Need set-up help!

[TConkling]

I am not a new diver but only an occasional photographer in the past. I have a 10 day dive trip to the Keys coming up and I am trying to put together a good camera/strobe set up. I purchased an Ikelite housing and a Nikon L20 digital camera. A friend gave me a Sea Life ReefMaster Housing/digital camera/strobe. The camera was not very high quality hence my purchase of the Nikon. Ok, now I have mated the Ikelite/Nikon with the Reefmaster strobe but I am not getting correct exposures. I'm testing out of the water as I don't have a place to test wet. I get pictures that are very dark even though the Nikon flash (with deflector) is trigerring the ReefMaster strobe?

I have the Nikon set on "auto" and the flash set to "manual" (lighting bolt), the strobe doesn't have any adjustments that I can see. Anyone with thoughts or suggestions please respond?

Thanks,

Tom

 

[skynscuba]

Assuming that you are triggering with a fiber optic cable off of the camera's built-in flash, do you have the strobe expecting the right number of pre-flashes?

Not sure it is the same model, but do the check out procedure starting on page 12.
http://www.sealife-cameras.com/download/digitalflash/digitalflash.pdf

 

[TConkling]

Thanks for the reply. This unit does not have a fiber optic cable. It's an older model and requires a flash deflector to deflect the camera's flash toward the sensor on the bottom of the strobe to trigger it. The model number on the strobe is SL-96010. It works with the SeaLife camera (which has a setting for external flash) but it's a low mega pixal/low memory unit. So I wanted to upgrade with the Nikon but use the same strobe. A new AF35 strobe from Ikelite is about $400. I don't get to dive that often these days so trying to limit the expense for this trip.

Any other ideas?

Tom

 

[Nemrod]

Your Nikon L something other camera emits a pre-flash. Your strobe does not expect a pre-flash so it fires prematurely, thus your dark images.

I suspect that your strobe does not have a pre-flash or no-preflash setting and I imagine the unsophisticated L something other does not allow turning the pre-flash off. Therefore you either get to spend the money for a proper strobe for the camera or do without.

Good luck.
N

 

[TConkling]

Thanks, I had determined the same thing about the pre-flash after some research. It seems I have 2 fairly dumb pieces of equipment and niether can change to suit the other. I'm looking at the Ikelite AF-35 Flash or maybe just using the camera flash?

Tom

 

[skynscuba]

Try the camera flash in the housing at home and see how it does. Some housings shadow a lot of the flash, some are okay. Try it with and without the diffuser.