Upgrade to strobe

[jnickell]

I know questions like this are asked quit often but I feel I have done my research and will not be wasting your time. I have a Canon SD800 IS with the Canon WP-DC9 housing. I want to spend the money now to have a strobe than can grow with me. I am looking mostly at the Inon line of strobes with the Sea & Sea 110a thrown in and maybe the Ikelite DS-51. Someday I plan on upgrading my camera, but am not sure if it will be a DSLR or a point and shoot with manual controls. I know the Inon D and S 2000 cannot be cable fired, if I do go to a DSLR will they be useless, could they be used as slaves in a two strobe setup?

Also the D-2000 and the Z-240 have the auto exposure capability. Will I be able to utilize this with my camera with no manual settings? I really don’t know how the auto exposure works but I saw mention of syncing the cameras f-stop to the strobe to allow auto exposure to work. Obviously I can’t set my f-stop so would I be able to use the auto exposure?

If my camera wouldn’t be able to use the auto exposure features of the D-2000 and the Z-240 and the ability to be cable fired is not a critical issue I feel the Inon S-2000 would be the way to go, or maybe the Sea & Sea YS-100a, since it can be fired with a cable. If on the other hand I can use auto exposure I think the D-2000 would be worth the extra cost.
This is my line of thought right now, what do you think? Is cable fired important? Will I be able to utilize auto exposure? Which strobe is best or are there others I should be considering?

Thank you for your time and I look forward to reading your responses.

John

 

[Ardy]

Sorry I dont know about your camera and that is the key ingredient here.

All of the Inon strobes you mention can do TTL (your auto) they can also run in slave mode but that wouldn't help you with a fully automatic camera. You need to check if your camera will synch with a optical cable if not then it will have to be a normal cable attachment but check that the flash cable is TTL compatible and not just a 3 pin trigger.

Can you raise the internal flash and adjust its output? if the answer is yes then there should be attachments to hold an optical cable to your housing still not an answer if the flash cant 'read' it.

All of these flashes are good with the exception being the Z240 which is a great buy if you want to buy a DSLR later. In my opinion the S2000 will be more of a second flash in a DSLR particularly if you want to do Wide angle stuff and both the D2000 and the 100a are good all round performers but again both need more output for excellent WA work.

If I were you I would post this one on the Canon site here or the Point and Shoot area of Wetpixel.

I have just ordered a SnS 100a for my Olympus e520 set up and that will be run via an optical cable for full TTL if I want it but having used manual for years TTL wont get a lot of use from me.