Value of TTL for Non-Macro Work?

[DynamicDivers 1]

I'm curious how much benefit there is to TTL for NON-MACRO shooting. (I just never really got into Macro). I mostly shoot larger sea life and underwater portraiture that is sometimes rapid-fire and fast moving (e.g., kids jumping into pools or people swimming at me). It seems like TTL is most beneficial to Macro, but I can't find much info on whether it's helpful on portraiture... I've been looking seriously at buying Ikelite DS160/161 strobes (I have an Ikelite housing for my Canon 5DS). I'm not afraid of shooting strobes on manual, (I was a 'strobist' back in the day with my dry setup) but I'm thinking of workflow and speed of achieving quality images when I have fast moving subjects, like a splashing toddler, or that harbor seal that just zoomed into frame...

So the question is this: will I find that Ikelite TTL is the best thing since sliced bread when I'm shooting portraits and large fast moving sea life/humans? Or will I likely just be resorting to manual anyway?   My alternate strobe would be the Inon-Z330 II, which seems to have much more power, better spread, a smaller/lighter and significantly less expensive package... BUT will be losing TTL.  Thoughts?

[TimG 62]

Hi DynamicDivers

I was always a big fan of TTL with macro going back to the days of the Nikon D300 and using a Heinrich Weikamp TTL controller with Inon Z240 strobes. It worked really well. I usually used it too for wide-angle and, for the most part, that worked well too.

I switched to Retra strobes 18 months ago and have found I use TTL much less. Certainly for wide angle I almost now never use TTL. A couple of test exposures at the beginning of a dive and I then have the ambient light setting about right - then using the strobes as fill-ins or to highlight a particular section of the reef. I really don't miss TTL.

For portrait shooting, I think you would operate the same, get the ambient exposure levels right and then playing around with the strobe setting to get the right level of fill.  It'd probably take a bit of experimentation to know what works best for your particular system but once you have worked that out, I doubt you'd miss TTL that much. 

[Interceptor121 707]

7 hours ago, DynamicDivers said:

I'm curious how much benefit there is to TTL for NON-MACRO shooting. (I just never really got into Macro). I mostly shoot larger sea life and underwater portraiture that is sometimes rapid-fire and fast moving (e.g., kids jumping into pools or people swimming at me). It seems like TTL is most beneficial to Macro, but I can't find much info on whether it's helpful on portraiture... I've been looking seriously at buying Ikelite DS160/161 strobes (I have an Ikelite housing for my Canon 5DS). I'm not afraid of shooting strobes on manual, (I was a 'strobist' back in the day with my dry setup) but I'm thinking of workflow and speed of achieving quality images when I have fast moving subjects, like a splashing toddler, or that harbor seal that just zoomed into frame...

So the question is this: will I find that Ikelite TTL is the best thing since sliced bread when I'm shooting portraits and large fast moving sea life/humans? Or will I likely just be resorting to manual anyway?   My alternate strobe would be the Inon-Z330 II, which seems to have much more power, better spread, a smaller/lighter and significantly less expensive package... BUT will be losing TTL.  Thoughts?

As a land photographer I rarely use TTL for wide angle shots and in fact not even for portraits. Most work is done with remote triggers and off camera strobes. You don't really beam anybody with a flash

TTL is linked to camera metering and this is something that is the problem. In order to expose your target well you need to use spot metering however your target is not usually middle grey so you need to compensate the exposure

After all shooting in manual is better unless you are doing fish id flat type of shots

[ChrisRoss 150]

It's not just Ikelite TTL that needs to play a part but also the Canon TTL as the Ikelite TTL is just interpreting what your camera tells it to do.  Having said that TTL with Ikelite seems to have a good reputation.  On the subject of strobes comparing published guide numbers is not the whole story,  the evenness and quality of the light varies.  Backscatter tested strobes back in 2018 and the Z330/YS-D2 were very bright on axis but dropped rapidly.  The Z330 needs it's diffuser but you may get away with a diffuser on the circular flash tube of the DS-161.  Here's the tes from 2018:  https://web.archive.org/web/20181116110548/https://www.backscatter.com/reviews/post/Best-Underwater-Strobe-Flash

If the action is fast and variable, you can shoot ambient if you are shallow and re-balance light in post.  You can also re-balance the light in post if the strobe is a little under powered, not as good as getting it right  first up but it can produce pretty good results.  Whether TTL gets it right in this sort of work depends on a lot of things including size and orientation of your subject.  TTL won't necessarily be repeatable as your subject size changes it may cause the TTL system to change strobe output, but manual will allow you to be sure that the strobe power goes up or down when you want it to.

