Cathay Stray

Craig I am entirely on your side when thinking about the future of fiber optic vs that of hardwire. No doubt within a few years, let us say, 5, we will all forget that ridiculous hot shoes and our debates about what was better, 5-pin or 4-pin connectors, etc. Still I can get Jack's point as well. For now the f-o line is little more than a rope tied to a gun's trigger: as the elephant passes by and pulls the rope, the trigger goes off. I [foolishly] thought that would be enough. Sadly, now I have to ask for help rather than for critique on my recent underwater pictures that were all screweed up because of the strobe problem. So for me the question is not, Which is better, f-o or hardwire. I knw it without asking. The question is, WHAT THE HELL TO DO in a situation when I have already paid for the bloody useless strobe and it turned out as useless underwater as a Zippo lighter in an oxygen filling station. I think what Jack is doing is not talking me into that hardwire religion but simply telling me that no matter good or bad but that might be the only way to make the damned thing do its job.

Two-way communication might be a good point. So, based on your experince in the trade - have cases like mine been brought to your attention before? Some people keep on telling me that Oly E-330 and YS-110 simply do not match just because they do not match and little can be done if anything at all. Oly E-330 and INON D 2000W - OK, Oly E-330 and INON Z 240 II - OK, Oly E-330 and S&S YS-30 II TTL Duo - OK, but Oly E-330 and S&S YS-110 - no way, full stop. (see the chart here) Does it sound convincing to you? Again, OK, hardwire is hardwire, I feel I am going to give up, BUT - will I need any additional gadgets like adapters or whatever? I'm in China mainland, the nearest place to go for it is Hong Kong... not that far in fact but so inconvenient. So if I really have to drag myself there at least I'd hope to know exactly what I need there! You are an expert in this sort of equipment, so any opinion and advice will be so much appreciated. I hate thinking that buying a YS-110 was a stupid waste Mark

Thank you! Definitely worth trying. Will do it first thing next morning. P.S. Mark is the name; Cathay is the old English name for China where I've been living since 1996

Thank you Jack, Well, it does make sense in a way "always follow the manual and never try to outsmart the hardware". Still, if we can somehow trick the YS into following the pop-up there is nothing bad in it. Or, is there? Hard wire cable is stone age, plus it is a lot less safe as it increases the danger of flooding the contacts. Now, the strobe somwhow does work with fiber-optic line between itself and a camera. Let us try to dig out, WHY it fires half-power? And WHY, as it happened after Phil Rudin suggested to turn off the AF illumination, it started working in Manual 1 mode full power but accurately and precisely every second time? I don't think I am the only one in possession of an Oly E-330 + YS-110 system so perhaps there might be somebody who managed to overcome the limitations. Mark

Phil thank you very much for reply. That all looks too bad now, doesn't it... Had I known YS had problems I'd have bought an INON... But the question now is what to do in a given situation. In future I might as well get an INON (buying the second flash is anyway on the agenda) and use the YS as a slave to INON although this cross-breed duo might have another set of problems originating from their Montecchi/Capuletti discord. Anyway it is pretty much in future and before I invest in another piece of equipment I'd much prefer to well understand why the strobe I have already works in such a lousy way. I tried disabling flash AF illumination as you advised although I was surely not recording a pre-flash. Things went a lot trickier: in Manual 1 setting the YS fires EXACTLY EVERY SECOND TIME (although in real full power)!! What is even more weird, AF illumination can be disabled in Underwater wide and canNOT be disabled in Underwater macro mode. In Manual 2 YS simply does not work, and in TTL it delivers the same low light flash as with AF illumination on. What comes to my mind is, What if it is in fact a REAL TTL and the camera+flash system simply somehow decide this amount of light should be enough for the occasion... Pity I can't arrange a trip to HK within the nearest couple of weeks to try a hard wire cable (not available in China mainland where I am stationed) although I hate the idea of downgrading from the f-o line back to the wire. I will try it as soon as I put my hands on it if you think it might be the one and only solution. Would be nice if the technical people from Sea&Sea gave themselves a job to monitor forums like this, hehehe... Mark

I wonder if anyone has been across the problem of YS-110 emitting too little light. "Too little" is of course my own feeling. Still, when I test YS-110 shooting the dark corner of my office vs shooting the same corner with Oly E-330's own little pop-up flash - the result is obviously some +30 % in favour of the pop-up flash. How come an expensive strobe with 3 Xenon tubes fails to outflash a tiny single-tube pop-up? Or am I doing anything wrong? First, I made the YS work with the fiber-optic cable pretty much in the same way Roger Carlson shows here. Actually, it was easier as 10BAR housing allows enough space for the pop-up to turn on without a need to fiddle with a toothpick. Second, the strobe works OK in TTL mode (though I have some doubts whether it is a real TTL or not, but at least it preflashes OK and fires synchronously). It does NOT work in both manual modes which is a bit different from what its manual promises but whatever. Third, here we are getting to the point, although it does fire in TTL, it produces far too little light. And it is on the surface, not yet in murky waters 30 m down. I fear when taken underwater, the light it emits will be simply not enough even to colour up objects 1 m away. Any suggestions? Thank you.

Mark thanks a lot for an extremely interesting and useful story. Now, how do you do the lighting at macro settings? I mean, the distance between the port glass and the subject is nearly zero, "keep it dark" rule hardly works in such a situation, not everyone has a ring strobe... any advice? I am a complete novice and this is not the last naive and silly question I'm going to nag you with thank you Mark

Nihao Alex I am a newcomer to the community and the post I am replying to is pretty old so I hope you are still around there on the island. I am in Guangzhou if it matters and what I am wondering about is well, the shop (DiverVision) might be nice but they leave absolutely - I mean really aseptically zero information about themselves on their site. No address, no registration data, no telephone (a number would be a pretty flimsy evidence of their being for real but still better than nothing) - and, errrr.... I'm well into my 12th year in China, I am used to thinking people/businesses don't hide for no reason. On one hand I would be interested in getting smth from them (such as Oly TTL converter) but on another hand... If you are still there and pass by the shop every now and again, would you mind asking them for at least a business card scan or anything? I'd feel a lot more relaxed if I could see more than a shadow in a direction I'm going to send my money to. Thanks a lot. Mark

Sam, with all due respect, DiverVision appears a complete net ghost to me. the site shows no business registration data, even no telephones or anything - anything - except the form for emailing. I would think twice before sending my money into nowhere. Or, better to say, I would not think twice before NOT sending my money into nowhere. Although I admit I am interested in this device, the Oly TTL converter. Any suggestion? Mark

It is UFL-1, not PFL-01 I'm also interested in it as it is nicely priced but so far I haven't found its detailed specifications - even the download centre at Olympus where you can get manuals to whatever is or was in production by Oly does not list UFL at all. It seems it only has an opt-fib connection, doesn't it? hence it can only work with a housing that allows the pop-up flash go working... too bad for me as I am getting a 10bar housing in a week or so and there is no room in it for a pop-up to actually pop up

all gone already?