Wetpixel Live: Foolproof Flash Firing

[adamhanlon 0]

One of the “dark arts” that are required when you are choosing and setting up your underwater camera is to get your camera and strobes to communicate with each other. Adam Hanlon and Alex Mustard address this on Wetpixel Live, describing the current methods available and suggesting some ideas that will help ensure that your flashes fire when you press the shutter.

 

 

 

 

Wetpixel Live is a series of discussions that aim to answer some of the questions that frequently crop up on the Wetpixel Forum. With over 20 episodes posted, and many more being created daily, they are a resource for all underwater photographers. Please subscribe to the Wetpixel Live channel to be informed when new episodes are posted.

[divengolf 17]

Adam,

just watched the video on strobe triggering options. You and Alex made a point of mentioning the expense involved buying backup cables as spares. There have been a few recent threads on WP about buying FO cable material directly and fabricating spares at a fraction of the cost of those sold by the strobe manufacturers. Understand that may be a sensitive subject given the support that manufacturers provide to WP, but for us FO users this is a very inexpensive way to carry spare cables.

just my. 2 psi worth.

PS > LOVE the live WP series. Only way to “get wet “ these days.

Harry O’Neil

[adamhanlon 0]

Hi Harry,

Great to hear form you and hope you are staying safe and healthy. Thank you for your kind comments.

I have also tried to make my own FO cables, but have had mixed results. I am sure that those that are more mechanically adept may be able to do a better job than I, but I have reverted to buying them because I got tired of missing shots because my home made ones were funky!

While they seem expensive for what they are, compared to the expense of other gear and of travel to exotic places to use it, they are actually a relatively small proportion of the total expenditure. I would rather ensure that I get the shot!

Adam

[Lewis88 12]

On 7/17/2020 at 6:56 AM, divengolf said:

Adam,

just watched the video on strobe triggering options. You and Alex made a point of mentioning the expense involved buying backup cables as spares. There have been a few recent threads on WP about buying FO cable material directly and fabricating spares at a fraction of the cost of those sold by the strobe manufacturers. Understand that may be a sensitive subject given the support that manufacturers provide to WP, but for us FO users this is a very inexpensive way to carry spare cables.

just my. 2 psi worth.

PS > LOVE the live WP series. Only way to “get wet “ these days.

Harry O’Neil

I switched to getting my FO cables from amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MCGWLBW/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o06_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

For $25, I can get 2-3 cables for the price of a single "branded" cable and they work identically. 

[davehicks 89]

That's still over $50 for a pair of cables.  It makes a lot of sense to just buy 5 meters of 2mm fiber for less than $20 and be set for years.  I reuse the connectors from my old, dead, branded cables and drill them out to install the new fiber with a drop of glue.  If you want to be fancy you can also get connectors with little hex nut screws that make them plug and play.

I like this approach because I have lots of spare fiber to use for replacement or repair.  It's super reliable in my experience.  The few times I've had a problem I just clip an inch off the end of the cable and re-attach.   And if that doesn't work I have the spares.

[Kraken de Mabini 168]

What Dave Hicks says makes perfect sense and fully agrees with my experience.
My commercial fiber optic cables were expensive, delicate, and would break or catch their coil on something and get lost in the middle of a dive.

For the past 8 years or so I have made my own with Toslink cable, at a cost of under $5 per pair. For security during a dive, I thread the cables through the strobe ball arms, to keep them from getting lost. I also carry spares as they are feather weight. Toslink cables from Amazon or eBay, 3 to 4 mm o.d., have fired the strobes every time with several makes of cameras and housings and 4 models of Inon and 5 of Sea&Sea strobes.

https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/60564-diy-fiber-optic-writeup-with-parts/

 

 

 

Edited July 21, 2020 by Kraken de Mabini

[ChrisRoss 150]

I have purchased cables and I've also rigged up a cable when I forget mine on a trip using a premade toslink from an electronics store.  I like the premade up INON ends that bolt together - they are not super expensive.   Trimming the moulded toslink connectors a little with a sharp knife and they are a good fit in S&S style fibre optic port plugs.

In reality the choice comes down to whether or not you like to make stuff yourself,  like (or are prepared to) do the research to find a good supplier in your area and if you are "good" at it and to a lesser extent your triggering method and type of flash. 

Any fibre and an INON strobe triggered by an onboard flash will work for manual triggering.  TTL is a little bit trickier sometimes.  Triggering a S&S YS-D2 in TTL from an LED trigger will be the fussiest.  There are many threads on wetpixel relating to TTL triggering difficulties on YS-D2 in particular that were solved by changing to the recommended 613 core cables.  I noticed the Amazon cables are 217 core versions.