| Photography Forum: Underwater Photography Forum: |
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Q. Digital Strobes and Macro lenses
Asked by Keith Naylor
(K=13064) on 12/26/2002
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Hi guys,
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have just bought myself a Canon Powershot S30 complete with the u/w housing. I'm now starting to look around for a good strobe which will be suitable with the pre-flash produced by the camera.
One other restriction is that the camera doesn't have a connection for an external flash, so the strobe will need to work in slave mode i guess.
Anyone out there have any experience with these ?
Also - I believe the Sea&sea macro lenses can be fitted to the housing by using an adapter, anyone had a go with one on a digital ?
Any advice welcome.
Keith
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Bob Jarman
(K=3145) - Comment Date 1/8/2003
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Keith,
You don't want to use your internal flash at all underwater if you can prevent it, due to backscatter issues.
The problem you are going to have with a standard slave strobe is that the slave will fire with the preflash and probably wont recycle in time to shoot with the shutter.
I think you have two basic options if you dont have a cord capability.
1: Ikelite makes two nice strobes called the ds50 and ds125, (i think), They are dedicated digital strobes and a sensor that will allow you to use TTL underwater. For the camera you have, a ds50 would be a small relatively affordable option. What you do in a nutshell with this strobe is to cover the internal strobe so it wont fire forward and cause backscatter. Than the reflection of the strobe is caught by the sensor and the underwater strobe mimics the digital camera strobe.
The advantage of this strobe is that it fires both the preflash and flash. I had two ds125's wth my Canon G2 setup and they worked exactly as advertised. One of mine leaked, but they fixed it no charge.
2: The second option is a Sea&Sea DX90 (Again I am not sure on the exact model number) This stobe is purely manual, but allows for a lot of power options( 12 i think). The same basic principal is used in that a sensor reads when the internal flash fires and than fires the strobe. You set the sensitivity on the sensor to ignore the preflash.
Either option will give good results, but both take a lot of practice to learn..... get in a pool and shoot b4 a trip!
Best of luck, and have fun!
Bob Jarman
Moderator
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Keith Naylor
(K=13064) - Comment Date 2/2/2003
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thanks Bob, much appreciated. I can see some extensive pool work looming ;-)
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Des Paroz
(K=422) - Comment Date 5/8/2003
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I would also recommend either of the Ikelite strobes. I use the DS125s (with film cameras), and they have an excellent recycle time (1 sec).
They work well with pre-flash.
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Alann Ferreira
(K=38) - Comment Date 1/8/2004
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Hi,
Want to use your old strobes with a new digital camera?
Check out http://www.muenster.de/~matthias/blitz/indexe.htm
Matthias sells an adaptor which plugs into your strobe cord. It optically senses the digital's internal flash, adjusts for preflashes if necessary, and fires the external strobe. I've never used one. If anyone has, please send in your comments.
..............ALANN.................
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Hal Silverman
(K=15) - Comment Date 1/10/2004
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Hello,
As Bob mentioned, you do not want to use the cameras strobe as the main light, because of backscatter issues.
Your external light(s) can be fired via slaves. Set your cameras stobe to the lowest possible output, using the external strobe sourece as your main light. The camera strobe will act just as a fill. Doing this procedure will require you to shoot in a maual mode, and will reduce the amount of backscatter.
Good luck,
Hal
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