Is it time for a paradigm shift?

[StephenFrink 9]

This is an open letter to all housing and strobe manufacturers, as well as those of us who use them:

 

Is it time to abandon the Nikonos connector in favor of something more robust and iTTL/eTTL friendly?

 

1. Why do we continue to use Nikonos 5-pin connectors? I assume only because of legacy. They are hard to register properly, and pins break too easily.

2. Canon eTTL requires 6 pins, as far as I know, so already there is reason to change, assuming their eTTL code is being cracked. Below is the male 6-pin connector Seacam is now using for their Seaflash 250 installations but obviously it requires the female port on the housing. This is for example only.

 

It would be very convenient, perhaps utopian, if all our strobe manufacturers and housing vendors would standardize on a 6-pin connector system that would be more reliable in the field and provide technological expansion to better facilitate digital TTL.

 

I'd love to hear from Ike, as he and his electronics wizards are very savvy on this issue. Plus, I suspect they too have little love for the Nikonos synch port. Also, any other manufacturer's reps that may choose to weigh in. If there is grassroots support among users, maybe that will convince the manufacturers of a need to standardize.

 

Perhaps this is the right venue to open dialog?

[Steve Simonsen 0]

In my years of underwater photography I have come to know that I must carry and keep in my stock several Nikonos sync cords because eventually I'll need to replace the one or two that I'm using at the moment. I use Ikelite cords also and don't need to replace them as often. I'm all for asking that the industry to standardize the camera/housing flash connection. I'm also very content not using TTL at all.

 

Steve Simonsen

 

Thanks Stephan

[james 0]

Steve,

 

Thanks for starting this post!

 

In my recent experience, I've flooded two Nikonos bulkheads. Both were pinched/extruded o-rings, even though they were carefully greased and pressed into place. With one of the flooded bulkheads, I was able to clean it out and dry it w/ alcohol, but one of the spring pins would not spring back out. Luckily, I shoot manual, so didn't need that pin. The second flood, I broke off one of the pins while trying to dry out the bulkhead :-( That's all too easy to do. This was either the fire or ground pin as that bulkhead is now useless.

 

I like the look of the connecter posted above as it looks like an Ike connector. I like the Ike connectors and have never flooded one.

 

Cheers

James

[Ryan 57]

The picture Stephen posted is of a Subtronic S6 connection, which has a good reputation in Europe. The o-rings live on the housing bulkhead, not the cord. Subtronic uses double o-rings to seal the connection, and a third o-ring to keep saltwater out of the threads. This isn't as complicated as it sounds, and eliminates the need to turn the housing upside down when taking off the cord (required by Sea & Sea, Ikelite for Nikon, and Nikonos Cords) I'm don't know if Seacam is building their own or OEMing them. Subal and Sealux both buy bulkheads from Subtronic, in either Nikonos or S6 form factors.

 

The pin layout of the subtronic is much like Ikelites, only there are six instead of five. The half circle of hard plastic makes it almost impossible to incorrectly align the connector and mash or bend pins.

 

The Ikelite connectors are as close to idiot proof as anything available. These Subtronics certainly look overengineered as well, but I have limited experience with them in actual use.

[StephenFrink 9]

The picture Stephen posted is of a Subtronic S6 connection, which has a good reputation in Europe.  The o-rings live on the housing bulkhead, not the cord.  Subtronic uses double o-rings to seal the connection, and a third o-ring to keep saltwater out of the threads.  This isn't as complicated as it sounds, and eliminates the need to turn the housing upside down when taking off the cord (required by Sea & Sea, Ikelite for Nikon, and Nikonos Cords)  I'm don't know if Seacam is building their own or OEMing them.  Subal and Sealux both buy bulkheads from Subtronic, in either Nikonos or S6 form factors.

 

The pin layout of the subtronic is much like Ikelites, only there are six instead of five.  The half circle of hard plastic makes it almost impossible to incorrectly align the connector and mash or bend pins.

 

The Ikelite connectors are as close to idiot proof as anything available.  These Subtronics certainly look overengineered as well, but I have limited experience with them in actual use.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I doubt whether it would be economically feasible for US manufacturers to buy from Subtronic, the dollar versus Euro being what it is, but there must be some reasonably priced aftermarket suppliers all could live with.

