YS-D2 Strobe Review: The Best Got Better?

[JackConnick]

Long a major manufacturer of high-quality underwater strobes, Sea & Sea turned the world on it’s ear a few years ago with the introduction of the YS-D1 underwater strobe. Small, very powerful and adjustable, it's become a standard for many photographers. Recently Sea & Sea released a revised YS-D2 strobe model...

There were annoyances with the YS-D1. Small switch dial knobs on the back were easily knocked to the wrong position if you grabbed the back of the strobe. It was hard to tell what mode you were in, and you had to look at the light on the bottom of the strobe to see if your TTL exposure was correct.

So Sea & Sea revised the strobe and released the new YS-D2 model to deal with these small issues. Basically it has the same specifications, but the back of the strobe was completely redesigned and a few new features added...

Read my Review here:

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

I see the D1 and D2 have a slave-TTL mode, what does that do which DS-TTL cannot? I know the DS-TTL on the YS-01 emulates a camera's pre and main flash via fiber optic cord, so why would there be another TTL mode?

 

[JackConnick]

It's sort of a "compatibility" mode. It's not quite as accurate as D-TTL, but it works with more cameras, and others in the future.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

yeah, that's what Sea&Sea says, but for a japanese company, which usually loves to go into the technical details as how some features are implemented, with light output vs time graph, etc, they are pretty vague and non-descriptive on slave-TTL. We know all these optical TTL modes are strobes with optical switches, but what does slave-TTL do that makes it compatible with more cameras.

 

[ScubaInChicago]

Have you done any direct comparisons to Ikelite DS160/161 strobes? I'm in the market and would love some feedback.

 

[JackConnick]

The Ike's have a warmer color temp and a circular flash tube that's nice. They are much bigger and heavier, especially out of the water and use a proprietary battery pack. Uses electrical sync (takes maintenance), and offers TTL with Ike housings, which is a big plus, and is quite accurate. You can use an optical trigger with a fiber optic cord, but you only get manual control, has 10 1/2 stop settings. Buy ball mount separately.

The YS-D2s are much smaller and have a cooler temp. You need to really pull them back behind your dome as the smaller flash tube takes a bit longer to spread the light. Uses 4x cheaper AA batteries. Uses fiber optic cord and can give optical D-TTl auto operation with 13 steps of 1/3 stop EV settings. Can use electrical sync in manual operation only. Comes with two mounts; YS & Ball.

Hope that helps.

 

[ScubaInChicago]

I normally shoot everything in manual mode including strobes. It sounds like the Ikelite strobes have the advantage in color, stop range, and sync speed if I'm reading your post correctly. The drawback outside of TTL is weight out of the water? How does battery life /charge look when comparing the two and how negative are each in the water. Thanks for the feedback.

 

[JackConnick]

The new version of the Ike strobes with lith-ion batteries are pretty much neutral in the water.

I'd say if you have an Ike housing I would use their strobes.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

The YS-D2 has a narrower coverage since Sea&Sea decided they wanted the default mode to be a strong strobe. The strobe have the option to have wide coverage with the 2 diffusers. If they made a wide strobe, there is no way to make it stronger unless someone comes up with a fresnal lens attachment.

yeah, that's what Sea&Sea says, but for a japanese company, which usually loves to go into the technical details as how some features are implemented, with light output vs time graph, etc, they are pretty vague and non-descriptive on slave-TTL. We know all these optical TTL modes are strobes with optical switches, but what does slave-TTL do that makes it compatible with more cameras.

Extrapolating of the slave-TTL feature in YS-03, I presume slave-TTL is a purely a mode where the strobe just emulates the flash duration of the camera's internal flash, with no ability to increase or decrease the strobe's final strength, which what DS-TTL allows, and which the D1 and D2 also have the ability to adjust in EV steps instead of some arbitrary numerical step.