Where is the German fellow with the TTL flash adapter

[slowhands]

I've seen an article here by a German fellow who makes an adapter for camera to flash that supports TTL exposure on Olympus. Did not save bookmark to it and can't find it now. So, where is he? I sent him email, but no reply so far and I want to follow up. Thanks!

 

[Mike Newman]

Here's the link to the thread -

TTL Adaptation

and here's the advice!

DIY

quote:
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How did you get the TTL & Manual slave controllers to mount on the fisheye? I couldn't really make it out in the pics. Same goes for the lens caddy?
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The controller mounts are just DIY 19mm tubes that have been screwed to the bottom of the strobe mount. Your other options are to get a triple clamp and a sensor adaptor from ULCS. Or there's an Ikelite part that slips over the ball of the UL arm (see: http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/arm_o.html part #0469.1). The disadvantage of these are that, depending on how much you reposition the strobes, the sensor aim may change. This may be a non-issue if you are using the manual sensor. The lens caddy is an Inon lens caddy that attaches snugly to the UL arm.

quote:
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Why one manual and one TTL?
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Being a beginner I started off with one DS-125 and the TTL sensor because I wanted a TTL system to start with. TTL worked out really well and helped me learn a lot in the beginning. Then I discovered the 'slave' flash on the C5050 and the speed with which it would recycle, and combined with the blazing speed of the DS-125 I just had to move to manual (TBH if a C5050/DS-125 hardwired true TTL system was a viable/available option I would go back to it for macro). I then added a second DS-125 and manual sensor. I now slave the TTL sensor to the manual strobe so it mimmicks the manual strobe's output. So, overall, I just have to vary one controller to get the correct exposure. I change the aim/distance/diffuser to get varied lighting. BTW I have completely rewired the system with FO cables. Happy to start a new thread to discuss this...

quote:
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Where did you get the diffuser panel on the housing from?
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Made it from a sheet of black plastic (art & craft store), modified bicycle pump holder and a velcro strap that threads though the pump holder and around the lens barrel. Easy to twist out of the way if I want to use the camera's flash.


__________________
Olympus C5050, PT-015, PWC-01 WAL;
Dual Ikelite DS125, TTL & Manual controller;
Ultralight arms, Fisheye tray

 

[Gilligan]

slowhands, I hope you don't mind but this is your photo after I used the "mandrake process" (posted by David Kusner) on it in Photoshop + "Auto levels" + sharpness. It is a great process for photos taken underwater without a strobe, especially ones too distant for a strobe.

 

[slowhands]

Thanks, you took a poor image and revived it. Actually, this photo is a good example of why I need a powerful external strobe. The subject is a highly venomous sea snake, and I would not get close enough to it for my on camera flash to be effective. Incidentally when I swam overhead of this snake, apparently I was blocking it from access to oxygen at the surface and it rose to strike, sorry no picture of that as I was paddling rapidly and just a tad busy.

And the pointer to the mandrake process is???

 

[Gilligan]

I posted David Kusner's process on my PT-010 site (link below). Go to the "Adjusting photos taken without a flash or strobe" link in the index. I have a Photoshop .atn file there for downloading so as to be able to do the process from the "Action" palette.

 

[slowhands]

Sorry guys, I found this guy on another website. I was sure it was here because you have so much useful stuff, but I was hallucinating or narc'ed or something. I found a reference to it here:

http://www.digitaldiver.info/yabbse/index.php?board=3;action=display;threadid=4394

Here is a pointer to the inventor's site:

http://www.muenster.de/~matthias/blitz/oly2nikone.htm

His design interfaces between the hot shoe on the Olympus and a Nikon-like flash, Sea and Sea YS50,60, 90 currently supported. He makes a small hot shoe adapter that converts the hotshoe electrical signals to optical signals, which are read by a sensor and microprocessor in an external tube. The Olympus signals are converted to Nikon compatible signals by the microprocessor in the tube, which connects by electrical wire (Nikonos V interface) to the flash.

The result is full use of the Olympus TTL flash control, which at this moment only the Ikelite DS125 can support, in my understanding. So this will allow the use of other brand strobes. It would be nice if this had a fiberoptic cable to the flash, you could avoid dealing with sealing the electrical cable with O-rings at both ends. But the strobes supported don't have fiberoptic interfaces, so for now that is not an option.

It seems brain dead of Olympus not to bring out the hot-shoe signals to a bulkhead connector on the PT-015 case, but it would add complexity and cost. This is already an obsolete camera, replaced by the 5060, which for underwater use is not as good a camera (slower lens, custom battery, :-( I could go on).

 

[ShoalDiverSA]

Gilligan once bubbled...
slowhands, I hope you don't mind but this is your photo after I used the "mandrake process" (posted by David Kusner) on it in Photoshop + "Auto levels" + sharpness. It is a great process for photos taken underwater without a strobe, especially ones too distant for a strobe.

I shot over to your site, Gilligan and had a look at the process. Unfortunately, I have Paintshop Pro, so after an evenings fiddling, I believe I have come up with the equivalent effect. It is brilliant! I have taken my first digital photos (Sea&Sea Aquapix) and enhanced them. They look wonderful.

For those who have Paintshop Pro, here is the process:

1) Open image
2) Display Layer Palette (View -> ToolBars -> Layer Palette)
3) In the Layer Palette, right-click on Background layer. Click Duplicate
4) Click Insert New Layer
5) In New Layer dialog, change the Blend Mode to Color. Click OK
6) Make the new layer active, then select the Fill tool. In the Fill Options dialog set the Tolerance to 200 and the opacity to 100%
7) Select 50% gray as the foreground colour (R:128, G:128, B:128). Fill the new layer with the selected grey.
8) Click Insert New Layer
9) In New Layer dialog, change the Blend Mode to Multiply. Click OK.
10) Select Red (R:255, G:0, B:0) as the foreground colour. Fill the new layer with the selected colour.
11) Set the Background layer visibility to off (click on the glasses icon).
12) Click Layers -> Merge -> Merge Visible.
13) The resulting merged layer will be labelled Merged in the Layer Palette. Change its Blend Mode to Screen.
14) Make the Background layer visible again
15) Click Layers -> Merge -> Merge All (Flatten)
16) Adjust Hue/Saturation and Sharpness to taste.

I have attached my dismal photography effort with the above procedure applied.

Cheers,

Andrew

 

[Rirarianneke]

I also have paintshop and immediately tried your instructions. Maybe I have a different version (7.2) however where can I find the fill option that you describe in step 6?

 

[ShoalDiverSA]

As requested in your PM, here are some screenshots of the process from PSP 6.

Hope this helps.

Remaining 4 shots in next post. Apologies for the high compression - trying to keep file size to a minimum.

Cheers,

Andrew

 

[ShoalDiverSA]

Oh yes, to answer your question, I used the flood fill tool with the opacity set to 100% and the tolerance to 200.

Other than that, let me know if you still don't win.

(The pic I am editing is of a juvenile Rockmover Wrasse - a cool find. Pity about the photo!)

Cheers,

Andrew