[kdietz 0]

Buy American.....I'm sure Ikelite would be happy to sell to Subtronic

 

Karl

[james 0]

I think Ikelite could easily incorporate another pin into their bulkheads for eTTL compatibility. Not sure if they'd want to though, as they've somehow managed to get it to work with 5 pins - but I digress.

 

Cheers

James

[herbko 0]

If you're going to redesign the whole thing; camera interface, link and strobe interface, use an optical fiber link. It makes no sense to use electrical cables for comunication in an underwater enviroment.

[Arnon_Ayal 1]

If you're going to redesign the whole thing; camera interface, link and strobe interface, use an optical fiber link. It makes no sense to use electrical cables for comunication in an underwater enviroment.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I think also that that is the way to go.

[james 0]

Yeah!

 

Er, maybe not. If you think fiber optic data transmission is reliable talk to the folks on my project who are trying to use them to monitor a subsea riser...

 

James

[herbko 0]

Yeah! 

 

Er, maybe not.  If you think fiber optic data transmission is reliable talk to the folks on my project who are trying to use them to monitor a subsea riser...

 

James

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

You think they would substitude an electrical cable in it's place?

[james 0]

Yes, most subsea controls are fiber optics these days, but they are multi-plexed. Use 4 and maybe one will work...:-)

[Jolly 3]

I think there are three kinds of established standards.

 

- Japanese way based on Nikonos V but with own plugs at the strobe end and own 6 pin version (Sea&Sea)

- US Ikelite bulkheads

- European N5 (two versions, original Nikonos V and modified with longer lasting static pins and better/double O-ring sealing, preventing those water drops falling into the bulkhead when removing the plug after diving and starting corrosion) and S6 (6 pins)

 

European N5 and S6 bulkheads are identical across manufactures over here. Subal, Seacam, Sealux, UK-Germany, etc. … all of them use the same and as far as I know, they even share the source to get them. But communication between manufactures wasn’t enough to standardise the wiring as well (S6 for Canon for example).

 

Julian

[herbko 0]

I think there are three kinds of established standards.

 

 

Julian

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Old joke: The best thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from.

 

Here's the one I like best.

 

http://inonamerica.com/products.php?produc...dcat=4&subcat=1

[james 0]

Herb,

 

Do you use one? It's still got a Nikonos bulkhead - but I guess you're asking for one of these built into the housing with a glass window to the fiber optic cables.

 

I wonder if it would work between a Heinrich's eTTL converter and an Inon strobe. That would be pretty nice.

 

Cheers

James

[herbko 0]

Herb,

 

Do you use one?  It's still got a Nikonos bulkhead - but I guess you're asking for one of these built into the housing with a glass window to the fiber optic cables. 

 

I wonder if it would work between a Heinrich's eTTL converter and an Inon strobe.  That would be pretty nice.

 

Cheers

James

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No. I've consider it, but it still has a Nikonos connector.

 

Yes. I do want one of these built into the housing.

[Ryan 57]

I was absolutely blown away by how accurate the Optical S-TTL exposure was in Inon's X2 housing for the 20d. From 2.8-22, the results where excellent. A little hot until you got around f5.6, but from there on up I was quite pleased.

 

Inon has tried many times to convince other manufacturers to integrate their optical connection, but has ran into a brick wall with everybody but a few japanese manufacturers (Zillion comes to mind).

[3@5 0]

ryan

is the optical connection in the x2 the same one as the one that herb mentioned here?

 

http://inonamerica.com/products.php?produc...dcat=4&subcat=1

 

/paul

[Paul Kay 65]

Stephen has stated what many of us must/should have thought for a long time! I have had more Nik5 socket than I like to remember over the years.

 

I try to persuade as many people as possible to go for S6 connectors but the world being what it is, most still opt for Nikonos! This may prove to be the biggest stumbling block to preventing any new standard being adopted. However....

