Second strobe: YS-01 vs YS-D2J

YS-01 (solis) vs YS-D2J

  • YS-01

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • YS-D2J

    Votes: 3 100.0%
  • Are you mad, you should clearly buy this other thing, explain in comments.

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    3

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d^2b

Worse diving through photography
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I have a well-loved YS-01 that I use with a housed Oly EM5-II. I'm reasonably happy with how it works for macro stuff, but less impressed with my wide angle results. I'm thinking of picking up a second strobe. I noticed the YS-D2J is on sale for about 20% off some places, which makes it roughly comparable to the YS-01 (well, if you think $100 is roughly comparable). I've heard the stories about the old YS-D2s, but hopefully that is fixed with the J version. Looking at the specs it looks like the YS-D2J is only a bit bulkier and maybe 25% heavier. I am still mostly shooting TTL, which is my motivation for sticking with Sea&Sea. The YS-01 I have works quite well in TTL mode, and I'm guessing that any kind of slaving is going to work better with two strobes of the same brand.

Any thoughts or suggestions on what to choose?

EDIT: it's more like 20% off than 1/3 off.
 
Strobes are like ports and lenses. They will last you through multiple housings and cameras. Get the D2J if you can swing it, matching the power levels will take some patience but not so bad.
Bill
 
If you are doing TTL, balancing the lights is going to be a bit trickier as the D2J has about a stop and a bit more power, you'll be relying on the exposure compensation built into the strobe, I'm not sure if you have much experience using that - I haven't really tried it out, but I've seen a number of comments suggesting the compensation wasn't that great. In principle it's easy - cut the exposure short or lengthen it - but the strobe doesn't know how long the camera will keep the signal going so is effectively guessing how long to keep the strobe going.
 
I have dual Ys D2js. Very flexible. You can shoot TTL and just dial down the intensity of the 2 to suit. You can also angle the 2 away from the subject. Having the option of more light is always a good thing
 
I find TTL to be not useful for my pictures. It is wrong more often than it is right, and I can do better just sticking with manual flash. For macro I can get close with a starting power, and adjust from there if needed. For fish portraits same; for wide-angle I have more luck with ambient, if there is any; if there isn't any ambient, then I can still guess pretty well. For close-focus wide-angle manual (for me) is the only way....much too variable and complicated for anything 'automatic." Back when film was the norm, and 36 pictures was the limit, I thought differently, but now I can converge more quickly to the right exposure by looking at the image I just shot and not trusting to automated electronics designed for use on land.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/teric/

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