TTL & Slave strobe

[Ardy]

Hi All - I havent bought a new strobe in 15 years so I have a question maybe some of you smart bastards may know the answer to?

Can I mix a TTL flash either a Sea and Sea 110a or an Inon D2000 (or similar) with a slave strobe as the fill flash and the Main Strobe allow for the slave in TTL exposure?

This could not be done last time I bought a strobe.

 

[Warmwater Wank]

I don't know that I qualify for the "smart" aspect of your question (and hopefully not the other aspect either) but I'd be curious what camera system you would be hooking these strobes up to and how.

Reason being, on the 110A I believe they can function to do what you are asking if the main flash is hooked up to the systerm using a hard wired TTL multi-pin connector between it and camera. If the fill-flash is then fiber optic connected off that main strobe and left in TTL mode, it will shut down when it senses from the fiber optic connection that the main flash has shut down. The manual output switch can be used as a limiter (or "dimmer switch") sort of for fill work, so w/ a bit of exposure testing, it should do fine. Someone else can tell you about INONs but that's my take on the 110A that I shoot.

See? They have come a long ways in 15 years--no more of that waterproof flashpowder stuff you had to use wayyyy back then...! // ww

 

[Ardy]

Thanks for that Mr WWW but the reason behind the question which I failed to mention is the slave strobe is only manual and not ttl.

I am running an Olympus e520 dslr in an Olympus housing.

Are you happy with your 110a? I have used their strobes for some time and I am reluctant to use Inons because of the robustness of SnS.

Waterproof flash powder? We used glow worms tied to a message stick.

 

[Warmwater Wank]

A--Yep, I'm happy w/ the 110A. Very fast recycle, reliable, easy on batteries (I use NiMHs and get several hundred flashes on a charge). Good output, simple controls. No slam on INON, I just got a good price on the SnS and went for it. A bit heavy topside but only slightly negative uw. Yeah, robust I guess--at least when I use it as a hammer topside it seems to hold up.

So, if I re-understand your original question, the non-TTL slave would be whatever you have now and the new strobe would be the TTL part of the equation? Does your current strobe have manual control over the output? That would keep it pretty simple to balance out the exposure I would think. The 110A has a port in front to plug in a fiber optic cable to trigger a slave, if your "old" flash has the means to see it. I should point out I don't use TTL, since shooting manual (on a Canon G-10) gives me easy control of my single flash. I'll stick w/ my argument though--if you have manual control of your current flash, using it for fill should be pretty straight forward.

Glow worms, eh? Say what speed did they synch at anyway?? // g

 

[Ardy]

Glow worms, eh? Say what speed did they synch at anyway?? // g

They were pretty slow but reliable, unlike just about everything today including ME!!!!

The old flash is a SnS 50 that has only on and slave but it puts out a nice light for a small flash. I have just come back from Lembeh and my main flash is just too big and heavy (SnS 200) although it is great for WA which I dont do a lot of.

I use manual most of the time but have been in situations with my old Nikon film set up where TTL was very useful ie lots of action and no time to adjust so I would like the option.

Maybe an alternative is to use a 110a and a torch as a filler and forget about the second flash. I notice that the e520 seems to need less light than my old film set up to get an image.