Newbie Question about Sea&Sea YS-D1 and RX100

[ptamin44]

Good day folks,

I hope you can help me with this. Been all over the web and I can not seem to find anything thing relevant to my problem.

setup breakdown:

I have 2 Sea&Sea YS-D1 Strobes
Fiber-optics cable for both
Sony RX-100 (first Gen) and a Nauticam Case with arms and trays

Here is my newbie question:

I have been using it for awhile, until yesterday, i notice something.

My camera setting is this

Shutter speed : 160
ISO : 200
F-Stop : 4
everything else is basic...multi focus point...noise reduction on...etc

My Strobes are set to Manual mode, no pre-flash. Power dials are set to Full..maxed out

How is it that my images are very dark...as if there was no flash...but please do take note that the 2 flash fired...there is visual confirmation...tried it a few times...

BUT! if I move the strobe power dials 2 steps lower, there is flash on the images...which means they sync...but full power does not? I played with shutter and F-stops..nothing happens...im not sure, but Im assuming it should not have sync probs or maybe im wrong.

I do not know if i am doing something wrong or there is something I need to know or dont know about...I hope someone can help me with this. Thank you very much

 

[Incident]

I want to make sure I understand your concern/question. Are you saying that with the camera setting remaining the same, if you set the strobe to 100%, you get a dark image, but at less than 100% you get a will exposed image?

I am sure you know this, but you should have an overexposed image by two stops at full power relative to a normally exposed image at the setting you listed above.

Is this issue specific to that combination of camera settings, or can you reproduce it with any combination of shutter/aperture settings?

I can try this out later this morning and report back to you my results.

 

[boletus1973]

My Strobes are set to Manual mode, no pre-flash.

the problem is in this small quote.... i have the same rig... two D1-rx100-nauticam.... """the rx100 do Always one preflash!""" the right switch position of your D1's is the first with two lightning....

you have also to setup your camera flash to forced.... and everything will go perfectly i'm coming by a month of diving in indonesia without any problem!
:snorkel2:

 

[Incident]

Boletus is correct. I just tested this, and I can reproduce your issue if I set the strobes to the "no pre-flash" setting. What I am not clear on is why it works at power settings less than full.

If set to the "pre-flash" mode (with the two lightning bolts), I can fire the strobes at full power and will allow for correct exposures.

 

[KeithG]

Boletus is correct. I just tested this, and I can reproduce your issue if I set the strobes to the "no pre-flash" setting. What I am not clear on is why it works at power settings less than full.

i claim it is related to strobe cycle time? at full power setting the strobe can not recharge fast enough to flash twice very quickly.

the strobes are just optically triggered slaves. and in this case you are lying to it. the strobe will try to react to both the preflash and the flash as if they were both flashes. at full power it will attempt a full dump at the preflash and then have no energy left over for the real flash. at a lower power setting it will not do a full dump at preflash and will still have some energy left to fire for the main flash.

when not doing a full dump, my old ys110s can easily fire at a continuous 6 frames per second. lower power means faster strobe recharge time.

my explanation seems to fit the situation, but i could be wrong.

 

[Incident]

That makes sense, but is there not a way to have the strobe fire only once (even if the camera flash pre-fires)?

I guess I always assumed the setting with only one lightning bolt forced the strobe to flash just once, and the setting with two forced it to flash twice (once for pre-exposure flash, and again for the actual exposure). Might have to go actually read the manual to figure this out.

 

[JackConnick]

You need to set it at pre-flash (doublte bolts) witht he RS-100x series. It, like most compacts, is a pre-flash camera. The single bolt is for something like a DSLR.

 

[ptamin44]

Thank you guys...i Think thats the best solution for it...the Two bolts works well compared the the single bolt.. I am not sure with the RX100 if it has a flash mode that fires just once, with no preflash. As for the settings in the camera, I can only see Fill-in Flash, Slow Flash and Rear flash.. There is no option for forced flash, or i am just blind to find it...lol I think it is a good point to discuss, it was very strange indeed. Even I started wondering how this is happening. I guess I will be using the double bolts for the entire time now. Thank you guys for your help and suggestions

 

[bvanant]

Fill flash is forced flash for that camera.
Bill