G10/YS-110a issue ... am I too stupid to own a camera?

[Gilligan]

After reading this thread, I'm glad I bought an Inon for my wife....

No doubt Inon is a good product. I had a D-180 for about 5 years.

The other side of that coin is if you live in the USA there is there is no more Inon America for warranty or repairs. That's one of the reasons I am looking at Sea & Sea.

The other reason I won't get another Inon is my Inon D-180, and likely its replacement the D-2000, had an Achilles heel. It was the combination dial/push button for the focus/aiming light. It kept working itself loose and falling off. Luckily I never lost the small spring under the dial. IMHO it's a bad design.

 

[RonFrank]

So Bob, what was Pufferfish's suggestions? I was doing some digging to try and determine if I could find anything obvious that you were doing wrong.. but as I don't have either the camera, or the flash...

However what did you do that you *think* may have solved the problem?

 

[Puffer Fish]

Ron, There are two possible issues:

1. Those knobs on the strobe have to be set exactly on the setting, and they can be moved fairly easily. If they are off, the strobe will not flash.

But the more likely reason is:

2. Using the lowest flash output from the camera, when in low vis water, can result in the flash signal being too low to set the flash off.

There is a small space between the cable and the stobe sensor that fills with water.

His system is setup correctly and works great on land. The solution is to just increase the output a small amount.

The G10's lowest output is really low, and it would be easy to have it not be enough to trigger the strobe.

I would also doubt, in bright light, that the lowest output, with a standard case, would be enough, but that is not his issue.

Ok, there is a third, which is a bad cable... be he knows how to check for that now..

Sadly, I don't think he will be sending his camera and strobe to anyone.

 

[Puffer Fish]

No doubt Inon is a good product. I had a D-180 for about 5 years.

The other side of that coin is if you live in the USA there is there is no more Inon America for warranty or repairs. That's one of the reasons I am looking at Sea & Sea.

The other reason I won't get another Inon is my Inon D-180, and likely its replacement the D-2000, had an Achilles heel. It was the combination dial/push button for the focus/aiming light. It kept working itself loose and falling off. Luckily I never lost the small spring under the dial. IMHO it's a bad design.

The YS110a is a great strobe and extremely durable...the trigger issue could happen with any strobe... will let Bob say if it is corrected, but I would bet it is a yes.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

Bob, the photos on your web site are marvellous. Did you use your Casio point & shoot for those? I am impressed.
What did you spend $3K+ plus on?

Most of the photos on the web site were taken with the Casio Z-1000 point-n-shoot. Some were taken with the Oly SP-350 I owner previously. So far, none were taken with my current setup.

What I have now ...

Canon G10
Fisheye FIX housing plus 15 mm WA port
S & S YS-110a and YS-25 strobes
Ultralight arms and tray

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[Puffer Fish]

Bob, the photos on your web site are marvellous. Did you use your Casio point & shoot for those? I am impressed.
What did you spend $3K+ plus on?

You know, you are right..I'm back to him sending everything to me.

 

[Warmwater Wank]

Well my final guess was going to be the strobe's 30 min. auto-off function, Bob being so excited that things were finally going to work uw that he turned the strobe on at home "just to be ready". The low flash output biz makes sense. I mean heck, he was doing a night dive--think how much darker the water would have been! ... // ww

 

[Cathy Church]

I have not had time to study every word of this thread but want to add a few things.
1. The G9 does not TTL on manual mode. You have to use "A" aperture priority. Make sure that the shutter speed is set to stay high (no lower than 1/60th second) so that it does not make your photos blurry in bright sunlight.

2. If testing the M1 vs M2 slave settings, make sure that the strobe is on the highest power. When set for a low power, even if you are on the wrong setting, it will recycle so quickly that it will look like it is working, even if the setting is wrong. In other words, it will fire on the preflash, but will recycle fast enough to fire again on the real flash. Then when you put it on a higher setting, there will not be enough power to fire a second time so quickly and you will not see any strobe light in the picture.

I don't know if I have answered your question, so if not, get back to me. I am at Beneath the Sea right now and don't have a lot of time, but if you still have a problem, I may be able to help.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I did a dive early this morning (around dawn, so lighting was about like a night dive), and played around with the flash output settings on the camera. What I was able to determine is that in the local conditions, setting flash output to Minimum will sometimes cause the strobe to not fire. When I kicked it up to the Medium setting, the strobe fired consistently. On one occasion it didn't fire ... so I reset it to the Maximum setting and the strobe fired.

Puffer Fish pointed out the other night that might be the issue, and it turns out that I believe he was correct. I'm off to do a couple class dives in about a half hour, so if I have time later I'll download some pics and post 'em here. But it appears the problem ... and remedy ... have been identified.

Now I can stop worrying about making the equipment work and start figuring out how to use it to take better pictures ... thank you all for your input.

... Bob (Grateful ...)

 

[Puffer Fish]

I did a dive early this morning (around dawn, so lighting was about like a night dive), and played around with the flash output settings on the camera. What I was able to determine is that in the local conditions, setting flash output to Minimum will sometimes cause the strobe to not fire. When I kicked it up to the Medium setting, the strobe fired consistently. On one occasion it didn't fire ... so I reset it to the Maximum setting and the strobe fired.

Puffer Fish pointed out the other night that might be the issue, and it turns out that I believe he was correct. I'm off to do a couple class dives in about a half hour, so if I have time later I'll download some pics and post 'em here. But it appears the problem ... and remedy ... have been identified.

Now I can stop worrying about making the equipment work and start figuring out how to use it to take better pictures ... thank you all for your input.

... Bob (Grateful ...)

Thanks for the update. Now, I don't ask for much, just that housing you are using...

I know, is that all he wants? Well, that, and a really huge memory card (say 32 gig).

That is all the thanks I expect...well and some new strobe arms...just that stuff and I am completely happy...although some new batteries would be nice...but that is it.


Could you do me a favor... check where the fiber optic cable end sits in relation to the camera's strobe...the strobe is barely wide enough to have two cables be over the actual flash. And one side (don't have my camera here) does not have the same amount of light coming out of it as the other.

Note: The fiber optic cable sits in the very center of the connector.

You may want to reverse the plugs between the two strobes