E-PL5 in Nauticam housing and YS-D1 strobes. Why won't my strobes fire?

[John Gulliver]

A friend and I spent a very frustrating hour yesterday trying to test my "new" (lightly used) strobes. With the strobes set to TTL, EV +/-0 and each strobe connected direct to the housing by a fibre-optic cable, we tested the following camera settings: aperture varying between 4.5 and 10, shutter speed 1/160, ISO 200, internal flash output 1/64. The batteries (NiMH) were fully charged and we could see that light was transmitted through the cables, so they were intact. However the internal flash simply would not fire although the red ready light lit up. What did we do wrong?

 

[jlyle]

When you say internal flash would not fire, did you mean it wouldn't fire the strobes? Strobe's TTL won't work with the camera's flash on manual (1/64). Change TTL on the strobe to one lightning flash and see what happens or set the camera's flash to fill flash.

 

[John Gulliver]

---------- Post added November 10th, 2014 at 11:28 PM ----------
No, I mean exactly what I wrote - the camera's internal flash would not fire. I never had any problems with it not firing when I used YS-01's. I want to use the strobes in TTL mode for macro and close-up shots (which is mostly what I take), not in manual mode. We did try switching to the one lightning bolt and two lightning bolt settings on the strobes, although we were pretty sure this was wrong, buit the camera's internal flash still would not fire. I'm completely puzzled.

---------- Post added November 11th, 2014 at 09:21 AM ----------

Apologies! Further checks have shown that the camera's internal flash is firing. It's just that it is not triggering the external strobes.

 

[EskilJ]

I set my YS-D1 strobes to the most clockwise mode and power to "normal" - middle setting.
Then I set the camera to normal flashing - no RC - as if you should use the camera in a dark room (without external flash).
So if the camera flash works to make correct pictures in a dark room, the camera is set correctly.
I suspect your camera does RC.

 

[John Gulliver]

Thanks for your help Eskil and jlyle. Unforunately, your advice and suggestions have not solved the problem. However, I have spoken on the phone to one of my clubmates, who works for Japan Foto, the Scandinavian distributor for Olympus and Sea & Sea. He is as surprised and puzzled as we are but has promised to look at my camera, housing and strobes. He has access to support for all the products, so if anyone can help, he should be able to. I am going to his shop tomorrow.

 

[Gdog]

John, post your findings for us!

 

[John Gulliver]

I went to the shop this morning and Niklas saw the cause of the problem at once. We had connected the fibre-optic cables to the wrong socket on the strobes, the one intended for connecting an extra strobe. So stupid! Everything is working fine now

 

[jlyle]

Thanks for the update. Glad to know all is working the way it should.