Using Sea & Sea YS-D1 strobe for land use?

I want to do some indoor photography with my OMD EM5 and need to use auxiliary flashes.

Has anyone used these strobes above water and if so any recommendations?

Also, how do you mount the strobes...separate stands? what type of connectors?

I was even considering using my Nauticam housing but the strobes are clamped to the handles which are attached to the Nauticam tray (that cannot be attached to a tripod).

Thanks in advance for any advice.

Mark

The Official S&S policy is not to use them on land (beyond a few test shots). I use mine all the time for water droplet photos with no detrimental results (but I don't flash them at very high rates) and I suspect that shooting at 30 second intervals will give no problems at all. On the mounting side, I simply attach a ULCS clamp to a standard light stand (screw a ULCS ball fitting into the top of the light stand). I trigger them in slave mode, more complex triggering is of course possible but tricky.

Bill

Bill, thanks for your answer. I have read in older posts that there may be some issues with using the strobes on land at high flash rates (my use will be at quite low flash rates).

However, I checked the S&S YS D1 manual and could not find any mention of land use for the strobes (other than taking a test shot). Is this warning still current and where can you find it?

Mark

I have been curious about this too. I planned on using 2 of them and using a slave eye on one to trigger it. Im going to email Sea and Sea to get official word as I did not see anything in the manual either.

You are both correct, and in fact it says "For use on land, do not operate the product at precarious foothold. It may cause falling, injury or product damage. " I had seen the warnings for other strobes and believed it to be true for these as well.

In any case, in my hands, many many land flashes with no change in color temp or power.

Bill

I burnt out a few tubes in my inon Z240s doing this. Take it slow and consider having a bucket of water to dunk them in occasionally.

How do you use the strobes in slave mode? I am using them too far away for the fiberoptic cable to connect. Without a fiberoptic cable, the slave/sensor is covered by the sensor cover and cannot sense the camera's flash.

Other than taping the sensor door open, how do you use the strobe remotely without any fiberoptic cables?

Mark

There is a slave eye that attaches to the cable commonly used in cave photography. They can be had at Reef Photo for $179.

Sent from my SCH-I605 using Tapatalk 2

I could not find the slave eye that you mentioned. However, for land/studio use, simply duct taping the sensor door open is a very cheap solution.

I also found that using the camera flash caused harsh shadows so I just put the OMD into the Nauticam housing and used the fiber optic connectors. This actually worked very well and the resulting photos are better than I expected.

Using the housing is somewhat cumbersome I suspect that there another simpler solution. I would really like to hear what others have been doing.

Mark

What distance do you intend to put your strobes from the camera? Because long optical cords are super cheap (around 30ft for 10$...)

What distance do you intend to put your strobes from the camera? Because long optical cords are super cheap (around 30ft for 10$...)

I currently am only having the strobes with a few feet away from the camera as that is a long as the S&S fiber optic cords can stretch. The cable cost $80 which is not that cheap. I would like to know where I could get regular fiberoptic cords so cheaply as I do not really need the finished ends (since I can probably just stick the cut ends into the Nauticam housing and S&S strobe door.

I currently am only having the strobes with a few feet away from the camera as that is a long as the S&S fiber optic cords can stretch. The cable cost $80 which is not that cheap. I would like to know where I could get regular fiberoptic cords so cheaply as I do not really need the finished ends (since I can probably just stick the cut ends into the Nauticam housing and S&S strobe door.

Try this:

http://thefiberopticstore.com/HOT-specials.htm

Cheers

Marcell

There are maaaany options on ebay:

For example:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-Optical-Optic-Fiber-Toslink-Audio-Cable-OD2-2mm-33FT-10M-/121156166656?pt=US_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item1c35786400#ht_456wt_970

There are maaaany options on ebay:

 

For example:

 

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Digital-Optical-Optic-Fiber-Toslink-Audio-Cable-OD2-2mm-33FT-10M-/121156166656?pt=US_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item1c35786400#ht_456wt_970

What size cable is recommended (it goes from .25 to 1.0 mm)?

I use 1mm

Unless you're doing something in a hazardous environment or throwing copious amounts of water around, I personally wouldn't risk a $600 strobe when you can get a complete studio flash kits with modelling lights cheap from Hong Kong on Ebay.

I have a set that I occasionally play with. Not full pro quality but do the job well enough. All your mounting and connection problems go away.

Note that the flash duration of all mains studio type strobes is somewhat longer than the battery operated thyristor type strobes, particularly on low power so they're not so as good for high speed (eg water droplet) capture.