Hello,
I just completed a dive trip with an external strobe for the first time, a Sea & Sea YS-25 Auto. Having never used even a non-"Auto" strobe before, I'm wondering what exactly the "Auto" part of the strobe is supposed to be doing, because Sea & Sea doesn't really explain it anywhere.
I was using it with a new camera, a Canon SD500. The SD500 doesn't have manual aperture or shutter control, so what I observed in my EXIF data was that with the internal flash on (to trigger a strobe fiber-optic cable), the camera invariably was set to f7.1, 1/60 sec, regardless of the various scene modes available on the camera. I assume that the internal flash fires for not the full 1/60 sec but something much shorter and variable to get the right exposure, because when shooting with the internal flash only, the subjects generally came out properly exposed whether 3", 6", or 12" away.
However, when shooting with the YS-25 Auto and the internal flash masked, I found that to get the right exposure I basically had to manually adjust the dial roughly in accordance with distance - down at the lowest level 2 for a macro shot, up at 11 at a few feet away. Thus it felt like a purely manual control.
The Sea & Sea instructions say to match up the number with the aperture (with this camera, that would be f7.1), but that didn't seem to work at all. So what's the "Auto" supposed to be about, or does it not apply to my camera? If it doesn't, am I just as well off buying a manual strobe that is 1) pre-flash compatible and 2) can trigger off a fiber-optic cable?
I was pretty happy with the YS-25 Auto. Since I was mostly shooting from 3-18" away, by the end of the week I was able to guess the right position for the knob for a given shot to within one stop or so. Just not sure I was using the strobe to its fullest potential.
I just completed a dive trip with an external strobe for the first time, a Sea & Sea YS-25 Auto. Having never used even a non-"Auto" strobe before, I'm wondering what exactly the "Auto" part of the strobe is supposed to be doing, because Sea & Sea doesn't really explain it anywhere.
I was using it with a new camera, a Canon SD500. The SD500 doesn't have manual aperture or shutter control, so what I observed in my EXIF data was that with the internal flash on (to trigger a strobe fiber-optic cable), the camera invariably was set to f7.1, 1/60 sec, regardless of the various scene modes available on the camera. I assume that the internal flash fires for not the full 1/60 sec but something much shorter and variable to get the right exposure, because when shooting with the internal flash only, the subjects generally came out properly exposed whether 3", 6", or 12" away.
However, when shooting with the YS-25 Auto and the internal flash masked, I found that to get the right exposure I basically had to manually adjust the dial roughly in accordance with distance - down at the lowest level 2 for a macro shot, up at 11 at a few feet away. Thus it felt like a purely manual control.
The Sea & Sea instructions say to match up the number with the aperture (with this camera, that would be f7.1), but that didn't seem to work at all. So what's the "Auto" supposed to be about, or does it not apply to my camera? If it doesn't, am I just as well off buying a manual strobe that is 1) pre-flash compatible and 2) can trigger off a fiber-optic cable?
I was pretty happy with the YS-25 Auto. Since I was mostly shooting from 3-18" away, by the end of the week I was able to guess the right position for the knob for a given shot to within one stop or so. Just not sure I was using the strobe to its fullest potential.