Fiber optic trigger - D7000 and INON Z240

The Inon Z240 does have an Auto mode, but I've no idea if it works...

... has anyone tried it? You should be able to use a low-power manual trigger and let the strobe see the reflected light. My guess is that it wouldn't work well with wide-angle.

Tim

I have tried "auto" and it works pretty much as the S-TTL.

This idea of adjusting the internal camera flash output down to 1/128th is great. The internal camera flash recycles so quickly that it gives you more flexibility with improved camera response- shifting the lag time to be a condition of stamina of the cells powering the strobes, the memory card's writting speed, number and frequency of exposures taken in rapid succession and type of image quality settings, rather than just waiting for the internal flash to recycle.

The challenge I have is that as soon as I manually lower the internal camera flash output from 1 to 1/128th or any value under 1...down the Inon strobes output light goes, and the images turn out underexposed.

I am speculating this can be solved by setting the Inon stones to manual, turning off the Inon pre-flash sensors i.e. (bottom right button pushed and locked in) and adjusting the output intensity (upper right knob) until you get a feel for how much light you need based on shooting conditions. If you are shooting balanced or un balanced images ect.ect. the gun number divided by distance to subject or f-stop and getting a feel for how they respond and checking histograms too.

At least for me, the Inon manuals are so tough to read that seems like when working with a fiber optic connection, mastering any type of Inon strobe settings other than S-TTL, TTL, Auto requires pretty much developing your own.

I use the fiber optic setup and like Inon's S-TTL, and want to switch to fully operating the strobes 100% manual, just cant get a hold of a go manual that expains all the settings in sufficient detail for ease of transition. May need to do the trial en err. method and develop a feel for them.

This thread sorted me out:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=39821&hl=inon&st=0

I have tried "auto" and it works pretty much as the S-TTL.

Have you tried disabling the preflash in Auto? The problem would then be the angle of the sensor and over-exposure from light lost into the water behind the subject, just as it is in sTTL.

I don't understand why you have trouble with Manual settings, unless you have missed the small difficulty of the right-hand power control going anti-clockwise in Manual, but clockwise in sTTL!

Tim

Hi Bent,

The link to the conversation you started in January of 2011 about 7D and Inon 240Z strobes is just what I needed.

Thank you for this- I read it carefully with one of the strobes in hand, plus also checking a bit on the Inon manual, and things are starting to make sense now. It gave me a good laugh too.

Hello Tim,

I will test the Auto mode, but this time canceling the preflash by locking in the button. Its now making sense to me and am chomping at the bit to get in the water and put this into practice.

Much appreciated.

Sincerely,

Ricardo

Its now making sense to me and am chomping at the bit to get in the water and put this into practice...

Yeah, well...

... Inons: great strobes, terrible instructions!

Tim

Bent C, Tim, Andres,

Just want to thank you all for helping me sort strobe settings. Works like a charm.

Sincerely,

Ricardo

Forgive my ignorance, but what is the benefit of a FO cable over 5 pin if you switch ttl off?

Cost?

Speed of setting up rig?

Cheers

John

I beleive it's a matter of preference. In my case, the traditional cables cost more, they require a higher degree of maintenance over fiber and the cables are bulkier, connectors are one more thing to flood proof and to worry about.

Fiber is light, flexible, durable and much more afordable. When traveling, I had a malfunction once with my 2 strobe cable and had to use a backup 1 strobe cable unit to resolve it. Had to settle with one strobe to finish the trip. When I got home, sent the cable part in for repair, and pretty much ended up having to purchase a new one because one of the little copper cables inside the phone type cord, gave all it had.

With fiber, there is no cable inside, just fiber optic type plastic. I also had a situation at the end of a boat dive when one of my fiber optic lines broke from the strobe. After looking and reviewing the damage, it appears it may have been from lifting the system by the fiber optic and while I don't do that, when we hand the camera to someone onboard a boat, and with rough weather to contend, we don't really know what happens until we are back onboard and those things are part of diving. To fix the fiber optic problem, I simply opened the connector, cut one inch piece from the fiber optic to make it flush, placed it back into a new connector and to this day, it works like nothing ever happened.

In my opinion, fiber optic is the way to go.

Thanks for your pov...too bad my housing does not allow both so I cant form an opinion, although I must say that it would be nice to not have to manually set my strobe output!!