Strobe with Fuji XT1

[Goingforsound]

Hi,

I have never shot underwater before except for gopros. I recently made an impulsive decision of buying the very cheap chinese Meikon housing for my trusty Fuji XT1.

I didnt want to buy a DSLR or another mirrorless as I love my XT1 very much and when i'll upgrade its going to be for an XT3 so its not popular either for underwater.

They state that the housing has dual fiber optic plug in. From my understanding, the fiber optic would gather a ligth signal to trigger the external flash. What do I need for this camera to be emitting that signal?

Im aiming for sea and sea strobe setup if that matters. I am not sure which model but ill probably find a lot of threads for strobe reccomendations.


Thanks,

JC

 

[Barmaglot]

You need to plug the Fuji EF-X8 flash into the camera hot shoe, and run the fiber optic cables from the two sockets above the lens, to the corresponding sockets on your strobes. As far as Sea & Sea strobes go, there's YS-03, which is the cheapest but lacks manual controls entirely and works only in TTL mode; slightly more expensive YS-01 which has both manual and TTL operation, and the very powerful (but also expensive) YS-D2. An alternative to YS-01 would be Inon S-2000, while Inon Z-330 competes directly with YS-D2.

 

[Hoag]

OK, a couple questions first (I tried a quick google search, but I couldn't find any definitive answers). Does your camera have a built in (pop-up) flash? If so, does it fit in the Meikon housing with the flash up?

In general (there are a few exceptions) the answer to both of those questions has to be yes for the fiber optic triggers to work. To activate your strobe(s), you need to have a flash from the camera send the light via fiber optic cable to the strobe. This flash from your camera will serve to trigger the strobe(s), so yes, your assumption that the camera serves as the source for the light to activate the strobes. The cables plug into the housing at one end and into the strobe at the other end and the serve as the connection between the camera's flash and the underwater strobe.

I'm not sure that I answered your questions, but I hope so.

 

[Barmaglot]

OK, a couple questions first (I tried a quick google search, but I couldn't find any definitive answers). Does your camera have a built in (pop-up) flash? If so, does it fit in the Meikon housing with the flash up?

X-T1 does not have a pop-up flash, but it does have a clip-on flash and the Meikon housing has room for it. See here: Meikon MK-XT1 (Fujifilm X-T1) buy dive - Aditech and here: Fujifilm X-T1 Review

 

[Hoag]

X-T1 does not have a pop-up flash, but it does have a clip-on flash and the Meikon housing has room for it. See here: Meikon MK-XT1 (Fujifilm X-T1) buy dive - Aditech and here: Fujifilm X-T1 Review

In that case, fiber optic cables such as the ones that I linked to should be what you need to trigger your strobes. You mentioned that you plan on getting Sea & Sea strobes. Just make sure that whatever strobes you ultimately do get have F/O triggers and you should be good-to-go.

 

[Goingforsound]

Thank you very much guys!

It clarifies the matter for me!

JC

 

[Goingforsound]

Well guys, my fuji flash is somewhere in a box in canada (I left africa to come here) and in Manila right now every shop that carry Fuji told me its a kit flash and they dont sell it apart.

 

[Barmaglot]

Maybe contact Fujifilm service center? They may have it as a repair part, and they have a location in Manila.