Nikonos V Dead Batteries and Strobes?

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jjoeldm

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I just got back from 8 days in Truk. I keep a pair of Nikonos V batteries packed in my camera "emergency" kit on every trip, but just before leaving, in an effort to keep my Nikonos V, lenses and two strobes with me at all times, I reconfigured an old Ikelite hard case to cram everything in there so I could carry it on and I only checked my strobe arms with my other dive gear.

Once there I discovered that the two "357" batteries were stone dead and that my "emergency" kit was back in Atlanta. No other emergencies occured, but I was left with the dilemma of how to deal with my setup, one Ikelite Substrobe 200 connected to the Nikonos and my original strobe, a Sea & Sea YS-90 which I set on slave.

I tried a couple of things. On the assumption that there's never enough light, and certainly not in the dark innards of a rusting wreck, I set the strobes on full and my camera on M90. But after one roll, I got nervous when I noticed that with the strobe connected, even though the rest of the exposure info was dimmed, the "lightning" zig-zag icon was lit when the strobe was connected. So I reasoned, I hoped, that maybe the TTL system for the camera and strobe might actually be powered by the battery in the strobe (well, a guy can hope), so I changed it from Full to TTL, but kept the camera on M90.

I still took photos as if the whole thing worked and I just got them back. In just a cursory look at the slides without a loupe it appears that maybe as many as 50% look properly exposed or close to it. Maybe another 10-15% will untimately be OK, so that's pretty good considering .

So a decent number have a chance of being usable. I'm going to start scanning them tonight so I'll have a better idea of what I have in a few days. I was hoping for at least 2-4 "good" shots per roll. So my question is this:

Facing such a situation and unable to acquire batteries, what should I have done? How should I have dealt with this to get the best possible exposures?

I know, it's embarrasing and I'm a bad Nikonos owner and should know more about my camera . . . .

By this time next year I'll probably be using a housed digital, probably a D70, so I'll have all new ways to screw up!

Thanks,

JoeL
 
I would have sucked it up and shot everything manual with tons of bracketing. More fool me, because...

It appears you did the right thing:

When the strobe asserts a +3V active high signal to the Rdy contact, the camera switches to X-sync speed if a higher speed has been selected. Rdy high also turns-on the viewfinder lightning-bolt symbol. The Nikonos and some other cameras draw a few hundred microamps from the Rdy line, the viewfinder LED being powered directly through a resistor. The ready line can therefore be used as a power supply for low-power circuits which can run on 3V

All the best, James
 
For future reference, an Ikelite 200 set to 1/2 power will make good exposures on 100 speed film at f8 from 3 apparent (4 measured) feet away. Being stuck at M90 limits your ability to manipulate ambient light, but it won't affect your strobe exposures. The fact that the wreck interiors were dark should not affect how you set your strobes--the strobe will make the same exposure regardless of ambient light, but the backgrounds will be dark. Let us know how things turned out. -Clay
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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