Canon Camera, Olympus Strobe?

[Scuba_Jenny]

Getting ready to make the next leap in my underwater camera setup. Am moving to the Canon S95. Already have the camera and am ready to purchase the housing. I already have an Olympus strobe, I think its the UFL-1 a slave strobe (don't have it with me at the moment to verify) with a tray. Can I use this strobe? Any additional items I need to purchase? Things that are issues I might need to be wary of?

 

[KeithG]

likely? but since you have the camera and the strobe, why not try them out together before you buy the housing?

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Well that would make sense wouldn't it? LOL.. seriously, though. They "should" work together w/o the housing.. but you bring up a good point.. verify first!

 

[KeithG]

Well that would make sense wouldn't it? LOL.. seriously, though. They "should" work together w/o the housing.. but you bring up a good point.. verify first!

well, actually my point was more like "you have the camera & the strobe - why ask us? try them out - do they work?".

if they do not, then post info about the camera and strobe settings that you tried along with the symptoms. Then we can all armchair it a bit and toss lots of silly ideas into the ring.

And your "verify first" comment brings up a good idea. I see too many people that wait until they are under water to try and figure out how their rig works. and end up burning scarce and expensive bottom time fiddling with their camera. Dry land training is a good idea. It's cheap and you have lots of it available.

Let us know how the combo works.

I believe the UFL1 is just a rebranded sea&sea ys17. Early in it's life i recall their being complaints of the strobe not always firing. Always using a fibre optic cable seems to have solved many of the user problems. So this generally means you should use a fibre optic cable.

cheers...

 

[jimw]

Hey Jenny,

I have the S95 with Canon housng. Ask away, if there's anything I can answer. The 2 SHOULD work together using the slave mode. The strobe sensor will need to be in a good spot to "see" the oncamera flash in order to fire the external..........Try that first. You should probably block with black tape or something, the on-housing diffuser.

Jim

 

[KeithG]

Hey Jenny,

I have the S95 with Canon housng. Ask away, if there's anything I can answer. The 2 SHOULD work together using the slave mode. The strobe sensor will need to be in a good spot to "see" the oncamera flash in order to fire the external..........Try that first. You should probably block with black tape or something, the on-housing diffuser.

Jim

Agreed! Best "optical slave" operation often happens when you use a fibre optic cable to "connect" the camera's flash to the strobe's sensor. The key rule to remember is that "optical slaves" can be triggered by anything, including some one else's camera flash. (I have a dive light that can trigger one of my strobes. Even worse, my divebuddy also has a dive light that can trigger one of my strobes...). Covering your strobe slave sensor by using a fibre optic cable means that only light entering the cable will trigger your strobe. Hopefully this will only be light from your camera's onboard flash.

Masking / blocking the onboard camera flash is yet another "art". The idea behind masking is to prevent the onboard flash from adding any light to your pic (since it may screw it up due to uneven lighting because the housing blocks one side of the subject) You are now using big powerful macho external strobe(s) to provide all light. Basic idea is to not let any light get out of the housing (YMMV, this is VERY hard to do!). Some housings also have internal "lens shrouds" (black rubber thingy) that wraps around the lens to prevent light from the internal flash bouncing off the inside of the housing, entering the lens and screwing things up. So masking tries to accomplish 2 things:
- prevent light from leaving the housing and making uneven light on your subject
- prevent light from bouncing around inside your housing and getting into the picture and messing it up

So I suggest that you do some dry land training with various configurations and suitable subjects (I am willing to Fedex several cats, at your expense) so that you build an good understanding of your rigs behaviour before you splash.

P.S. I fired off about 700 dry land exposures this afternoon as I fiddled with different camera / strobe setting combos for my new canon g16 before our belize trip at christmas. Can't seem to be able to locate any of the cats anymore, so shipment may be delayed until after feeding time.

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

Thanks for the posts all. Good advice. Guess what I didn't mention in the original post was the need for a fiber optic cable and how it attaches and all.

When the housing comes in will play around a bit.. thanks again!

 

[KeithG]

Thanks for the posts all. Good advice. Guess what I didn't mention in the original post was the need for a fiber optic cable and how it attaches and all.

