I'm nervous shooting with alpha series, any advice?

[Passantino]

I'm coming from a Canon g16 which has served me very well over the past few years (and Canon G series before that) I shoot a Nikon D610 topside but am hoping to replace that with the Sony as well.

There are two things that are making me nervous about my new Sony A6300 (with kit lens 18-55 and a Seafrogs salted line case with macro 67mm port and a 7" dry port). I shoot with dual YS-D2s with a fiber optic connection as the electric strobe connection isn't available with my housing.

My main concerns:

1. The 1/160 shutter sync speed is a little daunting. I usually shoot macro at 1/200 and go with a faster shutter to get nice black backgrounds. ( I know I can adjust the aperture to achieve a similar result but I'm still nervous.

2. Flash output cannot be lowered like on a canon or nikon to trigger the strobes. How is the wait time for the flash to fire towards the end of a dive where you have taken a bunch of photos?

I'm heading to Florida by car for Winter Break to test this rig out if anyone will be around Miami or even the keys and wants a dive buddy. I will be doing most of my dives at Blue Heron Bridge but am open to anywhere within reason. I need to check the water temperature but I may visit North Carolina to see about a shark dive too. Any advice from people with a similar setup?

Thanks,
James

 

[Barmaglot]

1) The difference between 1/160 and 1/200 is just one quarter of a stop, i.e. not statistically significant. Snoots might help you more with black backgrounds, but dark ones are certainly possible without them (1, 2)
2) While you can't explicitly set the internal flash power, you can adjust it via the flash compensation function to +3/-3. Flash recycle time is well under a second, unless you fire it more than 10 times in a row at minimal recycle time, in which case it slows down considerably until you power cycle the camera, regardless of battery level. The battery, in my experience, is enough for three dives - I change mine every two dives, just to be safe.

 

[Passantino]

1) The difference between 1/160 and 1/200 is just one quarter of a stop, i.e. not statistically significant. Snoots might help you more with black backgrounds, but dark ones are certainly possible without them (1, 2)
2) While you can't explicitly set the internal flash power, you can adjust it via the flash compensation function to +3/-3. Flash recycle time is well under a second, unless you fire it more than 10 times in a row at minimal recycle time, in which case it slows down considerably until you power cycle the camera, regardless of battery level. The battery, in my experience, is enough for three dives - I change mine every two dives, just to be safe.

Extremely helpful, thank you much. I'll update with experience with it after the new year.

 

[Passantino]

Barmaglot, Any issues with the gear sticking and not allowing for zooming during the dive? one dive it wasnt an issue but not I cannot get it to work properly. It works fine but once I put the back cover on it seems to put pressure on the rubber gear and makes a hard clicking noise and doesnt rotate. Another issue I've been having is when I put the strobes on full power the image will somehow look like no flash was fired. It is super annoying. I think it is some setting but I can't pointpoint it to turn it off. Once I lower the strobe power it goes back to normal. (shooting in manual both camera and strobes). LMK if you have any advice on this. Camera is awesome but I am experiencing some growing pains.

 

[Barmaglot]

The gear is a bit fiddly - when you close the lid, it pushes the camera forward, which pushes the gear against the housing, and the resulting friction makes its teeth slip, which is the clicking noise that you hear. Before you close the housing, reach in and pull the gear back just a tiny bit - you just need to open a hairline gap between it and the housing; if you overdo it, it won't engage at all - then close the housing and try zooming. Usually it takes a few tries to get right, but once it is positioned properly, it works reliably.

Regarding strobes - it sounds like you have TTL pre-flash cancellation set to 'off' when they're in full-power mode. Sony doesn't have a setting to disable the pre-flash on the camera, so if your strobes dump their full charge on the pre-flash, they don't have anything left for the main event, and the picture ends up underexposed. If you're using the strobes in manual mode rather than DS-TTL, you need to put the mode knob in the twin lightning bolts position, rather than the single lightning bolt - this will tell the strobe to ignore the first flash and fire on the second.