canon g16
- Thread starter seaworm
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K
KeithG
Guest
Some thoughts....
A) let's not bash polycarbonate housings over perceived deficiencies to metal. Designed properly, they work and last just fine. They will outlive us. Elcheapo's not so much.
B) no need for yearly maintenance. Same myth as yearly regulator maintainence. It is simply a revenue stream for the manufacturer. Give your housing proper care and do not abuse it.
Seaworm: the only way to save battery is to not use the on board flash. Which means old school hotshoe and wired sync via a bulkhead connector. I went this route on my rig. I still burn through the camera battery because I am now taking 10x as many pictures.
A) let's not bash polycarbonate housings over perceived deficiencies to metal. Designed properly, they work and last just fine. They will outlive us. Elcheapo's not so much.
B) no need for yearly maintenance. Same myth as yearly regulator maintainence. It is simply a revenue stream for the manufacturer. Give your housing proper care and do not abuse it.
Seaworm: the only way to save battery is to not use the on board flash. Which means old school hotshoe and wired sync via a bulkhead connector. I went this route on my rig. I still burn through the camera battery because I am now taking 10x as many pictures.
Bulkhead meaning the hotshoe? Since the g16 has a hotshoe isn't there a cable to hook up the strobe in one end and on the other to the hotshoe so I don't have to use the g16 flash. It's 2014 lol there should be a way!!!
Polycarbonate housing are not as good for reasons explained. Metal is always better there is no doubt.
Good care of the housing is essential and as a regulator you don't need to service it annually if you do 50 dives. However once you hit 200-300 the first stage seat is compromise and you have to service it. Hence all people that shoot a lot have a metal housing quite simple
With the right setting of your strobe and with a good strobe I can get 450+ shots out of my canon s95. Just have to set the flash to minimum if in manual and if using ttl you need a unit with a strobe preflash like an inon (sea and sea are crap at this and will only give you 200 shots if you are lucky)
Wired strobes are history and being abandoned by all manufactures as ttl converters are now moving to wireless. On the g series with a flash recycle of 3 seconds and autonomy of over 300 shots there is no case for a wired strobe unless you use ttl on the camera and shoot an ikelite or a sea and sea with poor preflash
You will have to use the the on-camera flash, your strobe would fire off this in slave mode ... or better still is use one of the 2 fibre optic connection points, would give 100% reliable trigger.
The flash should be set to manual and minimum to conserve battery ... and if you use the fibre optic connector .. this also blocks any light coming out from flash (other than down fibre)
---------- Post added April 26th, 2014 at 01:55 PM ----------
The G16 has a HotShoe ... but the Fantasea housing has a cold shoe - hook up is either by fibre (normal) or use strobe in slave mode.
K
KeithG
Guest
Agreed that wired syncs are being phased out. But the 3 second cycle time you quote is an eternity if you are used to shooting 4 frames per second in manual mode. And sometimes it takes 9 or 10 shots when your target is bouncing around a bit (think of juvenile spotted drums - they are constantly moving about erratically).
Seaworm: to answer your question - using a hotshoe is considered old school for most new rigs and generally not a consideration. It requires the following
- a camera with a hot shoe (most P&S cameras do not have one so are not candidates)
- an internal cable to connect between the hotshoe and the bulkhead connector
- a bulkhead connector that goes through your housing (extremely few P&S housings have one)
- a wired sync cable that goes from bulkhead connector to strobe
- a strobe with a wired sync connector (many new strobes do not have this)
- if ttl is desired, then you will likely also need a ttl converter to make the camera hotshoe signals compatible with the strobe. THis can be either inside the housing or external.
Lots of bits means lots of expense and more chances for potential failure points to come into play.
Current fibre optic sync cables are much simpler, compact, easier to connect and generally safer as they can not flood.
3 second is the internal strobe recycle at full power. At full power an external strobe will recycle in 2 seconds. With a canon with the internal flash set to minimum you are much faster than that. Usually focus time and lag is much more of a consideration lets not create legend here
K
KeithG
Guest
Agreed, when thinking single shot mode. Definitely not an issue when taking pictures in happy snap mode.
My early mentor said that the ability to shoot burst (or continuous) was one of their key differentiators between a SLR and a P&S. P&S are limited by the onboard flash recycle time which is limit by the small internal camera battery.
I commonly use burst mode when shooting in manual and do not need full power from the external strobes. So I generally can shoot continuously at 4 fps until i fill the card on my camera or run out of air. There is no focus or lag time in burst mode.
I consider burst mode operation a major issue when considering my next P&S (hence my own personal desire for a P&S with a hotshoe).
Other people will have other features at the top of their list. There is no single solution that will be best for everyone.
Cheers...
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