Canon 600D and YS-D1 flash not always firing - advice?

[Kwaaitjie]

Hi

I have a Canon 600D in Sea and Sea RDX housing and am using a Sea and Sea YS-D1 strobe (this is my 3rd one as the others all had problems). I am connecting the strobe to the housing using the optic fibre cable.

I've found that when I use the flash/strobe I can take a number of photos and then, suddenly, when I take the next photo, the picture is overexposed and the next time I take a photo, the flash does not go off, even though the strobe has recharged. The camera also says "busy", I can't depress the shutter and I have to wait quite a bit before I can take a photo again.

Anyone have any idea why this is? Is it because the camera is getting too hot, or is the on-board flash taking too long to recharge, and the camera takes a pic but because the flash does not fire, the strobe does not go off and the pic is black?

I thought this might be a strobe-synch issue but have tried at various speeds from 1/125 to 1/200 and sometimes the strobe fires, sometimes it does not. More often, it does fire, but this is not ideal!

Any help is appreciated!
Thank you!

 

[ozziworld]

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/sea-sea-society/428826-how-fix-my-sea-sea-ys-d1-strobe.html

 

[bvanant]

There appear to be several things that might be going on. If you are shooting in TTL the busy signal on the camera is because you fire the strobe often enough in a small period of time so that Canon thinks that the camera might overheat. Try running the whole thing in manual mode. Set the camera to flash at 1/128 power, f:16 and 1/200 second exposure. This should let you shoot 15 to 20 shots quite quickly.
The mystery of the overexposure is not obvious but you might also try turning off the "focus assist" function of the camera. That way there will be no strobe flashes to give you some grief.
Bill

 

[muzikbiz22]

you might also try turning off the "focus assist" function of the camera. That way there will be no strobe flashes to give you some grief.
Bill

Bill sounds dead on. I was also going to suggest the "focus assist gremlin". It will drive your strobes nuts, then come time to "fire", they're too pooped out. The strobes see focus assist as a command to fire, so they do. So when it's time to fire "for real", they're busy re-charging and your camera is taking the shot with no flash. Hence the "black" exposure.

 

[Kwaaitjie]

Thank you so much for your feedback - I will definitely try all of this out!

Will also report back so that others, if they have the same problem, can learn from my (probably silly) mistakes!!

Thank you!

 

[bvanant]

Not silly mistakes. The reason we can comment on them is that we made them first. :blush:
Bill

 

[Kwaaitjie]

Ozziworld - yes it was the strobe. I did not want to believe it as this was the 4th (yes 4th!) YS-D1 that I have had (returned all the others due to the various problems). And this one wasn't even in the faulty series....

Re the camera, I took it for a dive yesterday with my old YS-17 (!!) I had the focus assist off, and I am shooting in M mode as recommended above. Everything was fine - except that the strobe is really weak

I'm still not sure why the camera kept telling me it was Busy... but I had no problems yesterday...

Thanks everyone!!

Now I just need to find a new strobe that I can rely on!