Housed SB-800 ...Why not?

I've been using a single housed Nikon flash for the last six years, and I love it. First of all, the SB800 is a great flash for land photography. The flash works so well with a Nikon DSLR that you have to try it to understand how effective and how flexible it is.

 

The guide number underwater is comparable or higher than most underwater strobes, so that's not an issue. I have a Subal SB800 housing, which is expensive but well made. I have friends who use the much cheaper FantaSea SB800 housing, and although some of the early production units weren't very well made, I think they've gotten their act together now.

 

The Subal and FantaSea housings have all the flash controls, so adjustments are easy to do underwater. I shoot in iTTL, but it's very simple to adjust or bracket exposures with the flash controls - much easier than it is using the camera controls, and the large digital readouts on the SB800 are very easy to see. The SB800 gives very good results in iTTL, although I do bracket shots.

 

One very nice feature of the SB800 is the ability to automatically or manually zoom the beam width, which in effect lets you diffuse the light as much as you want and still have a decent guide number.

 

The biggest disadvantage of a housed SB800 is the size and weight, but to me the results outweigh that, and some of the bigger digital underwater strobes aren't that much smaller.

 

I have a Fantasea SB800 housing and a second SB800 that I may try firing using fiber optics linked to the first SB800, but I haven't tried it yet.

Hi Jim.

I have a D3 in an Aquatica housing and a SB800 in a subal housing, havnt got it wet yet but tests in my garden on TTL give me over done faces at about four feet away.any ideas.

Ian G.

Hi Jim.

 

I have a D3 in an Aquatica housing and a SB800 in a subal housing, havnt got it wet yet but tests in my garden on TTL give me over done faces at about four feet away.any ideas.

 

Ian G.

Hi Ian

I have been using 2 SB-800s in Fantasea housings for 2 years (for my D2X in Nexus housing) and I am really happy now, though they are quite heavy on land, and floats (quite some positive buoyancy because of the big volume of the Fantasea housings) in the water. I need very good and hard-tightened arms to keep them in appropiate positions.

The decision was made after extensive search and realized that there were almost non-existence of 'real iTTL' strobe in the market for Nikon at that time. I can now utilized the real iTTL functions meaning that I can set the individual strength of the 2 SB-800s though a master/slave setup. I had tried several modification myself and now settle with this method:

1. Connect the first SB-800 to Nexus by 5-pin cable, set it as master.

2. Fix a optical fibre outside the Fantasea housing at the front of the first SB-800 (downside: blocking a small portion of the flash light. But really doesn't matter as its TTL).

3. Fix the other end of that optical fibre (also outside the Fantasea housing) pointing to the remote sensor of the second SB-800, and set it as slave.

You have to understand about the Nikon CLS system to realised how good it is. The two SB-800 will fire pre-flashes individually at sequence to meter before the main flashes fire. And the exposures are alway correct.

Have to admit that the output is not bright enough for very wide angle shots of creatures 8-10 feet away. Superior for macros because I never have to worry about exposure compensation when I change apertures.

I don't think you have to worry for the TTL accuracy if you use a genuine 5-pin Nikonos cable. Hope this help,

Edward

Hi Edward,

I have been giving this considerable thought and I am in the mechanical process of converting a second Subal SB800 housing for this purpose.

My only concern at this stage is if there is any signal (light transmission) drop-off as the fibre optic cable is increased in length?

I would prefer to be able to route the fibre optic cable via the strobe arms and through to the other SB800 housing, rather than via the direct route that might subject the fibre optic cabling to snagging...

Have you had any situations arise where there has been a drop in light transmission, to the point, that it would not fire the slave strobe???

Regards,

Bruce...

Hi Edward,

 

I have been giving this considerable thought and I am in the mechanical process of converting a second Subal SB800 housing for this purpose.

My only concern at this stage is if there is any signal (light transmission) drop-off as the fibre optic cable is increased in length?

I would prefer to be able to route the fibre optic cable via the strobe arms and through to the other SB800 housing, rather than via the direct route that might subject the fibre optic cabling to snagging...

Have you had any situations arise where there has been a drop in light transmission, to the point, that it would not fire the slave strobe???

 

Regards,

Bruce...

Hi Bruce,

I had the same worry in the early stage. Considering that the master can trigger slaves more than 20 feet away on land, I decided it won't take a very strong flash signal to do the job.

My first failure was trying to trigger the slave without an optical fibre. It simply proved that light travels much slower in water, as well as might be a big proportion of the flash light signal was absorbed by the water. The slave simply had no reaction at all although it was less than 2 feet away from the master.

Right now I am just using a normal single core optical fibre, with a core diameter of 1 mm and a outer black skin. Just something I picked up from a local dive shop in Hong Kong. Its around 4.5 feet long.

I machined 2 small acrylic rods to hold both ends of the optical fibre and glue them to the Fantasea housings to ensure ample flash light is received and transmitted to the sensor of the slave.

As far as I remember it never fails performing the kind of CLS function as I have on land, where I normally attach the master on the camera hot-shoe and trigger 1-2 slaves some distance away from the camera (with the master also contributing light to the picture). It is amazing that I have full control of the amount of light from each of the SB-800 in the water.

It will be nice to know after your modification is finished and working successfully.

Edward

Hi Edward,

I have machined my Nexus D70S housing and fitted two Inon fibre optic windows to the penta-prism bulge.

This is the same system that is now fitted standard to nearly all Nexus DSLR housings, and uses the camera's

built in strobe as the master for the CLS system. This way, the two SB800s are both slave fired from the camera.

I am in the process of machining the Subal SB800 housing to also accept the Inon fibre optic windows so that if

positioned correctly, will guarantee the firing of the slave strobe.

Once again, I should be able to achieve perfect Nikon i-TTL protocol. . . . woohoo.

As 99% of my U/W photography is macro/close up, this system should prove invaluable for me.

It will be a while before I am able to check it out in the water, because I am currently battling a severe bout

of pneumonia which hit me about 10 weeks after dropping on my arse with heart failure...

Bruce...

Hi Jim.

 

I have a D3 in an Aquatica housing and a SB800 in a subal housing, havnt got it wet yet but tests in my garden on TTL give me over done faces at about four feet away.any ideas.

 

Ian G.

I'm shooting with a D3 and a SB 800 and had a similar problem with washed out exposure. I was shooting with a older Nikon 60 mm macro and a Tamron 90 mm macro. Both of these Lens have 5 contacts on the Lens ,the newer Lens have 10 contacts. I purchased a newer Sigma 150 mm macro which works perfect underwater and it has 10 contacts. The funny thing is both older Lens work perfect when used out of the housing ? The same old Lens with 5 contacts worked perfect in my D2x housing ? What Lens are you using, and how many contact are on the Lens?

Marc