Is it time to dump manual flash?

[Luko]

Hi Luko, very encouraging and looking at your flicker page I was wondering, do you adjust strobe output in sTTL to give you low light effects or switch to manual?

I am often using a snoot which gives the low light effect, sTTL works too with snooting.

 

[bvanant]

I think that using TTL in many cases simply won't work as well as you might think. I am shooting an Olympus EM-1 in a Nauticam Housing. Out of the housing, in the studio, TTL with the Olympus flash I get a pretty good TTL at f:2 to f: 11 or so but after that not so good (probably the flash is too small) so if you are trying to get ttl to work with that flash underwater you might not be happy. Before you go down the TTL route UW make sure that it works like you want in your kitchen.
Bill

 

[Ardy]

Thanks Bill, good advice. It would be a tragedy to fly to Bali and lose a day poncing around with TTL without testing it first.

 

[Hoag]

@Ardy, keep in mind that if you are not getting perfect/ideal results using TTL, most cameras will give you the flexibility to have a "Plan B". Most cameras will have a menu for "Flash Compensation". If you are not getting the results you want with TTL, try adjusting the Flash Compensation in the camera up or down as needed. This combined with positioning the strobes may give you better results. I have 2 user defined Custom buttons on my camera. I set one of those to the Flash Comp screen, so I can access this menu with one button. I have not had my new camera on a dive trip yet, so I don't have any underwater experience, but based on what I have seen so far, it looks like it will give me almost the same flexibility as adjusting it manually on the strobes. The one thing that this method will not do is to send more power to one strobe than to the other.