Help with slave strobe

[nebtheconfused 0]

Hi,

 

I'm after a bit of help, Im using a fairly basic P&S digtal compact Panasonic DMC-FS3 to be exact.

 

I've just got a second hand Ikelite substrobe AQ/S off ebay, it seems to work, but is very encrusted with salt so will be to be stripped down and cleaned / greased up before it goes in the water.

 

The problem i have is that although i can see the slave flash fire (and i'm still seeing purple spots!) the flash isn't showing up in the camera.

 

The camera is very basic in what i can change, but according to the screen the following has been set.

 

Single flash (no red eye / preflash)

1/60

f 2.8

iso 100

 

There is no gap that i can see between the 2 flashes, and definatly only one flash is coming from the camera, so unless the slave is just too slow i'm not sure..

 

If i use the camera to take a longer exposure 5secs + in a blacked out room and maually trigger the slave then the shot is fine (if blurry).

 

Any ideas on how to make it work? or do i just except that the 2 wont work together and put the strobe back on ebay?

 

Thanks.

[nebtheconfused 0]

I may have just answered my own question.

 

After using another camera to record the flash sequence i can see that the FS3 is actually firing 2 flashes, just too fast for me to see with the naked eye.

 

The substrobe is being triggered on the first flash, then obviously not on the second flash. There is nothing in the menus i can find for turning this second flash off on the camera.

 

Now to try and find out how to either

 

1. pull the flash apart and find a way to delay the trigger by a tiny amount, so that although triggered off that first flash it will actually fire in time for the second. captured at 30fps i had 1 white out frame, one normal frame, one not so whited out frame, then blacked out for several frames.

 

2. rip out the guts of the flash and replace with a land flash using the water proof housing.

 

oh well it WAS a very cheap flash, so i may as well play!

Edited December 21, 2009 by nebtheconfused

[ce4jesus 1]

All digital compacts have an invisible preflash. This preflash is a feeler for the camera to determine the internal settings needed for the photo. You can only turn this off if the flash settings have a manual mode. Most do not. Most digital underwater strobes have an ignore feature that tells the strobe to ignore the first flash and fire on the 2nd. Other strobes get even more sophisticated. The AQ/S I believe was designed for manual film cameras.