Sea & Sea YS-03 TTL?

[Lafaye]

I have the Sony RX100V in the Nauticam housing with a Sea & Sea YS-03 strobe. It does not seem like the strobe is being adjusted with TTL metering.

I have tested it by taking two pictures of the same subject in manual mode using fill-flash and keeping all settings the same except taking one with f 2.0 and the other at f11. The two images have very different exposures. With the camera outside the housing using the same settings with the built-in flash, the images are identically exposed. It seems that the camera itself is capable of TTL metering with it's own flash, but with the YS-03 I don't seem to get metering. Am I missing something?

 

[Chris Ross]

Could be any number of things causing your issues, first suspect is usually the fibre optic cable, S&S strobes are known to be fussy about quality of fibre optic cables. Also confirm that red eye reduction is off.

When you say manual mode on the RX-100, I assume that means manual ambient light exposure, as far as I know the Sony flash is TTL only. Have you tried using flash slow sync mode and increasing shutter speed so that the image is under exposed without flash, then try it with flash?

 

[DawgDiver217]

Lafaye is my mother, and I've been helping her try to figure this out. The fiber optic cable is the original one that came with the strobe. We did try it with a different cable (although it is our backup cable and probably not of the highest quality) and the results were the same.
The test shots we took were taken with a shutter speed of 1/1600s. Red eye correction is off. We have also tried slow sync.

Today, I tried taking 3 shots with all the same exposure settings and only adjusting the flash compensation in the camera settings to -3, 0, and +3. The images were all exposed differently, so I believe this means that the S&S strobe is capable of reading the camera's flash and firing with the appropriate power.

The camera outside the housing seems to be able to adjust it's internal flash through TTL to properly expose the image, and the S&S strobe seems capable of responding to a change in the camera's built in flash. However there seems to be a missing link when the camera is left on it's own to decide how much flash is needed when in the housing and using the S&S strobe. Maybe there's still a setting we don't have quite right in the camera?

 

[Chris Ross]

So the 3 shots -3,0 +3 were taken in the housing or outside? I'm wondering if 1/1600 SS is a little high, I know it's within the sync speed but some UW strobes have a longer flash duration at full power and you might need close to full power maybe at f11?

This link gives some flash durations: Flash duration? doesn't mention the YS-03 but I would guess it would be around 4 ms - 1/250 is around 4ms 1/1600 is 0.6 ms . So if your full power duration is 4ms, 1/1600 would only allow about 1/6 power to record.

Try taking your test shots in a darkened room at no more than 1/250 shutter speed and see if there is any difference in the results.

 

[DawgDiver217]

Taking the shots at 1/250 did not seem to make a difference. The image from f2 is very over exposed and the image from f11 is properly exposed.

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

Are your Strobes new? I had a similar issue with my YS-D2Js... suffice it to say, after months of trial and error and useless Sea and Sea and Nauticam help (thought it was the TTL trigger that was he issue as the strobes were showing that the TTL was firing) then reports that Nikon 7z wasn’t compatible etcetc: eventually returned TTL trigger to backscatter and the strobes as one of the capacitors gave up...

Long story short, backscatter said it was the strobes that were faulty and replaced...I’m still not convinced a running new tests this week. But just be aware that it may be the strobes malfunctioning as opposed to the Board or vice versa.. either way. I find the most productive thing to do is make videos of what you are doing and correspond with people on wetpixel for help.

 

[Lafaye]

Thanks Chris and MinistryofGirafes. The strobe was purchased new in the Summer of 2018. We don’t get to dive often, and I have been thinking I just haven’t learned to use it properly. I had hoped by now to add another light, but I don’t want to purchase another Sea & Sea if I can’t get this one to work as it should.

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

What TTL trigger board are you using attached to the camera hotshoe?

My initial issues were with the nauticam trigger, then I bought the turtle, but the turtle guys told me they couldn’t get the turtle to work with Nikon Z7, so I thought it was a camera issue, but then backscatter claimed it was faulty strobes.. I still don’t have a solution.

I suggest you post on wetpixel, find pavel on there and send him a video of your settings, the back of the strobe when firing on different settings etc. It’s always easier when you take a video and someone can look at it and see if a setting etc is wrong.

I’ve pretty much given up on TTL because of my issues, but purists will tell you that is a good thing

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

Just realized it’s not a TTL board with that housing....are you 100% sure it’s compatible?

I.E. just because your camera is TTL compatible and the strobe is TTL compatible, doesn’t 100% mean they are together.

The Z7 definitely isnt using regular fibre optic cables. You need a specialist TTL trigger board..

Try to find someone with same camera and housing/strobe on wetpixel to trade videos with.

 

[Barmaglot]

What TTL trigger board are you using attached to the camera hotshoe?

The only RX100 series camera with a hot shoe is the model II - the rest can trigger strobes only by pop-up internal flash. Z7 is the opposite, in that it lacks a built-in flash completely, so you need a trigger of some sort to use fiber optics. That said, I just did my first two dives (one WA, one macro) with one of Pavel's converters on my A6300 and it's working flawlessly.