D200 flash sync question

I am in Cayman Brac this weekend - actually this question is moot because my morning dives today were cancelled due to rough seas and I have a 6 AM flight out tomorrow. Anyway - I am shooting a D200 in an Aquatica housing with Ikelite TTL adapter and twin DS125 flashes. I just got everything back from servicing. I tried to shoot in aperature priority mode and had flash sync speeds at 1/250 and 1/60, respectively, on set-up flash menu. The hot shoe connector seems to making good contact. No extraneous buttons are depressed that I can tell. Anyway - the camera seems to be working as if there were no flash and ambient light only so I had a bunch of shots at very slow shutter speeds - like 1/10 or 1/15 second or so - giving me very blurry pictures - just did not bring that underwtaer tripod with me. And yes - the flashes were firing. So I am lost. Manual mode works fine. Probably stupid to shoot aperature priority but I am looking for any thoughts and suggestions.

Thanks.

Andy

Press the flash mode button front right of the body, close to the D200 name. Depress button while looking at the top LCD. The front command dial controls flash compensation. The rear command dial controls flash mode. Make sure you are in normal mode, i.e. just the flash bolt. There are other modes, including slow, rear, red-eye and combos of each. You may accidentally be in slow sync mode. In slow sync mode, the camera is allowed to use a slower than 1/60 shutter speed with the flash.

Press the flash mode button front right of the body, close to the D200 name. Depress button while looking at the top LCD. The front command dial controls flash compensation. The rear command dial controls flash mode. Make sure you are in normal mode, i.e. just the flash bolt. There are other modes, including slow, rear, red-eye and combos of each. You may accidentally be in slow sync mode. In slow sync mode, the camera is allowed to use a slower than 1/60 shutter speed with the flash.

Thanks - unfortunately it is in normal mode. Back to the drawing board. Any other thoughts from anybody?

Andy

Well, to solve your problem temporarily, just switch to manual instead of aperture priority. Then set your shutter speed to 1/60 to 1/125 and be done with it.

Look in the horribly detailed menu for flash settings. What is set for the slowest synch speed? I guess it is set really slow, and in Aperture priority you are flooding out the frozen strobe part of the exposure with ambient light. If you expose at at least 1/30s, and underexpose the background, then the strobes should freeze the subject.

Tim

B)

Look in the horribly detailed menu for flash settings. What is set for the slowest synch speed? I guess it is set really slow, and in Aperture priority you are flooding out the frozen strobe part of the exposure with ambient light. If you expose at at least 1/30s, and underexpose the background, then the strobes should freeze the subject.

 

Tim

 

B)

Ah yes, the other menu. Custom Menu Setting, the little blue "e" Bracketing/Flash. Tab the right arrow. The select e2, Flash Shutter Speed. Select your slowest speed when using flash. I find 1/60 the slowest I like to use.

Ah yes, the other menu.

I'm impressed, either you have the camera in front of you, or a truly photo-geek memory....

Tim

B)

I'll bet you its because you're not using a nikon flash, the camera probably doesn't know its got a flash connected and therefore doesn't apply the minimum sync speed setting. Have you tested to make sure the TTL circutry is working properly? Perhaps even with TTL the camera doesn't 'know' the ikelite flash well enough to apply the setting??? Plug an sb-800 in and see if it does the same. Or just shoot manual exposure. Cheers,

Chris

hey andy, glad to see you got down to Cayman, looking forward to seeing the photos.

I'm pretty sure it's working exactly like its supposed to work, when using external strobes such as Ike or S&S.

In aperture priorty mode, even with the flash (strobes) on, it will pick a shutter speed that gives a proper exposure for ambient light. this is what it should do. otherwise, why would you be using AP mode?

when I shoot in Aperture priorty mode with the flash on, I usually dial in minus 1 to 1 1/2 stops of exposure compensation. But I'm usually shooting in manual mode.

hope this helps

Scott