[stuartv 32]

11 hours ago, DynamicDivers said:

I'm curious how much benefit there is to TTL for NON-MACRO shooting. (I just never really got into Macro). I mostly shoot larger sea life and underwater portraiture that is sometimes rapid-fire and fast moving (e.g., kids jumping into pools or people swimming at me). It seems like TTL is most beneficial to Macro, but I can't find much info on whether it's helpful on portraiture... I've been looking seriously at buying Ikelite DS160/161 strobes (I have an Ikelite housing for my Canon 5DS). I'm not afraid of shooting strobes on manual, (I was a 'strobist' back in the day with my dry setup) but I'm thinking of workflow and speed of achieving quality images when I have fast moving subjects, like a splashing toddler, or that harbor seal that just zoomed into frame...

So the question is this: will I find that Ikelite TTL is the best thing since sliced bread when I'm shooting portraits and large fast moving sea life/humans? Or will I likely just be resorting to manual anyway?   My alternate strobe would be the Inon-Z330 II, which seems to have much more power, better spread, a smaller/lighter and significantly less expensive package... BUT will be losing TTL.  Thoughts?

 

Why are you saying you'll lose the TTL option if you use Inon Z330 II strobes? You're using an Ikelite strobe trigger and it doesn't support TTL for the Inon strobes? Is there no option for a different trigger that would support TTL for Inon?

[TimG 62]

1 minute ago, stuartv said:

Why are you saying you'll lose the TTL option if you use Inon Z330 II strobes? You're using an Ikelite strobe trigger and it doesn't support TTL for the Inon strobes? Is there no option for a different trigger that would support TTL for Inon?

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Is there not a trigger mechanism that you can get?

[DynamicDivers 1]

1 hour ago, TimG said:

Yeah, I thought the same thing. Is there not a trigger mechanism that you can get?

Per Ikelite's site: "Non-Ikelite strobes are not capable of powering or communicating with our TTL electronics. SEA&SEA, INON, and Nikonos strobes support manual exposure only."

https://www.ikelite.com/blogs/faq/common-questions-about-strobe-firing-ttl-and-sync-speeds

[DynamicDivers 1]

1 hour ago, stuartv said:

 

Why are you saying you'll lose the TTL option if you use Inon Z330 II strobes? You're using an Ikelite strobe trigger and it doesn't support TTL for the Inon strobes? Is there no option for a different trigger that would support TTL for Inon?

See above... Short answer: no.

[stuartv 32]

1 minute ago, DynamicDivers said:

Per Ikelite's site: "Non-Ikelite strobes are not capable of powering or communicating with our TTL electronics. SEA&SEA, INON, and Nikonos strobes support manual exposure only."

https://www.ikelite.com/blogs/faq/common-questions-about-strobe-firing-ttl-and-sync-speeds

 

Right. The question is whether you could replace the Ikelite TTL electronics with something else - like UWT - that would let you use TTL with Inon strobes.

 

[stuartv 32]

1 minute ago, DynamicDivers said:

See above... Short answer: no.

Ah. That is ... unfortunate.

Personally, I hate that kind of thing. I would be replacing the Ikelite housing, so I was not locked into their strobes or limited features from others. But, that's just me.

[stuartv 32]

Also, to address the original question ... well, I can't, exactly, as I have not done any shooting with TTL. 

But, I have set myself up to be able to and, now that my setup seems to finally be working correctly, I'm going to start experimenting with it.

TTL seems of pretty limited use for macro - to me. For macro, the distance to the subject seems to generally be very static. I can position my strobes and adjust their settings manually and (generally) not be worried about missing my shot.

Where TTL seems like it would be most useful is for shooting wide angle - for moving subjects. Without TTL, my most common issue is shooting a moving shark. My strobes are either set to give good exposure when it's further away and, if it keeps coming closer, it starts getting blown out. Or, they are set to catch it up really close, but then the frames where it is a little further away are underexposed.

I am looking forward to a time when I can shoot an approaching shark and the strobes (with TTL) automatically adjust so I get good (or better, anyway) exposures during the whole approach. So I can just concentrate on operating my lens zoom and framing.

