Above Water Strobe Test

Is the "shoot in the mirror" test the best way to see if an optical slave is firing properly?

I have a YS-110 hard-wired via sync cord and a YS-27dx that will be firing as a slave.

If I set it up and shoot at the mirror and they both fire am I good to go? Does the highly reflective mirror make it "too easy" for the optical slave to pick up the light? In theory, are slaves triggered by direct light from the primary or the reflected light off the subject?

Would I be better off shooting in a dark room at a big white wall and looking for the strobe patterns?

Thanks in advance!

i would think the dark room and white wall would be a better reflection of underwater than a mirror. But, thats just a guess no matter how you look at it. I would say there is not substitute to taking it down. If it worked in the mirror then it works, but you won't know if it works properly until you get to dive with it. Its tough to wait with new toys isn't it?!

i would think the dark room and white wall would be a better reflection of underwater than a mirror. But, thats just a guess no matter how you look at it. I would say there is not substitute to taking it down. If it worked in the mirror then it works, but you won't know if it works properly until you get to dive with it. Its tough to wait with new toys isn't it?!

Killing me! Tonight will be "wall test" once the wife goes to bed ... may have to call the local dive school where I got certified and try get some pool time ... my son's heavy dinosaurs make great macro pool models ...

the mirror test is so you can 'see' both flashes are active, which might be a bit harder to tell from a white wall...but you dont have to stand right next to it, where the reflection path is much closer to the direct, so you don't know if your controller is aimed right. Stand pretty far away, say the other side of teh room. Then for the slave controller to be misaimed enough it's using the mirror not the direct scatter, it'd have to be off by like 90 degrees...

I'd think underwater the slave will be triggered by 'direct' light since there should be enough scatter around the strobe's immediate vicinity to create a fuzzball effect, even if the strobe was a fairly tightly focused 'beam'. It's not like these strobes have big side shields or cowlings like lens hoods on them. I wouldn't think you'd want the slave fired by reflected light from the subject because in theory that's what TTL would be using to quench with, so having a second strobe fire as the first was quenching would be counterproductive.

Disclaimer: not an expert. Probably not even good enough to be considered a novice.

I did three sets of basic tests to see how the optical slave worked.

** Big white wall in a totally dark room with a wide-angle set-up - strobes out wide, pointed slightly out, level with and slightly behind the lens

Worked great - except when primary was at the lower power settings. At full power and down to about 1/2 power, the slave fired consistently. Below 1/2 power got dicey. At lowest two or three settings, the slave never fired. It was very easy to see when only one fired on the big white wall.

** Macro ... toy dinosaurs scattered by my 5 year-old around the living room

Perfect. Although the YS-110 is probably more than enough for macro, both fired consistently at all power settings.

** Wide-angle setup, shooting "up" at ceiling and light fixture in nearly dark room.

Seemingly better performance at lower power settings than the wall (albeit not perfect) - which is encouraging as this shot felt more "realistic" than shooting a white wall from 7 feet away.

I have an optical cable ... I'd like to figure out a way to connect the slave to the YS-110 using the optical cable ... any suggestions?

I have an optical cable ... I'd like to figure out a way to connect the slave to the YS-110 using the optical cable ... any suggestions?

Not sure if they make them for your slave, but on my YS-90DX there was a diffuser that had a hold to put the end of the fibre optic cable in to trigger the strobe. I guess you could also try to modify a diffuser to do the same thing. (Or maybe Sea & Sea makes one).

Not sure if they make them for your slave, but on my YS-90DX there was a diffuser that had a hold to put the end of the fibre optic cable in to trigger the strobe. I guess you could also try to modify a diffuser to do the same thing. (Or maybe Sea & Sea makes one).

The cable is one of these ... Sea & Sea Optical Cable

There is a pass through on the diffuser and a little input for the optical cable on the Slave (YS-27) - with my previous setup, I would run the cable from that optical port to a little connection on the housing that captured the internal strobe firing.

My challenge will be taking the other end and somehow attach it to the front of the other strobe to pick it up.

The YS-110 has a similar optical port and a slave switch. I had wishfully hoped that perhaps this switch would change that from receiver to a transmitter ... but alas, no.

There has to be some way to get the other end (i.e. the triggering end) to pick-up the YS-110 going off.

Definitely something to think about ... while the YS-27 fired most of the time in my testing last night, I'd feel better if they were tied to each other via an optical cable.

The cable is one of these ... Sea & Sea Optical Cable

 

There is a pass through on the diffuser and a little input for the optical cable on the Slave (YS-27) - with my previous setup, I would run the cable from that optical port to a little connection on the housing that captured the internal strobe firing.

 

My challenge will be taking the other end and somehow attach it to the front of the other strobe to pick it up.

 

The YS-110 has a similar optical port and a slave switch. I had wishfully hoped that perhaps this switch would change that from receiver to a transmitter ... but alas, no.

If the YS-110 is set as master when it goes off it should trigger the YS-27 in Slave mode, so a cable capturing light from the YS-110 should work, so if you tweak the diffuser it should work.

If the YS-110 is set as master when it goes off it should trigger the YS-27 in Slave mode, so a cable capturing light from the YS-110 should work, so if you tweak the diffuser it should work.

I may need to look for an alternative diffuser for the YS-110.

I'm sure I could make a hole/hold through it that would do the job ... my problem is attaching the stock diffuser to the YS-110 in the first place.

The YS-27 is easy ... it slides right on and holds well. Easy on, easy off.

The YS-110 is tricky (or I'm real dumb) ... Really hard to get on and then it falls right off ... I'm clearly missing something about how it attaches to the strobe.

Is the "shoot in the mirror" test the best way to see if an optical slave is firing properly?

 

I have a YS-110 hard-wired via sync cord and a YS-27dx that will be firing as a slave.

 

If I set it up and shoot at the mirror and they both fire am I good to go? Does the highly reflective mirror make it "too easy" for the optical slave to pick up the light? In theory, are slaves triggered by direct light from the primary or the reflected light off the subject?

 

Would I be better off shooting in a dark room at a big white wall and looking for the strobe patterns?

 

Thanks in advance!

I've had some fun and games with similar schemes. There are a couple of basic problems.

One is that depending on the position of the strobes, you may be triggered by reflected light and underwater you may not get enough reflected light from your subject.

The other is that under bright conditions the slave sensor may be saturated by the background light and is not sensitive to the trigger.

I found the scheme to work pretty well in dark temperate waters and not very reliable in bright tropical conditions on wide angle shots.

Test your system outdoor in day light and see what you get.

I found the scheme to work pretty well in dark temperate waters and not very reliable in bright tropical conditions on wide angle shots.

That's my fear ... that wide angle shots may fail a lot ... we'll see in a few weeks ...

I'm really gonna try and work out a solution that allows me to run the optical cable from the YS-110 to the YS-27dx.

I may "permanently" attach the diffuser with a couple small pieces of white duct tape and then rotate the little hole in the diffuser to sit over the flash instead of the slave port.

Would likely work, but would make it much more difficult to take the diffuser on and off underwater.

Given that the YS-110 is slightly more powerful than the YS-27 anyway, it may still work well paired with YS-27 even with the diffuser on all the time.

Doh! Problem solved.

I had the YS-110 diffuser "backwards" - hence my difficulty in getting it to stay in place! I had played with it several times and never thought to flip it over ... for whatever reason, tonight it seemed obvious.

In addition, once I got it on correctly I noticed that there was a nice little slot on that is made to hold the business end of an optical cable to run the light from the primary to the slave.

I'm now confident I will be able to fire both strobes consistently.