What are the best E-TTL capable strobes?

I am getting back into UW photography after not doing it for a while. I'm going to switch to digital and use the Canon 5D, with both macro (50mm & 105mm) and wide angle (14, 15FE, 20, 35) lenses. I am looking for housings at the moment and started a thread that is running right now. I am leaning toward an Aquatica housing (I also have them for Nikon film cameras).

I have some manual Ikelite strobes from 10 years ago, which still work and are one viable option. I know a lot of people prefer manual, and I may keep using them. However, I am interested in considering upgrading to E-TTL compatible strobes.

I will probably get two strobes - either two identical ones or perhaps one smaller than the other (if the converters etc will handle that).

There sems to a lot of confusion (or maybe it just me) between what products are compatable, as well as what is best made product, most reliable etc.

Up on land, Canon E-TTL II in the most recent cameras (1Ds Mark II and 5D) works reasonably well. Third party manufacturers make compatible flash units. Everything is (relatively) simple.

However, underwater things seem to be very different. Manufacturers seem to make E-TTL II compatible UW flashes, BUT they seem to require adapter circuit boards, or separate adapters. It is unclear to me why this is so, but it seems to be. Part of this might be that the flash cords that many companies use are made to be Nikonos compatible, and that might conflict with some of the signalling, but I am not sure this is really why (not that it matters).

The flashes also SEEM to be specific to various housings (which makes little sense to me). The housing is just that - a housing, so it is unclear why it should effect the electronics signals (it shoud just pass them out to the flash.

Here is what I have figured out so far - please correct any mistakes.

Ikelite makes some E-TTL II capable strobes. The DS-200 is both powerful and has wide angle of coverage. This is probably overkill for macro but would be useful for wide angle (where E-TTL is less useful, but the flash could be done manually then). DS-125 is smaller and also supposedly works with E-TTL.

HOWEVER, Ikelite only seems to promote the use of their E-TTL strobes with their housings.

They do claim that their optical flash slave will allow TTL compatibility with Ikelite flashes, but I wonder how well that will work - and besides that only helps for the second flash. HeinrichsWeikamp also has a unit like that.

With the Aquatica housing I am told that I can either get an E-TTL converter circuit board installed in the housing, for example the HeinrichsWeikamp TTL Converter Mark II. The HW website claims that it works with a lot of flashes. However, I am not sure where I can get one - it says for OEM use primarily. I assume that there is a way to get this installed in an Aquatica housing?? I am not sure if there are other converter boards besides HW.

OR, I could use an external Sea & Sea TTL converter. The official information seems to suggest that it only works with their strobes and their housings. Is that the case? In a thread on the housings forum there is a posting about which Sea & Sea flashes it is compatible with (not all of them, apparently) but no idea on other manufacturers.

Up on land, I often use multiple flash units slaved together to provide fill. With Canon flashes you can adjust the ratio of light between multiple flashes in E-TTL II. I am not sure this is possible with any of these set ups, but it clearly would be a good idea. UW I would plan on getting two flashes, and I would like to adjust the amount of light from each one - also to get fill etc. Do the various TTL converters allow that??

Finally, after all of the compatibility issues are sorted out there is a question of which strobes are best. Clearly that is somewhat subjective and I am sure that there are many that work. Neveretheless I have to choose so I need suggestions.

Macro and wide angle are of course quite different in their needs. Ideally I would start with fairly versitle set up. With film cameras I eventually had two housings and two camera set ups. I will probably do that again, but want to start with something very capable and versitile.

Nathan

Hi Nathan,

If you're set on Aquatica then your choice is pretty simple:

1) Get an Aquatica dealer to install a Heinrich's converter in the housing for you. I don't know if this also requires the replacement of the flash bulkheads with S6 bulkheads. I don't think it does. Buy fast-preflash capable strobes like the new Sea and Sea units, Ikelite units, or Inon's.

2) Buy an external Sea and Sea ttl converter. This thing has a Heinrich's converter built in I belive (I could be wrong). Get appropriate bulkheads installed in the Aquatica housing to use the converter. See strobe advice above and compatibility list.

3) Get S6 bulkheads installed in your Aquatica housing and buy Seacam ettl flashes like their 250's. These are supposed to be quite good and quite expensive. I believe they too have Heinrich's circuits installed inside.

Cheers

James

...snip...

3) Get S6 bulkheads installed in your Aquatica housing and buy Seacam ettl flashes like their 250's. These are supposed to be quite good and quite expensive. I believe they too have Heinrich's circuits installed inside.

 

Cheers

James

the seacam flashes are not using the heinrich circuit. seacam developped their own circuitry both for nikon's ittl and for canon's ettl.

Ikelite makes some E-TTL II capable strobes. The DS-200 is both powerful and has wide angle of coverage. This is probably overkill for macro but would be useful for wide angle (where E-TTL is less useful, but the flash could be done manually then). DS-125 is smaller and also supposedly works with E-TTL.

 

HOWEVER, Ikelite only seems to promote the use of their E-TTL strobes with their housings.