[Barmaglot 226]

My first strobes were SeaFrogs ST-100 Pros, which offered only TTL functionality with optical triggering, so that's what I used, with my Sony A6300 camera pop-up flash (also TTL-only) driving them. It actually worked surprisingly well, rarely overexposing things, and underexposing generally only there wasn't enough power to light the scene. When I upgraded to Retra Flash Pros and a UWT trigger driving them, I was a bit disappointed to see TTL actually take a step back - it was underexposing most of the time - but I found manual operation quite easy to get used to, and more flexible in creative control overall.

[stuartv 32]

11 minutes ago, Barmaglot said:

My first strobes were SeaFrogs ST-100 Pros, which offered only TTL functionality with optical triggering, so that's what I used, with my Sony A6300 camera pop-up flash (also TTL-only) driving them. It actually worked surprisingly well, rarely overexposing things, and underexposing generally only there wasn't enough power to light the scene. When I upgraded to Retra Flash Pros and a UWT trigger driving them, I was a bit disappointed to see TTL actually take a step back - it was underexposing most of the time - but I found manual operation quite easy to get used to, and more flexible in creative control overall.

Were you not able to make it expose correctly more consistently using an Exposure Compensation adjustment on the camera (or the strobes)?

I guess I'm asking, is the TTL with the UWT and Retras completely useless? Or does it just require some unexpected adjustments, but then it will work well enough to be useable?

[Barmaglot 226]

45 minutes ago, stuartv said:

Were you not able to make it expose correctly more consistently using an Exposure Compensation adjustment on the camera (or the strobes)? 

I guess I'm asking, is the TTL with the UWT and Retras completely useless? Or does it just require some unexpected adjustments, but then it will work well enough to be useable? 

I'm not sure - even when I set exposure compensation in the camera to +3 and twisted the left knob on both strobes all the way clockwise, the shots were coming out somewhat dark. I didn't play around with it too much though; after a few attempts I went full manual and haven't looked back since.

[stuartv 32]

3 minutes ago, Barmaglot said:

I'm not sure - even when I set exposure compensation in the camera to +3 and twisted the left knob on both strobes all the way clockwise, the shots were coming out somewhat dark. I didn't play around with it too much though; after a few attempts I went full manual and haven't looked back since.

Hmmm... it seems like there must be some trick that you didn't find. Or, it could be some "feature" of the particular camera/strobe combo you are using.

I am looking forward to some time (someday!) to really experiment with mine and see if I can get it to work reasonably well. I think it *would* be really handy for some WA scenarios - if it worked well.

[Barmaglot 226]

1 minute ago, stuartv said:

Hmmm... it seems like there must be some trick that you didn't find. Or, it could be some "feature" of the particular camera/strobe combo you are using.

Quite possible; maybe I should just dedicate a dive or two to playing around with it - but most of the time, I'm just too busy taking actual photos

[ChrisRoss 150]

The success or otherwise of using TTL is down as much to camera coping with metering flash for UW shots as it is the strobe TTL electronics interpreting what the camera tells it to do.   Some camera TTL systems don't seem to cope well with UW scenes.

As for exposure compensation on the strobe itself that is an odd beast as in theory the strobe needs to predict how strong a flash the camera is going to emit without actually communicating with the camera - at least for fibre optics.  To do this what the strobe does is read the main flash signal, then use a look up table to work out how to adjust the output to brighter or dimmer and then emit the right length of pulse.  This can result in problems like for example it may not sync properly at higher shutter speeds, due to the delay from waiting for the pulse to end and using the look up table before triggering.  A better approach should be to have the camera electronics boost the output using flash exposure compensation, but as you have noted the camera still doesn't choose to put out enough light.  I believe it's very camera dependent. 

Part of the problem is probably that the camera already thinks there is enough ambient light at the shutter speed/aperture ISO combo chosen so winds back flash output, to try to avoid blowing highlights.  But it really depends on the complex electronics and logic used in the TTL system which was not developed with UW shooting in mind.

On the ikelite TTL question, it should indeed be possible to use an UWT flash trigger to talk to an INON or other non-ikelite strobe.  The only issue will be that you will need to find somewhere to mount the trigger, they are generally designed to mount to pre existing holes in housings that may not be present in the ikelite housing and being bare circuit boards you probably don't want to leave them flopping around inside.