Does the YS-01 or other Sea & Sea strobes consistently overexpose shots?

[DazedAndConfuzed]

Hi,

I used dual YS-01 on my old Oly C5050 rig and I frequently see the image somewhat overexposed, especially when the subject has a background that's a bit farther back. I though it was due to matrix metering trying to get proper exposure of both foreground and background, thus overexposing the foreground subject. Now I have the same strobes on my RX100 rig, and I see that sometimes again. Is the strobe sending and/or not controlling its light output as well as it should? Or do I have to go into spot metering mode so only the spot I pointed at will get properly exposed (I tested that above land on other cameras and strobe TTL doesn't seem to correlate with the type of metering mode I set up)

 

[Skeptic14]

Can't you control the light level of the ys-01 strobes with a dial? Have you tried dialing it down?

 

[JackConnick]

Yes, I would use spot metering for sure. TTL is just that, an average exposure. If you have a lighter background it's going to get fooled some. You can dial down the strobe.

If it's consistently off, you can change the EV of the flash setting on your camera. That's a good way to adjust TTL, probably works better than on the strobe.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

I sometimes do control the light output with the dial, if I have the option of taking the picture again, but frequently those shots are of a fleeting moment, sometimes I might be able to take multiple shots, but it would be one after another w/o checking how the picture came out. Same with spot metering, I might be able to perform a composition of the subject (e.g. shooting somewhat upward of a turtle that is swimming away) and hopefully the camera will perform the focusing and matrix metering. If I had to do spot metering, I would have to center the subject, press the shutter half way and compose right after that. The focus distance likely would have changed. Focus tracking could be an option, but I guess its a feature that I have to commit to memory as a feature that is there.

 

[JackConnick]

I don't know focus and recompose is pretty fast. The "back button" AF lock on your camera may be a feature you might want to try.

 

[timz]

Use strobes manually... set ur aperture, estimate ur distance, and set ur GN.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

Use strobe manually, lol. That's what I use to do in my old SLR setup, and the old ikelite housing had a sticker on the side to tell you what f-stop to set the camera to based on the distance to the subject (this is the ancient strobe with one power setting). I don't think I will be doing that while swimming to keep the subject in optimal view, composing, making sure I am not going to crash into anything or anyone, or if I am stationary and the subject is there only for a short instant, it will be gone by the time I put back my laser rangefinder.

I could do the spot metering on posed or stationary composed shots, but otherwise its not likely possible on fleeting moments, especially if I have to change metering mode from matrix to spot.