Strobe sync problems

[Mooseman1007]

Hi everyone,
Ive just gone and bought my first strobe (a S+S YS-01) with fibre optic connection, and have managed on land at least to get it working nicely with my Panasonic TZ10, either in manual or in TTL. However when I transferred over to my Fuji F100 I cannot get TTL to work, and manual only triggered reliably in sport mode ?!?! Could someone offer some suggestion as to the best setup for this camera/strobe combination is it would be great to use the Fuji with the strobe when my fiance fancies using the Pana for HD videos
Cheers
Mooseman

 

[Warmwater Wank]

Moose--Not familiar w/ the Fuji F100 but first you might want to figure out if this is a synch or a firing problem. Does the flash fire consistently or not? If not, check the camera flash output level, if there is one. Sometimes lower power settings aren't strong enough to trigger the slaved flash, especially in bright sunlight. For TTL you normally would have the camera flash set in an auto position but since you are trying to make the camera flash fire (to trigger the YS-01) maybe you'll need to try a force flash setting, at least if you are testing on land in sunny conditions (ie--where the camera flash may not fire on it's own).

If the YS-01 is firing reliably then it probably is a synch problem, due to the strobe being set to cancel or not cancel a camera pre-flash. Check the YS-01 mode switch and play w/ canceling or nor canceling the pre-flash. Best to stand directly in front of a mirror, shoot some tests. The setting that gives you the flash in the shot is obviously the one you want.

I know on my Canon G-10 some modes do a pre-flash, but, for example, Manual mode won't. Dig out the Fuji manual and check this. Reduce the variables and play with one camera mode first, I'd suggest Shutter priority for starters. Skip the "goofy" modes like sport, scenic, daisy picking etc. (oops, personal bias here...). Maybe set the shutter speed around 1/125 and go from there. If you start getting consistent results you may still need to tweak exposures but at least things should become reliable. Check back in if there are still problems. I used to shoot a Fuji F-30 and enjoyed the camera, your should do fine with this setup. // ww

 

[Mooseman1007]

The flash is firing fine otherwise, so i guess its not picking up the preflash so not synching. There are no flash power settings AFAIK but options for red eye, forced etc. The camera doesnt do full manual, but will have a play with shutter mode. Thinking about it the sport mode where it worked doesnt have a redeye setting by default which may explain why that worked. Will have another play tonight until my retinas hurt Hopefully using the strobe on land for a short while will have no issues with overheating like dive lamps can ! ? ! ? !
While I remember....what white balance and ISO settings should i be using to give the best results with the flash ?

 

[Warmwater Wank]

So, have you adjusted the YS-01 for pre-flash or no pre-flash? It's on the mode switch on left in back, has either a double lightning bolt symbol (for pre-flash camera aettings) or a single "bolt" for no pre-flash. http://www.seaandsea.com/PDF_manuals/YS01.pdf. Sea & Sea suggests using force flash so their strobe gets the signal to fire every time but you need to figure out your camera enough to decide how you want to use it. For example, if you go to Shutter priority and set 1/125th or higher probably the camera will fire it's flash all the time UW, so you might get around having to set it in force flash mode. I mention this because it's possible that in force flash mode the camera loses it's TTL abilities, can't say. Time for some camera manual reading to figure this part out. Oh, you can get by w/ a few test firings and not overheat the strobe above water but yes, don't go blasting away.

Avoid red eye reduction mode, no need for it UW and it can mess around w/ the slaved strobe's ability to fire in synch w/ the camera. As for ISO--well, what do you like? If you go too high you probably won't like the image "noise" being generated so do some tests, look at the results by zooming in on your computer monitor (view at least at 100%!), NOT by how it looks on the camera screen. Look at shadows and smooth toned areas like sky or skin tones. Most folks opt for lower ISO settings (80-100) but you need to decide what you like from your camera and part of that should be based on how you plan to use the shots. For small, online images--who cares, you won't see much noise or problem. Big enlargements? Bet you won't like the higher ISO settings (above 200), especially if you have to crop much.

