GERRY2153:
ok, somebody please enlighten me,
as a new owner of a c-750 pt-018, how do you do a strobe?
manual? TTL? fiber optic?..... I dont understand....
i tried to ask some of the local camera shops and they got that
deer in the headlights look....
thanks
gerry
Gerry, I have this exact setup and will give you an idea of what you will need.
I use the Sea and Sea YS-90DX strobe because it has 12 adjustable power settings for getting the exposure just right. It is triggered on my rig with a fiber optic cable, which goes from the flash area on the PT18 housing up to the slave sensor on the flash itself. I had the shop set my fiber optic kit since they know all the tricks for placement and trimming of the Velcro stuff ect. A great shop for this stuff is Backscatter of Monterey. Berkley White is the owner and his staff is about as knowledgeable as you can find in the industry. You might find it cheaper but you will not find a better value because they will stand behind you after the sale and help you take better pictures.
Assuming you have a PT-18 housing this is what you need for a kit is as follows.
Strobe: Inon or Sea and Sea, make sure it has a slave trigger function, I prefer the YS-90DX but there may be something newer with better features.
Fiber Optic Kit: The kit will have to match your strobe and housing so I will not recommend any particular brand or model. Check with Backscatter.
Tray: This is the item that attaches to the bottom of your camera housing that the grip and the Strobe arm attach to. The tray or the handle will usually have a place to attach a loop or clip to attach to your BC or Vest, via a coil lanyard. (see below)
Grip or Handle: This gives you a large grip for the left side of the camera that is solid and comfortable. You need this because if you just have the strobe arm attached to the tray you are shortening the distance you can move the strobe away from the camera (very important) and if your arms are adjusted correctly for tension underwater they should move with minimal effort for adjustment purposes. If you use them as a handle you would end up inadvertently moving your strobe every time you turned around. On the end of the grip should be a joint that will be the first adjustment point of your strobe arm, and where it attaches to your camera.
Strobe Arm (s): These are articulated pieces of metal or plastic that gives you pretty much unlimited placement of where your strobe can be positioned around your camera. I use ultralight, with a three way joint to hold a focusing light.
Focusing Light & Mount: this item is somewhat optional depending on what kind of water you dive in. If the water is murky, you dive deep, or you are trying to shoot into a crack or hole, anywhere you have low light; this will aid your camera in focusing more quickly and accurately. In gin clear water and lots of light this is not generally required, but that one shot under a ledge where that cool spiny lobster is just waiting for you to snap his picture and your camera refuses to focus because it is too dark will convince you of the need for this unit.
Coil Lanyard: Why the coil kind? Simple. When you swim around you always have the camera in your hands and you have it ready for the shot of a lifetime right
. So having it close is a no brainer. What if you have an emergency or your buddy does? The last thing you want is your camera dangling in between you and your buddy! If you use a High Force retractor cliped to the upper part of your BC that is just what you will have. This akward chunk of debris keeping you from working effectively with your buddy! Besides that you will be fighting the retractor every time you take a shot and that gets somewhat tiring after a while.
If you clip the retractor to a lower part of the vest it is out of the way but
.
1. You have to fight the retractor every time you bring it up to take a picture AND
2. you may be at the end of the retractors reach, which means that the shot of the barracuda nibbling on your buddies fins will be just out of reach cause you ran out of lanyard!
Now if you use the coil type, and clip it to the upper part of the vest, if you let go of the camera (trust me it is hard to trust the lanyard and watch your camera fall away from you) it will fall to around your knees or ankle area and out of the critcal safety triangle for access to their Octo, weight pockets/belts, Safety Sausage, knifes etc. Yes you now have the coil lanyard as a possible tangle at your feet, but the coil is easy to untangle since it is under tension and has a hard time wraping around much due to its construction. You can still use the shortening clip to keep the camera at your chest level and not dangling and I do that when I am on the way up. This leaves my hands free to grasp a line, and my inflator hose to bleed air out of my BC on my accent.
Hope this helps.