Ikelite provides circuitry that emulates ettl II in their housings. this circuitry only works with ikelite strobes such as the ds 200, however that does not mean that the strobes are ettl ii capable. all this means is that they can be driven by ikelite's ettl ii emulation circuitry.

as james said the options available if you want ettl II in an aquatica housing are:

- have a heinrich circuit installed by your aquatica dealer (they get them oem and install them for you - a number of the sponsors of wetpixel will do that for you) and then you can use a large array of strobes (you will need to check his site for compatibility but i don't think that 10 year old strobes will be on the list)

- get an external sea and sea adapter and use the strobes that are compatible with that (check with your dealer for the list, also there's a thread here on wetpixel that talks about compatibility for that adapter)

- get s6 synch ports on your housing and use a housed 580ex or 550ex and then use as a slave strobe one that has s-ttl like capability (inon z220 or 240 or s&s ys 110)

- get s6 synch ports on your housing and get the seacam 250digital strobes, expensive but it seems likes it's a great strobe. i also heard in antibes that seacam is considering making them in a smaller case with REMOVABLE batteries s6 is synch ports that has 6 connexions as native ettl requires these to be fully functional.

hth

/paul

"- get s6 synch ports on your housing and use a housed 580ex or 550ex and then use as a slave strobe one that has s-ttl like capability (inon z220 or 240 or s&s ys 110)"

Just to add to Paul's useful advice, as far as I am aware you cannot twin up two of Canon's own flash units for underwater use (I have been asked about this).

- get s6 synch ports on your housing and get the seacam 250digital strobes, expensive but it seems likes it's a great strobe.

I recently received my seaflash 250 and it is excellent.

Switchable colour temp is nice 4300k or 5200k, S6 connectors are very secure, and it is very simple. good range of manual settings, and the TTL exposure is very accurate in circumstances that you would expect it to be. LED pilot light is good for focus and aiming, can be set to come on automatically only when the camera needs assistance with focus if you want. Very good wide coverage 120degrees. 2 up with Canon (ettl) is OK out of the box, nikon ittl 2 up needs special circuitry available from seacam.

As with all add ons to your housing, maybe check the materials are compatible and won't cause corrosion somewhere unexpected.

It is big, it is heavy, and it is not cheap. The second one will have to wait for a while....

...snip...

 

It is big, it is heavy, and it is not cheap. The second one will have to wait for a while....

thanks for the update it's good to know it is living up to its weight and cost

oh well it's gonna have to wait for a while more, too many trips to go on this year...

/paul

Just to add to Paul's useful advice, as far as I am aware you cannot twin up two of Canon's own flash units for underwater use (I have been asked about this).

Paul - I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you should absolutely be able to link Canon's flash units underwater. Granted, only one (the master) will be physically wired to the housing (if you meant corded by 'twin up', then I agree with your statement), but the other, set to slave, should manage to pickup the IR signal and operate in eTTL2 or manual.

A six-wire sync cord is required for eTTL/2 of course, and possible issues include the IR signal not reaching the second strobe...this could be alleviated in a similar fashion to how Marc Furth's dual SB-800s are setup - with an optical pickup that runs to the slave housing.

I haven't found many housing options for the 580ex or similar, however.

Sorry, you are right, I did mean "if you meant corded by 'twin up'!

And what about Subal housings? Is it possible to use Ikelite DS-125 (2pcs) with the ND20 (D200) housing? Is there or will there be and extra circuit board for this? I wonder in total darkness, help...

zook

Paul - I'm going to go out on a limb here and say you should absolutely be able to link Canon's flash units underwater. Granted, only one (the master) will be physically wired to the housing (if you meant corded by 'twin up', then I agree with your statement), but the other, set to slave, should manage to pickup the IR signal and operate in eTTL2 or manual.

 

A six-wire sync cord is required for eTTL/2 of course, and possible issues include the IR signal not reaching the second strobe...this could be alleviated in a similar fashion to how Marc Furth's dual SB-800s are setup - with an optical pickup that runs to the slave housing.

 

I haven't found many housing options for the 580ex or similar, however.

Matt; As far as I know using the 580ex UW, you'll only have one strobe operating in eTTL.

Fantasea does offer both a nice 580ex housing that includes a 6 pin sync cord. We also have a 6 pin dual adapter, but I don't think you'll have but 1 strobe in eTTL. (If anyone has tried this let me know). A cheaper option is to just run an optical sync cord as you stated above. IR doesn't work UW...

Jack

Matt; As far as I know using the 580ex UW, you'll only have one strobe operating in eTTL.

Setting the primary (S6-sync cord connected) 580ex to 'Master' and the secondary to 'Slave' will allow you to use both in eTTL2 mode, or switch either to manual, etc, but it does require that the signal sent from the primary 580ex be received by the second flash unit.

Hmm, I just asked Howard and he thought it would only be one strobe in TTL with the dual adapter (#6195). Isn't the signal as you describe above an IR signal? Or is it off the 6th pin?

Jack

IR - which is why you need the optical cable from the master 580ex housing to the slave 580ex housing.

And what about Subal housings? Is it possible to use Ikelite DS-125 (2pcs) with the ND20 (D200) housing? Is there or will there be and extra circuit board for this? I wonder in total darkness, help...

 

zook

Ikelite strobes only work in iTTL or eTTL with Ikelite housings. To use a third party housing you would need something like the Sea&Sea TTL converter:

http://www.seaandsea.jp/products/digital_s...xd200/acce.html

There are versions for Nikon and Canon, but I'm not sure if they work with Ikelite strobes (probably only with Sea&Sea).

Luiz

And what about Subal housings? Is it possible to use Ikelite DS-125 (2pcs) with the ND20 (D200) housing? Is there or will there be and extra circuit board for this? I wonder in total darkness, help...

 

zook

Mathias's strobe circuit will work with the D125 strobes at least one of them. Ryan at Reef can install it for you

Bill

- get s6 synch ports on your housing and use a housed 580ex or 550ex and then use as a slave strobe one that has s-ttl like capability (inon z220 or 240 or s&s ys 110)

/paul

I know this is an old thread but I just bought a setup where I have a fantasea housing with a canon XTI and a 580EX flash plus housing. I am very confused as to which strobe i should use as a optical slave. Does anyone have experience using an optical slave with the 580EX (other than having to use two 580Exs which is very pricy). Another question is do I even need a second strobe? would i get good results just with the 580EX? I want to do both macro and wide angle.

Thanks