Digital pro flash

[donnad]

i just got my digital pro flash for my reefmaster mini. (it was happy mother's day for me!!) and i read somewhere on another message board something about opening it up and removing the plastic sleeve that is on the cable inside there to avoid breakage of the cable. is this old news or does this apply to the one i just bought? please advise. (i haven't opened it up and looked inside at this point) am going on vacation in july and hope to be taking great pictures thanks to the new strobe! and i got the mini wide angle lens as well. i should get very nice pictures with the automatic setting on the flash, right? the reefmaster mini will automatically adjust the brightness, and everything really, right? so it should be really simple if i am understanding correctly. also........during a dive........should i power the camera and flash on and off. (like turn it off when i don't expect to take a pic for several more minutes, and turn it off while descending, ascending, etc. to conserve battery power) rather than leaving it on from the start of the dive until dive is about over?? i bought the Nimh batteries and charger. what is the expected run time using those?? i know i asked a lot of questions, but i really appreciate your help. thanks,donna (and wow, between my camera and gear, and my reg.......there goes my fifteen lbs. of carryon i'm allowed to fly into little cayman!) oh well, i don't need half that stuff i always carry in my purse anyway, right

 

[TCB]

Here is the info from the Sealife website about removing the sleeve protector. On the unit I got from ScubaToys in April, this had already been done, either at the factory or the store. YMMV

Note that there are also some changes to the user manual on that page, too. Significantly, when using a Sealife camera like your mini, the auto bright setting is to be set at positon #1 rather than #4 as older manuals say. I didn't know this before I used it. I'm not sure how much it affected things to have it on #4, but I did have some pics that were overexposed.

As for batteries, I have the DC600 and the battery life (for the camera) is about 2 dives, maybe 3. We have a spare that gets charged & swapped out between morning and afternoon dives. Not sure if the mini has similar battery life or not. Our camera is set to turn itself off after 1 min of inactivity. For the flash we used Energizer rechargables. The manual says they last about 100 flashes and we got at least that many out of a set before recharging. We also got 4 extras so that one set can charge while using the others. There's probably no need to turn the flash on & off while you're in the water.

Hope that helps.

 

[donnad]

indeed. thankyou very much! i got mine from scubatoys right after mothers'day, so i bet the sleeve protector has already been removed, but i will check. i did get the insert page with the changes to the manual. i have extra batteries.........so will be able to swap out between morning and afternoon dives. ya know..........i think the reefmaster mini will turn itself off after a min. or so of inactivity as well......i'll double check that. thanks again!

 

[prskate2]

You can set how long the RMM takes to turn off by it self. 1 min, 3 min and 5 min. I think..

 

[seaducer]

I have the DC500, so I don't know if the mini will let you do this, but I have my camera set to shut off only the LCD after 30 seconds or something like that, this way I power on at the surface, and power off when I get back. If I see something to take a pic of I hit any button to wake the camera up again, it cycles on much quicker from sleep mode as opposed to shutting down completely, and you may miss your shot if you have the camera shut down.

Also, it used to be anyway, that is took alot of power to charge the circuitry of electronics, so turning off and then on and off and on etc didn't really save you that much.

Same thing with the flash, once it charges it uses very little power to hold that charge, so power on at the start of the dive and leave it that way. I get well over 100 pics on one set of AA's, maybe 150 or so if I choose to deal with the longer cycle times. I generally try to get two dives or maybe 100 pics out of a set though, as any more than that it takes like 10-15 seconds to charge up...

 

[prskate2]

No, the mini does not have sleep time. That sounds like it is pretty useful though. But at least the mini turns on pretty quick. Thanks for the info on the Flashes too.

 

[JDenning]

I have a new RMM and Digital Pro Flash. The camera is set to Ext Flash, and the flash is set to 0 for pre flash, and 1 for Auto. I then have the knob set to A on the flash. But it is not AUTO at all. It's totally blown out. To get a good pic I have to turn down the strobe to maybe power setting 1 or 2. Is my strobe defective?

 

[prskate2]

Post this in another thread. Right now you doing what the forums call "Hijacking a persons thread". Make a thread about just this.

 

[JDenning]

Sorry about that...