follow up on iTTL converter

As promised, I am reporting back on my use of the Sea & Sea iTTL converter II. I just returned from a Bali to Sarong, 1300 mile, 37 dive, and two week trip on the Kararo Voyager. My rig consisted of the Sea Cam D2X and two Inon 240’s. I shot both Macro and Wide angle ( 10.5 ). The Sea & Sea Converter II was used on all dives. I have 10 years experience with film ( about 5 with a housed camera, using TTL ) and another two years with digital shooting all manual.

In summary, the system preformed flawlessly in over 40 hours of underwater use, despite the fact that the converters yellow warning light was on @ all times. Absolutely no detectable corrosion or electrolysis occurred. The Sea Cam housing has a metal camera mounting plate, a 5 pin hotshoe connector, and twin metal strobe bulkheads. It also has two Zink anodes to prevent corrosion I changed batteries once on the converter, mid trip, just as a precaution. The exposures were dead on during Macro, despite highly varied subjects. I went from mostly white Nudies, Blue ring Octopus, Sea snake close ups and mating Mandarin fish at dusk with only minor “tuning†needed with the easy to use Compensation dial. I shot most macros @ 27 to 45 f stop and a 250 speed. Fish and snakes were mostly at f stops of 8 to 12 and a 125 speed. I always shot manual camera settings. The exposures were also surprisingly good for balanced lighting, forced prospective, wide angle. I kept the camera on manual and balanced speed and aperture, to control for the varied sun position. I left the flash on TTL for most shots. When I was not satisfied, as TTL does not work the best in all situations, it was very easy to switch to manual. Unfortunately, I have to report it still does not perform magic. I was hoping !!!

I can say that it greatly simplified my exposure worries, and let me concentrate more on composition and strobe placement. The converter was an excellent addition to my system and gave me one more option to use. Now I shot TTL as a standard and only switch to manual strobes when needed.

Thanks for the positive report.

Is this the first unit you have tried? If so, great, it means the bugs have been worked out somewhat.

After trying three other Sea and Sea TTL converters (2 were dead out of the box and one didn't work after a few shots), anyway on my 4th converter now it does work. I took it off the housing, (because of the unit's weight), for I am mainly doing w/a now and I found it useless for shallow water manatee and springs in Florida. But as you said that is a difficult situation for any TTL and there are no magic solutions, unfortunately!

I'm looking forward to putting the unit back on the housing when I start shooting macro or deeper w/a again. It did work pretty well in tests I did with it and the 105 nearly a month ago.

Again thanks for the positive report on the converter!

Best, Carol

Malodiver, interesting report. Glad you had good trip in Indonesia. Interesting that you mentioned the light stayed yellow. Was that even after you changed the battery? I forgot to replace my battery on a week trip to Palau last month and got the constant yellow light after the 1st-2nd day. I'm pretty sure the TTL wasn't working properly as recall getting very inconsistant output on some straight forward macro shots and had to revert to shooting in manual. (Mind you this unit has worked flawlessly for a number of trips before) When I got back, once I replaced the battery, the green light was back...

Malodiver, interesting report. Glad you had good trip in Indonesia. Interesting that you mentioned the light stayed yellow. Was that even after you changed the battery? I forgot to replace my battery on a week trip to Palau last month and got the constant yellow light after the 1st-2nd day. I'm pretty sure the TTL wasn't working properly as recall getting very inconsistant output on some straight forward macro shots and had to revert to shooting in manual. (Mind you this unit has worked flawlessly for a number of trips before) When I got back, once I replaced the battery, the green light was back...

It was yellow the entire trip on my rig and my wife's rig when underwater and green above water. I'm not sure what that ment except I detected no corrosion or malfuntion in over 80 hours of use with our two systems?

Jack

It was yellow the entire trip on my rig and my wife's rig when underwater and green above water. I'm not sure what that ment except I detected no corrosion or malfuntion in over 80 hours of use with our two systems?

 

Jack

thanks Jack. interesting. when my indicator went to orange, it stayed orange (u/w, topside, switching on and off, etc..) until I put a new battery in.