Using in slave mode connected to Nikon S1

[aquaregia]

Completely new to photography so please pardon my ignorance.

I'm trying to hook up an old YS-30 to a Nikon S1 using an optical cable to a mount in front of the slave sensor of the strobe. Unfortunately, when I do this, the Nikon seems to flash three times, and I guess the strobe's only expecting to see two flashes so it's not syncing right? If I use a YS-D1, it works fine. The funny thing is that when I was first messing with it, I got just two flashes on the camera and it worked alright, but now I can't seem to... I've tried basically every setting I can think of/find.

Any ideas?

 

[bvanant]

Can you turn off TTL in the camera, that should get a single flash from the S1
Bill

 

[diversteve]

It's possible the three flashes are pre-flash red-eye reduction. So try changing it to just Auto and I believe it should then fire just once.
Which should be all your YS flash needs.

 

[aquaregia]

Already had it with the fill flash, but good suggestion. Couldn't find a way to disable TTL.
What is exposure compensation?

 

[PatW]

Exposure compensation is when the camera is using its meter to set the exposure like aperture mode, auto mode, or shutter mode but you have good reason to believe the metering will result in the wrong exposure. So you set the camera to over expose or under expose by a defined amount by using exposure compensation.

 

[smoore]

The following link explains iTTL (the TTL system used in your camera) in Nikon cameras (Nikon Flash Primer | DPanswers). This article suggests that there may be more than one pre-flash when using iTTL. I have reviewed the manual for the Nikon S1 and it does not appear that there is any setting for manual flash so you cannot turn off iTTL. Diversteve had a good suggestion as red-eye reduction does add a pre-flash. However, if you have it set to fill flash (which is the correct setting) and you are still getting 3 flashes (2 pre-flashes and the actual flash), then I do not see how you can reduce them to two pre-flashes. The manual for the YS-30 suggests that it can work in the slave mode with any brand of camera and I would have thought this would mean that it could work with cameras which have 1 or 2 pre-flashes. I suspect that this will not work but you might be able to use the YS-D1 as the flash linked by an optical cable to your camera housing and set the YS-30 to slave and get it to function as your second flash which is triggered by the YS-D1. It is probably worth trying to see if you can get the two flashes to work together in this manner. An easy way to test this is to take a picture in a mirror. If the flashes are working correctly the picture will show each flash actually flashing. Good luck.