D100 and dTTL with SB80DX

I know it should work, but having bitten in the past I wanted to check.

I'm about to shell out for a Subal housing for my SB80DX.

For those of you guys using a housed SB80DX, what are your impressions? What settings are you using?

I'll probably be using it mostly for macro..

The frustrating problem has been (nad still is?) that the hot shoe connection on the strobe housing does not make a constant connection with the strobe. You connect everything up, it says DTTL is working, you test fire and it works but then you realize during the dive it only works when it wants to. I was fortunate enough to get some tips from others on Wetpixel on how to overcome this problem. The tip that worked best for me was to NOT LOCK the SB80DX lever after mounting the strobe onto the housing's hotshoe. Use masking tape to hold it in place. I know it seems strange, but when I did this, the strobe worked EVERY time in DTTL. And, it is awesome for macro photography ... I love it.

I have had my Subal SB80DX housing for quite a while now. I am b/t dive trips and I just recently sent the housing in to get this fixed (so I CAN lock the lever down like it should work). I would hope that by now Subal has solved this problem so that people buying the housing today will not encounter this problem. You should be aware of the problem and make sure you don't have issues if you get one of these housings. Test the housing flash over and over b/c you will think it is working, then it does not!

If you do a search on "SB80DX" on this site, you will find commets about all this.

I have the option to buy either the new housing specific for the SB80DX which allows use of all controls, of the old one which is basically a box to put it in.

One is twice the cost of the other. Is there value in being able to control the strobe U/W?

I have the old "box" type housing for the SB28DX and it seems fine. You can disable flash zooming on the flash if you want before putting it in and it goes to sleep when you're not using it...

Cheers

James

Hi Andrew,

I had the same problem with the hot shoe contact - no problem since the guys at SeaOptics adjusted it.

For macro it is great - if you want to try mine out before spending the cash let me know.

regards

ron

I use an SB80DX in an old Subal tubular housing for the SB25/26 (the box type). Works fine, but I also had the dodgy connection problem the others talk about. I solve it by wedging a piece of card between the strobe and hot shoe to hold it in place! I just have to remember to switch it on before getting in the water!

I use the SB80DX on DTTL with my D100 with 60mm, 105mm and 28-70mm macro lenses. I do not find it suitable for wide angle where I prefer manual strobe control with a digital camera.

The SB80DX will also work well with your 35mm Nikons (a lot of people seem to forget this!).

Alex

Alex what do you do if you want to take a natural light shot (ie how do you turn off the strobe?

Damn. I was hoping nobody would ask that!

The only solution (i have) is to point the strobe backwards over your shoulder. But the camera still knows there is a strobe attached and on and I doubt if it will let you exceed the synch speed. I'd have to check. Also without TTL feedback it means it fires a full power flash - which will flatten your batteries if you keep doing it.

So this is an OK solution for the occasional shot. This is the only available light shot I could find quickly that I took in the middle of a dive with the SB80DX. Taken as I stated above, by pointing the flash back over my shoulder!

Alex

Well I bought the "cheap" option; the old SN 26A strobecase.

Predictably the mount doesn't work properly; any chance Alex you could post a pic of your bit of card fix to the list?

In trolling the archives I also note that you (Alex) mentioned that the SB80DX won't fire a slave strobe. Is this referring to a hard wired slave, or all?

I had intended to continue using an SB105 without a sync cord.

The problem with slaves strobes is that they react to the preflashes and miss the actual exposure.

I suspect, but haven't tried it, that a "slave" would fire in time with the main exposure if hard wired with only 3 pins connected. But since this additional light would not be part of the preflash dTTL evaluation then it might lead to overexposure.

I have always planned to try using an external reflector (mounted on the oposite side of the housing) with a single dTTL strobe to help fill shadows instead of a slave. But I haven't got round to it yet!

Alex

Andrew: your YS90DX can be used as a slave and set to "ignore" the preflashes.

Cheers

James

Useful info James,

I didn't realise that the YS90DX could be set to ignore preflashes. Good work Sea & Sea!

The problem still remains that the SB80DX determines its output for the exposure using the preflashes. Therefore if you start adding an extra flash (the YS90DX) during the actual exposure you will over expose the subject.

Alex

Is that any different from using a "normal" TTL strobe with a "normal" 35mm SLR?

I always used a wireless slave SB105 set on M1/4 with the other SB105 set on TTL.

Yes!

dTTL on the Nikon D1 series and D100 determines its correct exposure by using the pre-flashes only. Once it has evaluated the exposure on pre-flashes the exposure is fixed for the actual exposure.

With film Nikons the TTL exposure is monitored during the actual exposure (as well as the preflashes with strobes capable of doing them). So if there is another light source during the actual exposure the TTL can shut quench the light from the TTL gun appropriately.

Alex