White balance. The flash output matches daylight. Some folks use a cloudy/bright etc setting to tweak things but the key is get close. Beyond about 4-6' (or 1-2M) the flash doesn't do much good. Let the strobe provide the light for the scene and keep the auto white balance in a daylight mode of some sort. If you set say UW balance ("fish" symbol?) the camera tries to correct for lack of red due to the water progressively absorbing the "warmer" reddish wavelengths. Ah, but then you come along and dump this big blast of "daylight" balanced light from your strobe, which makes the close in areas look way too red because of the camera being set for UW color balance, which is adding more red to correct the very blue uw light.

If all this begins to sound a bit daunting (and I fear I've over simplified a lot!), not to worry. Go to UW Photographers Guide Underwater Photography Guide and Scott Gietler & company will provide a wealth of easy to understand info. That should make things fun again and much less frustrating. Hmmm, probably should have just sent you there first! // ww

 

[Mooseman1007]

Cheers for the advice WW, I spent quite a while researching underwater photography using numerous books and websites, including this one of course, as I wasnt happy with my pictures from my last trip to Egypt. Thankfully the research paid off in Bali back in September, the macro opportunities at Seraya were perfect learning material. Ive uploaded the better pics from the trip to my Flickr account Flickr: mooseman1007star's Photostream . It needs some construction and labelling but the pics were taken with either the Fuji F100 (dsc labelled pics) or with the Pana TZ10 (P labelled pics). All were taken either natural light or using the onboard flash (plus a little Lightroom tweaking of course). Constructive criticism greatfully recieved !!!
The trip definately highlighted the limitations of the cameras using onboard flash for anything more than super macro (Ive got a INON 165 which goes on either camera), hence the purchase of the strobe.
I really need to sit and have a play after the weekend to get the best settings for the strobe with the Fuji, as TTL was so easy with the Panasonic, though i suppose you cant have everything handed to you on a plate !
Ill have a root around the camera manual, but as is typical for p+s cameras its not that detailed, then again the panasonic manual isnt that much better.
Looks like some more tinkering is required......oh shucks a guy tinkering with tech is such a shocking idea
Anyways thanks for the advice, much appreciated
Mooseman

 

[Warmwater Wank]

Nice shots and when you get the strobe biz figured out they will be even nicer! TTL is nice but not the most necessary thing for good exposures. Sure, if you can get things working by simply switching the YS-01 to deal with pre-flash or no pre-flash, fine. If not, the strobe will let you vary the output in 10 steps which should let you make lighten/darken corrections easily enough.

This might save you some rooting around time: http://www.fujifilm.com/support/digital_cameras/manuals/pdf/index/f/finepix_f100fd_manual_01.pdf I took a quick glance through and was reminded how Fuji is a bit different for camera settings. Maybe you will end up shooting in Auto to get things working right or perhaps the Troubleshooting section will offer a solution.

Yeah, Bali. We are back there in April for 2 wks at Tulamben and Serya is easily on the list again. Enjoyed Amed also. Hopefully La Nina goes to sleep and the weather settles. Good luck on the flash problem. // ww

 

[Mooseman1007]

Panic over, it seems that the camera defaults to redeye, but as soon as you engage forced flash it gives accurate synch, even in TTL despite what the Sea+Sea website quotes for the F200 !
Now just need to figure out manual settings for both camera and strobe, and of course get the whole lot wet !!! Cheers for the help WW
Mooseman

 

[007Bond]

Came across this board when trying to get a newly purchased YS-01 strobe to work with my camera and wanted to add to the thread if anyone else was facing similar problems. I have a Canon Ixus SD800 IS compact camera and Canon UW house (WP-DC9).

The starting point of my experimentation was that I put the YS-01 in manual mode w/o pre-flash and camera in manual and to flash every time (force flash), covered the camera flash with the strobe mask holding the fiber optic cable against the camera flash through the hole in the strobe mask. The YS-01 went off. But when reviewing images I could tell that the YS-01 did not sync with camera shutter. I tried to set the camera red-eye to Off, but this did not help. I then tried to change YS-01 to TTL, without luck. Tried an awful many camera settings to make the YS-01 sync with shutter. No luck.

