Patima SB-900 housing

I just got new Patima SB-900 housing & testing it this week. Nikon is replacing SB-800

with more powerfull SB-900 & it requires new housing. I have been using this

tube type strobe housing for over 5 years & I was happy with correct TTL I was getting.

My SB-800 strobe housing was made by Subal & UwP49 shows new Subal SB-900 housing

& also,looks very good.

Here is picture of Patima housing;

Size: 220mm x 110mm

Weight:1300g, Positive in UW.

Material: Acetal plastic in middle & Aluminum in both end + plastic dome.

Controls: All except remote cntrl.

Sam

Sam,

Does this housing come with a dome port?

Bob

Hi Sam,

I'm really very interested in your results.

Have fun with your new toy.

I'm hoping that mine will arrive shortly. . . .

BTW Buddy, how does the 'ready to dive' weight between the Patima SB-900 and Subal SB-800 combinations compare?

Bruce

Sam,

Does this housing come with a dome port?

Bob

Yes, it comes with 8mm thick plastic dome.

Sam

I have tested my Patima SB-900 housing & here is few sample pictures.

SB-900 housing is little bulkier than SB-800 housing but, it was not a issue

for me.

One issue was over-heating control & it stopped strobe after continue

15 shots. SB-800 did not have this function & last time I had trouble

with over heat was when I was using SB-104. After I discussed with local

Nikon service center, I decided to turn this function off as they also, had

few complaint from studios & it was designed to turn-off as necessary.

I also, tested high speed sync & I could take some pictures at 1/1250 speed.

Another advantage of using SB-900 was RPT mode & strobe provide accurate

TTL in 'continues-high speed' mode.

I was testing dual SB-900 but, one had to be on M mode as it was designed

not to wire 2 SB-900 at same time. Dual Canon 580EX2 was tested when I was

testing my SB-900s & found 2 580EX2 can be connected at same time & get

TTL. Patima 580EX2 housing only allows 580EX2 but, not old 580EX.

I believe these housings are already available in US through Reefphoto.

Sam

Hi Sam,

I used two SB-800 before housed in 10 Bar housings. As they are transparent, I used to connect an optical fiber (one end receiving signal from front of strobe and the other end pointing to the light sensor of the other strobe) between the 2 strobes. The first strobe is connected to the camera via cable. I can set the first one as master and the second as slave. I have been able to utilize the iTTL functions and exposure compensation can be set for each strobe. The TTL really works great for me.

I am very interest about the high speed syn. you mentioned. Do you think a slave controlled by a master can also work with high speed syn.?

Thank you,

Edward

Hi Sam,

 

I used two SB-800 before housed in 10 Bar housings. As they are transparent, I used to connect an optical fiber (one end receiving signal from front of strobe and the other end pointing to the light sensor of the other strobe) between the 2 strobes. The first strobe is connected to the camera via cable. I can set the first one as master and the second as slave. I have been able to utilize the iTTL functions and exposure compensation can be set for each strobe. The TTL really works great for me.

 

I am very interest about the high speed syn. you mentioned. Do you think a slave controlled by a master can also work with high speed syn.?

 

Thank you,

 

Edward

Hi,

I am not sure they will work as I do not have Fantasea or 10 bar housing but, I will try to test it next week.

Sam

Hi,

I am not sure they will work as I do not have Fantasea or 10 bar housing but, I will try to test it next week.

 

Sam

Hi Sam,

I'm pretty sure that you won't be able to get the fibre optics to work between flash housings ? You will need to drill and mount an Inon

fibre optic window into the side of your Patima SB-900 housing adjacent to the sensor on your SB-900 flash unit.

This is the method that I used to get my two SB-800 Subal flash housings to work without any sync cords. Works extremely well in i-TTL....

Bruce...

Hi Sam and Bruce,

Good topic and nice discovery!! What a surprise!!

I just carried out some tests on land with a D90, two SB-800 and and SB-R200, which I believe should be the same u/w housed. In both cases:

1) Put one SB-800 into hotshoe of D90 as master, which controlled another SB-800/SB-R200 (by optical signal) as slave;

2) Used the pop-up flash of D90 as commander to control two SB-800 or one SB-800+SB-R200

I could use shutter speed upto 1/4000 sec and the high speed syn. seemed to work (the whole frame was evenly illuminated)!! These were all nicely TTL metered as the exposures were very consistent with large range of shutter speeds and apertures.

I tried setting the 'Flash Cntrl for build-in flash' menu back to TTL and hopefully could use the pop-up flash to trigger an Inon Z-240 to see what could happen, and found that the shutter speed was then limited to 1/200. I put the SB-800 back into hotshoe and set it either to TTL-FP (this was automatic whenever shutter speed was higher than 1/200) or as master and hopefully could trigger the Inon Z-240, and found that they were firing the main flash at different timing and the Inon flashes did not appear in the picture no matter what mode I set it (S-TTL, manual, ACC on or off).

This really proved to me that Nikon had high speed syn. built into the CLS (iTTL) flash system to be used with the pop-up flashes in D90 to D700, and all CLS compatible strobes.

I can now conclude that using Nikon CLS strobes for u/w photography bring us the additional value of utilizing higher shutter speeds. I can't wait to try it in my next dives.

Edward

Hi Edward,

Great results. I have tried high shutter speeds before with my D70S and SB-800. I was able to use this system successfully but only with manual flash control.

The system would not let me use i-TTL. The D70S is/has the CLS system and the D70S's flash can be used as initial strobe for fibre optic i-TTL sync, but the D70S camera itself doesn't appear to be able to do high speed sync with i-TTL? It does, however, have a normal sync speed of up to 1/500 which is the highest of all 'normal' sync speeds

Edward, I would still like to continue my investigations into housing the SB-R200 flash. Have you any successful results, pictures yet?

Bruce...

Hi Sam,

Do you think Mr Lee, will consider adding fiber optic ports to the housings? Either as standard or as a custom job? If this could be made to work the strobes wouls be universally compatible with all Nikon cameras. Though i doubt they would be powerful enough for some WA aplications they would be perfect for Macro (where you really need ittl.)

Cheers,

Espen :-)

Hi Champ(Espen),

I informed Patima your opinion & they agreed to try.

Sam

Hi Champ(Espen),

I informed Patima your opinion & they agreed to try.

 

Sam

Geez. . . . obviously you have to 'be' someone to suggest something around here. . . .

Bruce...

Sam,

I'm not sure I was clear enough in my last post. The optic ports of corse placed so that you can connect the strobes to each other and also to a housing. Basically this would require two ports on each strobe housing. One on the reciever and one on the transmitter. If that would work.... Wow...

Thanks for communicating this to Mr Lee! And thank him for taking this into consideration.

Best wishes,

Espen :-)

Espen,

Noted your comment. It will take sometime to find he can do it or not.

Sam

What is the angle of coverage for the housed strobes? How about the quality? Any hotspots? Is a difuser available. Very interesting thread.