camera at the strobe.
If you take a flash picture of the strobe and it shows the strobe firing, you know it works. If it shows the strobe not firing, you know it doesn't work..
It's that simple.
You then just need to make sure that you can trigger the flash in your dive configuration which might mean a Fiber Optic cable of some sort.

I was talking more along the lines of whether the bottom part of the housing (where the screw goes in) would be compatible with the screw on the bracket that is attached to the flash (location, size of screw, etc.)... I would think that it would work but you never know...

But thanks for the advise on how to make sure the strobe and camera flash will work together, I'll have to try that.