What did work, was to set camera in manual and change the YS-01 to the pre-flash setting. It worked - the YS-01 is in sync with shutter. Why this works is still confusing to me - I would never have guessed that my camera gave out a pre-flash - I have never noticed it. Besides I had also turned the red-eye to Off on the camera, which I would imagine would prevent any pre-flash. But regardless of why - it worked!

Once that worked, I turned out the lights in the room, set the YS-01 back to TTL, positioned the YS-01 in a 90 degree angel compared to camera lens (so that the light would lite my stilleben composition, a coffee cup, from the side compared to the camera to highlight that the light came from YS-01 rather than stray from inbuilt camera flash), covered the camera flash with the masking cloth and held the fiber optic sync cable against the camera flash.Vola! That worked too now! The picture was nicely exposed with the light from the side. I have attached a hard cropped small part of the resulting picture, in reduced quality to show the setup, but want to point out that while this very small part of the resulting image is over exposed, the image as a whole was balanced.

I am not sure why it worked this time, and not the first time, but maybe it was because I turned the lights off in the room and this just made the light from the YS-01 needed in order to expose the picture (whereas with the room light turned on, the light from the YS-01 was not needed for picture exposure.). Also, I thought that TTL would not work with YS-01 in combination with Canon SD800IS, based on the YS-01 manual - but it seems as if it does.

My moral from this experiment is that, if you are having trouble getting the YS-01 to sync, also try things that you are convinced will not work. And don't panic...

BTW - I did this experiment on dry land in the living room. I will try out the YS-01 while diving next week, and will report back.

 

[Nemrod]

All digital P&S cameras emit a pre-flash in most operating modes. Pre-flash and red eye flash are not really the same thing. Turning off red eye does not cancel pre-flash. Most advanced P&S digital cameras must have pre-flash in any auto mode or program mode but have no need for it in manual. So in manual mode typically there is no pre-flash, in auto/program there is always a pre-flash in in a few advanced P&S cameras you can set the Av/Tv modes to no-preflash with manual flash. Manual flash mode is not the same as forced flash. Forced flash settings will emit a pre-flash again in auto/program modes. Manual flash setting will not have a pre-flash. Manual exposure mode, likewise will not have a pre-flash as there is no need for it since you are setting exposure settings, not the camera. The camera emits the pre-flash so that it's built in exposure system can calculate a flash exposure (in auto/program modes).

You of course also must select the strobe to expect or not expect a pre-flash for it to correctly sync with your camera dependent upon how you have your camera set up. Red eye mode just further screws up the strobe, turn it off, it has no use underwater.

N

 

[007Bond]

Am now back from diving - got a few good dives in Belize...

I am very happy with the flash - it allows me to take a totally different kind of pictures - close-ups at depth... But also realize that UW phography requires alot of practise, to be able to take decent pictures consistently...

Findings / Experience :
a) YS-01 in Manual Pre-Flash Mode - works well.
b) YS-01 in TTL Mode - I only tried a couple of pictures, and did not get it to work. But the reason for this is probably that the camera does not have TTL flash exposure metering...

Two things that I think are worth mentioning though:
a) the velcro mascing for the camera (that comes with the YS-01 and covers the flash and holds the fiber optic cable in place) does not prevent light from the camera's flash to hit the subject. I.e. there will be some light from the in-built flash lighting up the subject if nothing is done to prevent it. This is often not desired as one would want to be in control of how the light hits the subject by positioning the YS-01. Next time I go diving, I will therfore experiment with some masking tape to cover the cameras in-built flash.
b) the Grip Stay S arm that I bought as a package with the camera does not allow for enough flexibility, to position the YS-01, not even when buying the small extension. I would suggest looking into longer and more flexible arms.

Conclusion: very happy with the YS-01, buit will do some tweking with arm and masking tape before my next dive...