TTL slave sensor or manual controller?

Hi ,

Which would you recommend for my 5050z/PT-015 (and coming Ikelite DS-125), the TTL slave sensor or the manual controller? I heard TTL works fine with macro shots but not with certain wide angle shots. Do you think TTL is something that I can live without given the manual controller's wider range of power?

Thanks a lot.

Regards,

Swordfish/Norman

I have both and I recommend the manual controller. In fact, when I use my TTL controller, I use it as a manual contoller using the DS-125 settings of 1/8, 1/4, 1/2 and full.

The reason I prefer manual is that I have better control over the lighting, particularly when shooting wide angle.

For more about what I know and don't know about the 5050z/PT-015 and Ikelite DS-125s, see the following URL.

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...aphy/index.html

Re posted, in correct place, looking for any replies:-

I have played around with the TTL sensor with an Olympus camera in their housing. I was not too impressed with the results. Seems to be two main problems.

1) The sensor is super sensitive (even when set to minimum). This means that if the strobe is angled in toward the camera lens, as you would do for macro shots, the sensor detects the main strobe light firing and the TTL fails. I guess you could try covering over part of the sensor window to reduce the sensitivity. Anybody else have this experience as macro is the one area where TTL should work well.

2) Over exposure. When I compare the exposure of the cameras inbuilt flash to that of the Ikelite strobe my judgement would be that the TTL sensor tends to over expose all macro/close up shots. Again anyone else have this experience? I may add that the camera was set in fully auto mode!

Would love to hear other users opinion about this.

The manual sensor on the other hand works very well. Gives you complete control of the exposure and would seem to be the much better choice as it will also be great for wide angle.

Re: 1

Point the sensor away from the front or use a DIY fibre optic cable.

Re: 2

Use the Flash Exposure Compensation to dial the output of your camera's flash down.

Gazzer, based on my experience, I think that manual is not only a better way to go but also easier to learn since one does not have to spend a lot of time figuring out what is going wrong.

Furthermore, I think that TTL may never work right for underwater photography since there is need for light to bring out colors that is independent of the need to get the proper brightness.

Thus my bottom line recommendation is to forget TTL. Go manual all the way. By so doing you will get better pictures from day one on.

I have both and always use the manual controller for my primary strobe. TTL will give you an average exposure assuming that your subject(s) have an average reflectance of light. You need to bracket to get your best exposure. With the use of the LCD to review your exposure I find that it takes fewer shots to get a better exposure than I use to get using TTL.