When the housing comes in will play around a bit.. thanks again!

hang on a minute. what about the cats? i think that with a little more duck tape i can get all of them in the same box. minimizes postage costs. no worries, i am willing to include a few cans of food as well, so they should be fine...please respond before my divebuddy comes home from her work trip.

yes, the fibre optic cable is key to modern strobes. unfortunately dive shops will charge you several trillion dollors more than they are worth. you can search here on the board for DIY cables costing around $4 AND some labour. i have 2 OEM cables for $75 each and 2 homemade cables for $2 each, plus fifteen minutes of dremel work.

 

[Scuba_Jenny]

LOL.. cats...

Now about the fiber optic cables.. will have to pick your brain on that in the future. Kinda hard to do the dremel stuff at the moment. I am working on a cruise ship. Lucky for me, we port about a half hour from my house every week. But getting something like a dremel on board to do some DIY would take way more hassle than it's worth. Security is tight and they question EVERYTHING. Gonna be enough fun bringing the housing and strobe on board then explain to customs when I get off that it came from the US (there's a lot of background stuff that goes on that regular guests aren't subjected to)

 

[DENLASCUBA]

Agreed! Best "optical slave" operation often happens when you use a fibre optic cable to "connect" the camera's flash to the strobe's sensor. The key rule to remember is that "optical slaves" can be triggered by anything, including some one else's camera flash. (I have a dive light that can trigger one of my strobes. Even worse, my divebuddy also has a dive light that can trigger one of my strobes...). Covering your strobe slave sensor by using a fibre optic cable means that only light entering the cable will trigger your strobe. Hopefully this will only be light from your camera's onboard flash.

Masking / blocking the onboard camera flash is yet another "art". The idea behind masking is to prevent the onboard flash from adding any light to your pic (since it may screw it up due to uneven lighting because the housing blocks one side of the subject) You are now using big powerful macho external strobe(s) to provide all light. Basic idea is to not let any light get out of the housing (YMMV, this is VERY hard to do!). Some housings also have internal "lens shrouds" (black rubber thingy) that wraps around the lens to prevent light from the internal flash bouncing off the inside of the housing, entering the lens and screwing things up. So masking tries to accomplish 2 things:
- prevent light from leaving the housing and making uneven light on your subject
- prevent light from bouncing around inside your housing and getting into the picture and messing it up

So I suggest that you do some dry land training with various configurations and suitable subjects (I am willing to Fedex several cats, at your expense) so that you build an good understanding of your rigs behaviour before you splash.

P.S. I fired off about 700 dry land exposures this afternoon as I fiddled with different camera / strobe setting combos for my new canon g16 before our belize trip at christmas. Can't seem to be able to locate any of the cats anymore, so shipment may be delayed until after feeding time.

Also don't forget about visibility conditions, I have used the wireless option for my Inon S-2000 before and I had a few insances where the strobes did not fire correctly due to bad visibility. I would have though that flash from the camera was strong enough to penetrate but I did end up having issues, once I attached the optical cables the next dive same conditions no problems at all. I have been told by another diver but not seen for myself that it had happened to him at around 15m and 20+ meter viz and the flash was not firing properly but once he connected the optic cables later all was fine.

The other issue depending on the type of shooting and not using an optic cable is re-positioning your strobe, you always have to keep in mind to adjust the sensor to match with the camera flash, it can be easy to forget when adjusting the strobe when you are in a hurry to capture something or when repositioning the strobe back to your normal start position.

If you are not bale to DIY the cables can be a bit costly but if you are going to DIY the only issue I have seen is divers making them to long and do not have the cables secured properly still allowing for adjustments, or divers making the cables too short for wide angle, you can also find some masking packages out there fairly cheap or also make then yourself fairly easily.

If firing the strobe dry read the user manual first as they will inform you of the rate of flash as the internals can heat up and possibly damage the strobe as you do not have the water to help cool the strobe. Also make sure you are using a good rechargeable battery as non-rechargeable and cheap rechargeable can create extra of heat inside the strobe also possibly causing damage.

I still have my S-100 which I do not use as much since my G16 bu the S series is capable of some great shots even with out the strobe, I have the Ikelite housing for the S100 and even with just the diffuser it still captures great shots. I stopped using the strobe as I couldn't always take them down with me on every dive and needed it to be more compact.

If you can afford it and find it go for the Recsea aluminum housing and this will give you more control over all of the functions in the camera.