More shots with the Olympus OM-D EM-5, Nauticam EM-5 housing, with YS D1 strobes

[rmorgan]

Mel, can you comment on the buoyancy of the rig, and any steps you took to neutralize it?

 

[Mel Moncrieff]

Hi BT:
Recommending a strobe is hard for me right now, because I have had a lot of issues with my Sea and Sea YS D1 strobes. There is an intermittent problem with these strobes that causes them to shut down and give you a low battery warning, even with freshly charged batteries. I returned my first set of strobes to S&S and they promptly gave me two new ones which worked fine on my first trip, but I just got back from another trip, and once again, same problem on about a 1/3 of my dives. My wife had the same setup and the same issues. We spent quite a bit of money on this trip and are pretty upset with these issues. When the strobes work, they are great, but who wants a strobe that fails on 1/3 of the dives. At this point, I would recommend an Inon D2000or Z240 instead, but haven't personally used them--just know a lot of people who have. I have an older S&S YS 01 that is not as powerful, and I started using it as a second strobe instead of the D1's, just so I would be sure to have at least one strobe that would function reliably. The YS 01 is a good strobe for macro, but not powerful enough for the type of wide angle that I like to do, especially with big animals where fast recycling is more important. I've talked to people at both Reef Photo and Bluewater Photo who admit that many of their customers are having the same issue, yet both stores continue to sell the strobes, which I find hard to understand. Let's hope that S&S can straighten this problem out.

---------- Post Merged at 08:47 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 08:44 PM ----------

I am using a set of 4 of the larger floats from Reef Photo that fit nicely on my ultralite 8 inch arms, and they work perfectly. The rig is just slightly negative, and handles beautifully.

 

[rmorgan]

Thanks, Mel, for the buoyancy response. Sorry to hear the frustrations with the YS-D1 set. I assume you are usually left with one light, that is, that they don't both show this fault at the same time?

 

[btonthemove]

thanks so much! I also have a Sea and Sea strobe YS (something, 10 I think?) and it only fires every 3rd time inspite of the battery fully charged. Drive me nuts. i definately won't be buying Sea and Sea. I will see what the Inon looks like (and what it costs . many thanks for the help.
Bel

Hi BT:
Recommending a strobe is hard for me right now, because I have had a lot of issues with my Sea and Sea YS D1 strobes. There is an intermittent problem with these strobes that causes them to shut down and give you a low battery warning, even with freshly charged batteries. I returned my first set of strobes to S&S and they promptly gave me two new ones which worked fine on my first trip, but I just got back from another trip, and once again, same problem on about a 1/3 of my dives. My wife had the same setup and the same issues. We spent quite a bit of money on this trip and are pretty upset with these issues. When the strobes work, they are great, but who wants a strobe that fails on 1/3 of the dives. At this point, I would recommend an Inon D2000or Z240 instead, but haven't personally used them--just know a lot of people who have. I have an older S&S YS 01 that is not as powerful, and I started using it as a second strobe instead of the D1's, just so I would be sure to have at least one strobe that would function reliably. The YS 01 is a good strobe for macro, but not powerful enough for the type of wide angle that I like to do, especially with big animals where fast recycling is more important. I've talked to people at both Reef Photo and Bluewater Photo who admit that many of their customers are having the same issue, yet both stores continue to sell the strobes, which I find hard to understand. Let's hope that S&S can straighten this problem out.

---------- Post Merged at 08:47 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 08:44 PM ----------

I am using a set of 4 of the larger floats from Reef Photo that fit nicely on my ultralite 8 inch arms, and they work perfectly. The rig is just slightly negative, and handles beautifully.

 

[girellator]

I'm always very happy when I see such beautiful pics taken with my favorite rig !!Congratulations !! I own two Inon Z 240 , they are perfect with the OMD but I don't succeed to get good TTL .. I'm not used to TTL also because I own before a Nikon D90 with two SB 105 strobes and I was always on manual mode .
I've try yesterday the 60 mm Olympus , wonderfull lense and fortunately it fits well in the 12-50 port .
I'm lucky enough also to own the port and zoom gear of the 12-50 , the macro mode is stunning underwater , perhaps not the same quality of pics with it than with the 60 mm , but it's such a versatile lense underwater that I think it is a must have .
I'm going to post some pictures taken with the 12-50 and 60 mm
You can already see them in my gallery , the adress is in my signature below

Finally I don't regret my Nikon D 90 !!

 

[rmorgan]

Mel, did you dial the exposure back for the macros? On land, I'm getting some overage on the subject. Any thoughts appreciated--thanks in advance.

--Rick