YS AUTO - How Auto?

I'm using an Olympus 5050 and housing - I decided I wanted more light so bought a YS 90 Auto with the optic cable. Thought this was my dream set up...

Unfortunately I have very mixed results - mostly over exposed - not part of the dream!

Using slave flash (internal flash set to 1 (minimum), and totally blacked out), and have tried to set the strobe to a higher apature (lower number) than the camera - still overexposed.

Tried all kinds of positions, diffusers....

Best results I get are using natural light and torches!!

Got me thinking - the camera judges the scene from the ambient light then sets the shutter speed (i always fix the apature using "my Mode") - once you hit the shutter release the strobe overexposes the scene - it's not ttl so the camera and the strobe don't "tell" each other what they are doing....

Is the AUTO really "AUTO"??

I'm thinking of getting a good HID light and selling the strobe - but I know that there are people out there using the same set up who swear by it .....

I know there is more than one question here but I'm stumped - please HELLLLP....

Hi Mosi,

Yes, it all depends on that sensor on the strobe.

What you can try to do is adjust the power on the strobe. If you are shooting in f5.6 and your shots are getting overexposed, then dial the strobe back to f4. That will make it put out less light.

Give it a try and let us know how it works. You should experiment at home or even in a pool.

Cheers

James

I have the same setup....I've experienced this problem, only, when shooting camera in "auto" P

Set camera to "M", ISO 100 or 64, find a good aperature and shutter speed (I start at 1/125 + 5.6) Compose the shot. Look in the upper right corner of the LCD and look at ev meter It should be approx -2 to -3. If so, shoot, if too high (-1 to +3) adjust shutter or aperature to reduce level.

Make sure YS90A strobe is not set for TTL, or you will ALWAYS overexpose

You'll lose about 1 fstop if you use ISO 64, but I've noticed less noise with this setting

To be fair, I've only shot about 250 pics with this Strobe. But all were test shots, playing with settings, to find out how it worked with certain settings- Manual was best with S second best- A worked, but often shutter speed went down too low, and I had blurry pictures- P provided worst overall shots beacuse it was setting up with ambient light and had no-preflash return for TTL (I think)

There are some great threads on DDN about this

I second Rescuediver's recommendation ... shoot manual mode and you will quickly find a combination of settings that work for you.

For more on settings see the following URL.

http://www.splashdowndivers.com/photo_gall...up_settings.htm

To give credit where it is due....the EV trick I referred to was from Peter's page and suggestion...............It does really work, and when I used this (and remembered to use it futzing with everything else) my picture quality went WAY up

Aperature and shutter spped are going to be a little "water quality dependent"

  ...shoot manual mode... 

Does that mean you don't need the "AUTO" of the YS90? Am I better off with the YS90DX instead of YS90Auto?

Am still undecided on strobe. Quite keen on the YS90Auto until recently. :freak:

Well, perception is everything....The Auto is supposed to set the flash intensity based on your aperature (which you set by using the tricks referenced above). It is then supposed to "Auto Quench" when the logic in the strobe believes enough light has been shed on the subject. (Remeber, the strobe sees the light, not the camera.....so it's not really TTL......kind of a faked out version of it)

It seems to work fairly well. Takes some of the guess work out of the manual level settings on the DX.

I think this is a chocolate vs vanilla issue.

I haven't used the DX, but my reason for getting the Auto was that I didn't want to fiddle around trying to "dial in" the right DX settings on a shot by shot or series by series basis.....but to be fair, there is a little fiddling in the Auto, but not much (ie you can still basically manually control the strobe by setting thethe aperature setting higher or lower than you have the camera set for. It will then adjust the light level based on the strobe's settings)

My auto works fine, I'm happy with it (once I got a funky fiber optic cord problem licked) and I tend to buy the latest technology developments.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with the DX...it's the work horse of the line

Motz, we're stumbling through some misconceptions here. One of the answers addressed this, but maybe not as directly as it should have.

Having an "Auto" mode on your strobe doesn't mean that you can set the camera to full auto ("P") and the strobe to "Auto" and expect to get perfect exposures. The auto-sensing system of the strobe is dependent on your communication of the aperture size the camera is set to. You have to set the camera to a specific aperture, and then set the strobe to the same aperture. If you let the camera determine the aperture it will use, you'll never get a decent exposure.

With your rig, you want to use manual mode on the camera, set the shutter speed to about 1/125 or 1/250, adjust the aperture for the background (beyond the reach of the strobe) exposure that you want (open for blue, closed for black), and then set the strobe to the aperture that you selected for the camera. You may find, depending on the angle and distance of the strobe relative to the subject compared the the angle and distance of the lens to the subject, that you have to fudge the strobe setting up or down a little.

I found the auto sensing system of the INON D-180 to be a very valuable tool. I would imagine that the YS-90Auto would be similar. It, nor any other quenching system for that matter, will not guarantee a perfect exposure every time.