 

I have added a Nikonos Socket - wired into the camera's PC flash socket to several housings which otherwise utilise S6 connectors. This is a useful 'halfway house' and perhaps initially persuading housing manufacturers to provide more socket holes would be a useful start as additional sockets could be added as desired to provide duality of connectors.

 

My own housing has three - two use S6 connectors, the third a Nikonos, but the third socket hole was originally intended for a remote release (S6). I can see further uses for S6 connectors - to connect into the Firewire/usb ports for remote capture or to allow external powerpacks to be used - the S6 looks robust enough for both applications...

 

So if anyone is interested, I think that the S6 flash socket hole is 10mm diameter and the thread pitch is 1mm, though this would need to be checked before anyone starts drilling!

[Pedda 0]

A standard would be great.

 

I would gladly skip the problems I hade to find a sync cord that would work with my Ike housing and Subtronic strobe. After some worrying and sweaty days I finally found Mike that custom made a sync cord for me.

 

But I guess that the guys/girls that makes the Nikonos V connectors will not have a happy day if a standard would be set.

[Poliwog 4]

Just to stir the pot a little more, lets make the new standard unplugable underwater with no adverse effects for either strobe or camera.

[herbko 0]

Just to stir the pot a little more, lets make the new standard unplugable underwater with no adverse effects for either strobe or camera.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Optical fibers have this property.

[drsteve 6]

I have been using the Heinrichs digital adapter with the optical feedthrough for my PT-015 housing. For those who are not familar with this particular setup, it has an optical transmitter which fits in the hot shoe and a optical receiver on the outside which connects to a wired Nikonos connector for connection to the strobe. It works quite well, but this concept could be taken even further. The optical receiver could be integrated into the strobe body. Then the one could use a an optical fiber to bring the signal to the strobe.

 

It would look alot like a traditional optical slave setup, but the protocol going down the fiber would be digital. I really like the idea of eliminating bulkhead feedthroughs in the housing. In fact, it should be possible to eliminate all of them except for a manual focus ring. Consider a waterproof button unit on the outside of the housing that converted button presses into a serial data stream that was transmitted optically through a window in the housing. On the inside a decoder could transmit the button presses to the camera thorugh the USB port. This would dramatically simplify the housing and make it more reliable. IMHO, the fewer orings the better. Now that I think of it, the manual focus ring could be eliminated the same way. Just put an external "focus" ring on the housing with a shaft encoder that transmitts its orientation to the camera similar to the buttons.

 

Similarly, I would love to have WIFI to transmit the image data through the housing to a laptop so that you wouldn't have to open the housing to download the images. Alternatively, this could be done optically as well, similar to the button transmission. Of course with the big CF cards that are available now, this is becoming less of an issue. I recently read about a 32Gb CF that Samsung developed. If we could couple all of this to an inductive charger for the batteries, you would only need to open the housing to change the lens or ports.

 

Of course, by the time you are down with all of these modifications, you could simplly hermetically seal the housing and Voila, no feedthroughs or moving parts! Of course you would need separate cameras for each lens, but hey its only money!

[Ryan 57]

ryan

is the optical connection in the x2 the same one as the one that herb mentioned here?

 

http://inonamerica.com/products.php?produc...dcat=4&subcat=1

 

/paul

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

No, the 20d flash is popped up, and the cable plugged into the top of the housing. The cable sees the flash through a clear window...

[Poliwog 4]

Actually I had been daydreaming about something similar to this the last few days.

 

The typical housing setup has two bulkhead adapters for two strobes, which are joined together inside the camera housing just before it attaches to the camera hot shoe. I was exploring the idea of joining the two strobe bulkheads into one in a Y shaped arrangement. I believe there are sync cord adapters available that do this now but only provide a slave function on the second strobe. What I would like is two separately wired strobes to exit the same bulkhead.

 

The second vacant bulkhead could now be used as a conduit for automatic white balances to be provided by an as-yet-undeveloped fiber optic apparatus of some sort.

 

This would be great for the D2x shooters, as there is a white balance sensor located on top of the pentaprism for this purpose. In aluminum housings this sensor is all but useless.

 

Hopefully someone in a research department will pick up on the idea and come up with a prototype or two.