improv

Anybody?

Good thread! I would like to get something to video in the pool while I do stills. Has anyone seen or used the Bell & Howell DV550UW? It's not HD as far as I can see. It comes with a housing, rated at 30' or so and is only $79. Thanks for any heads up on it. MP

These new lights look like they're going to open up a whole new level of creativity for you Alex. I can't wait to see some more pics. Sorry I've tried to hijack this thread. MP

Here's what I came up with to fire my topland strobes. Just a couple of pin connectors from Radio Shack fit nicely into my ikelite cable, which I do not have to cut into. Tested at home and it works great. I can't wait to do some further testing at the pool. Thanks for all the help and ideas to get this done. Oh yeah, it cost me about $8 in tape and the pin connectors . MP

Woohoo!! I just test fired my new lighting setup successfully. I have an Ikelite ttl to two strobe splitter, with one going to my on-camera DS-51 and the other connected to an extension cable going to an Alien Bees strobe for topland firing. It works very nicely. My extension cable is made up of two 15' Ikelite cables....for testing, I simply inserted the ground and the trigger wire of my 1/8" mini cable into the corresponding spots on the ikelite cable. Now to make it more permanent, I have to cut into my $85 Ikelite cable <sniff> and do a continuity check to see which wire is which and come up with a nice, durable connection for the audio cable. It doesn't have to be exactly water proof on this connection, since I will anchor it off in the dry, but it should have some sort of strain relief on it. I'll keep the board posted with my results. I found this, which was very helpful: http://www.ikelite.com/faq/faq_syncwiring.html#howto It would be nice to know what colors the wires are that are the trigger and the ground.....anyone know? Of course, the continuity check will verify which is which. Anyone have any tips for making a good, solid, durable connection of the two wires? Thanks all! MP

Hehe....elegant is nice....but on the other hand, so is $2 Actually, Ryan said that he can make me one...whoo hoo!! Thanks all! MP

crud.....I need the very end of my cable to terminate in the PC sync so I can then use it in my studio strobe....this will do me no good at all...unless Ikelite has a gender changer connector. Is that connector type proprietary? I'm guessing that it is. MP

Indeed, I found an ike to PC sync cable on Ebay, but they describe the cable as a 2-pin cable.....would that be forward compatible with my modern ikelite which is a 5-pin cable? Please know that for my topland strobes, I do not expect ttl operation. Pocket Wizard sells a PC female to miniphone (1/8") connector, so if the 2-pin will connect to the 5-pin, I'm in business. Anyone know if the two are compatible? here's the cable: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewI...sid=p2759.l1259 Thanks all!! MP

Again, I would prefer to forgo the intermediary slave strobe and directly fire the topland strobes from my housing, has anyone had any luck with an adapter cable for such things? I know of one gentleman who created his own cable by embedding an optical slave in an epoxy resin that was tethered to his studio strobes....this just seems like something that is wide open for leaks and failure and possible damage to humans and property for me. I'd rather have the simple option of a cable that will do the trick, and more reliably than a slave. The subjects I photograph are constantly on the move and I'm just concerned with the slaves firing reliably. My topside strobes would be very safely attached with safety tethers before proceeding. MP I guess my other simple albeit more expensive option is to just get the extension cables that will go to an u/w slave that is mounted topside. Does anyone have any experience with connecting multiple Ikelite extension cables? MP

I've got the Tokina 10-17 with the ikelite 40D housing...love it. MP

Wow, this is a great thread! I stumbled onto it because I'm trying to figure out a way to fire my topland strobes from my u/w ikelite housing. I have a DS-51 strobe currently, but want to introduce some strobe from the surface for some u/w pool photos that I'm taking. Ideally, I would just put an expensive Y connector on the bulkhead with one cable going to the DS-51 and the other going to the surface where I could eventually get it to terminate in an 1/8" mini or 1/4" audio cable....which I would in turn connect to my studio strobes that would be securely placed on the pool deck. This would hopefully provide a little fill light in my rather dark-ish pool that I'm shooting in. This should be simple matter (in my limited electronics worldview) to fashion a connector that would adapt the ikelite cable to an audio cable right? Is the ikelite connector proprietary? That seems like the only drawback. I love what Alex has done with the u/w wreck photos, most excellent! Tom, you have quite a rig there with your polecam. This seems like a reasonable approach, having my main light fire a slave that in turn fires my topland slaves....but it would be cool if I could save a few $$ on the intermediary slave by just getting a cable. Anyone have any ideas on this? Thanks for the inspiring photography guys! Cheers! MP

Thanks all for the replies. I actually did a test session in the pool on Wednesday and had the housing set for no compensation, but just did it in the camera, knocking it down two stops. I did exactly as I did in previous shoots and had no issues with the camera. For the last couple of sessions that I did, I had the housing doing the compensation, setting if for 1 or 2 stops under, basically setting and forgetting....then when I checked the back of the housing after several frames (of course with no predictable trigger) the housing would be back on no compensation. I do shoot on M so I can get consistent results. I've checked and double checked the connections and everything is cool. I have also checked for buttons sticking and that doesn't seem to be an issue. Ikelite tech support suggested that I might need a firmware update on my housing....not sure why the engineer who gave me that advice didn't accompany it with directions on just how to do a firmware update on it...oh well. I think that for now, I'm good with using the camera's flash compensation control, as it didn't make my camera go into a busy state...so I'm happy for now with it. Thanks everyone for your input!!! MP

Hey, I'm a noob with a ikelite housing for my 40D and the DS51 strobe....will the cloudy preset give me good results in the pool? I shoot in about 4 feet of water and try to get as close to my subjects as I can. You may check out a couple of my test shots here: www.improvphoto.com/wordpress I had the camera on auto WB and as you can see, two different results from pretty much the same distance. What I want to do is to get a consistent color right out of the camera so I have to do minor tweaks in Lightroom....I will try the cloudy WB on the reccommendations here. Thanks in advance, MP

Two annoyances about the ikelite housing for the 40D. The camera goes into the “busy” mode sometimes during a shoot and the only way to reset it is to remove it from the housing and remove the battery, which is a pain in the butt if I’m in the pool shooting. The camera only does this when it is in the housing, never has it done it outside of the housing. The flash compensation buttons on the ikelite TTL system seem to reset back to no compensation with no rhyme or reason. I will toggle the flash down two stops, then for whatever reason….who knows what triggers it…but it will toggle back to full flash. Any ideas on that? I've actually just gone to using the camera for flash compensation and will watch for that funky BUSY state that my camera goes into. Perhaps the TTL issue is related to the BUSY state problem. Anyone seen these kind of issues? Thanks! MP

So it does....that's just too so simple, I didn't even try it. Thanks! MP