D70 Strobe Control

I've never used a strobe with a sync cord before, and I'm wondering what I need to change in the camera menu to trigger my strobes?

Nothing, really. Make sure that your housing/cord is set up to fire the strobe manually, NOT TTL with 5 pins. It probably is.

For some shots you may want to set rear curtain sync - but that's mostly for "creative" shots with long shutterspeeds and blurring/panning.

Otherwise, just hook up the sync cord, set your aperture and shutterspeed, set the strobe power, and you should be good to go.

Cheers

James

I think in the menu selection of your D70 you may want to set it to manual. Go to the the little icon with the pencil and go to menu selection number 19 flash mode and set this to manual. Then press the arrow to select it. This should work.

Tony

Leave everything set for TTL.......the sync cord and strobe know what to do

Karl

Hey Karl-

just opened my box of goodies from Ike and I ordered 1 manual controller with the dual sync cord and two strobes.. Have not had time to play. Im assuming this setup with 1 manual controller will allow both strobes output to be controlled the same...not independently.. That sound right?

M.

Starbuck: Each strobe must have its own manual controller. Strobes must be set to TTL to process the predetermined quench signal from the manual controller. Understand underwater strobes can only operate as manal (not TTL) with the D70 and D100 Nikon cameras until we can decipher iTTL. We will start on iTTL after completing Canon eTTL which is very close now.

Starbuck........you can use the manual controller for the main strobe...left for me....and then take the cord directly to the right strobe and use the 4 manual settings....otherwise, you will need another controller for the second strobe

I used mine this way until I decided to buy a second controller

Karl

Hi Ike -

I only shoot in manual. So, if I undestand you correctly, I can use the 1 manual controller for one strobe with the dual sync cord and control one strobes (in manual) output?! Im outta town and everything is at home or else I'd hook it up and figure it all out!

Thanks!

M.

Thanks Karl!

I was posting a question to Ike as your answer came in... that's what I figured. Thanks!

Looks like you, me and Jim will be shooting in Cozy with the d70 all about the same time!

M.

Strobes must be set to TTL to process the predetermined quench signal from the manual controller.

I had the strobes set to Full.

Please refer questions to Kdietz. My brain was too addled to think about his suggestion to connect other side of dual cord directly to the second strobe.............

Biggest advantage of using two manual controllers is that you can position the controllers close to your housing. Meaning when you shoot wide angle and your strobes are set out far you don't have to reach out far to turn the power setting on the strobe. In wide angle I find this the biggest advantage of using the manual controller over the 125's own power settings.

With dual DS-50 or DS-125 strobes, can you run one with sync cord and manual controller and use the other one with slave sensor attached?

And what if you hook up a DS-50 and a DS-125 as your dual strobes, using dual manual controllers. For a given setting I presume the output will be different. Is it possible to get similar outputs with the controllers (for wide angle), or would this all be too hard?

Yes to all questions. I have many times hooked one strobe using a synch cord and one to a dTTL slave sensor. Advantage is that you only have to adjust one dial. I did find it easier to get the lighting ratio I wanted using two manual controllers though.

Hmmm... seems like there are a bunch of different conversations here. I've got a brand spankin' new D70, with an even spankier and newer Sea&Sea housing with a YS-90DX strobe. In playing around with it dry in the housing, I can't seem to get it to do anything other than horribly overexpose everything. What am I missing?

I thought with the camera mode set to auto and the flash set to TTL it would do the right thing, but it seems that the built in flash wants to come up all the time.

First of all, you need to take the camera out of P and put it in A or M. Otherwise, it's probably choosing too low of an F-stop and that's why your photos are overexposed.

Try putting it in M and set Fstop at f22 and shutter at 1/125th. Try taking a few closeup shots and adjust the strobe power until you get a good one.

Cheers

James

You never want to use this camera in full auto (green dumb mode). The reason that the pop-up flash is engaging is because all current housings (including yours) do not support TTL. So the TTL pins are not connected via the hotshoe. When you connect the Nikon SB800 speedlite it has the iTTL pins conected and the camera knows its there. With the housing hotshoe the camera doesn't know that the strobes are there. This is why you can set 1/8000 shutter speed in your housing but not with the Nikon Speedlite.

I don't know about the Sea and Sea system but if you are on TTL on the strobe you could be getting a full dump of the strobe. Try using the manual settings instead.

I also wouldn't use the P mode as James stated. But at least the P mode will not trigger the built in speedlite. As James said, try to use the M manual mode, set the aperture you want (isn't f22 too high unless you want a black background? I would have thought f10 or so?) and 1/250 for shutter speed but control the amount of subject light with the strobe power. (since the strobe light dominates for the subject only the background will be affected by the shutter speed). Also make sure that you are not using auto iso, set iso to 200.

Also, there's a button on your D70 on the left side next to the built-in flash that if pressed while holding the built-in flash closed it will make the flash not engage anymore until you press the button again.

David

this is confusing me. as a newbe, if i use a d70 , i set the camera for manual exposure, and my strobes to ttl, and the result is a manually determined flash exposure,as set on the strobe dial, and this can be adjusted with the strobe sych cords ev adjuster? :?: :?:

Yes, that is correct, provided you have an Ikelite manual EV controller.

If you don't have a manual controller, you can take the strobe out of TTL (if it's a DS125) and use the manual power settings of Full, 1/2, 1/4, etc.

Cheers

James