Ikelite for D10 ?

This week my 10D arrived so a housing purchase will come next. I am leaning toward Ikelite. I've had no problem with their 4040 housing and the 10D housing looks to be the the smallest, lightest, and least expensive available.

So if anyone has dove with the 10D Ike housing, please let me know your initial impressions.

Also, Cannon has hot shoe mount strobe(s) that will work with flash exposure bracketing. Flash bracketing would be a great underwater feature so I wonder if my DS-125. Ikelite is saying cabled TTL will be available in the fall for this housing which is probably a prerequisite for what I'm referring to.

Does anyone know if other Ike housing/strobes support flash bracketing?

-Irwin

Hi Irwin,

Boy, those are a lot of questions at once.

I personally wouldn't put too much stock in flash exposure brecketing. Let's try to get the eTTL worked out first eh? That is still a fair ways off for Ikelite, and knowing Canon, they will announce fTTL the day after Ike gets it figured out...:-)

In any case, underwater strobes do not recycle as fast as the Canon EX flashgun, so asking them to fire flash bracketing exposures (what is that...say 3 exposures in a second?) is not going to happen unless they are 3 VERY weak flashes. Add to that that digital SLR cameras have to also fire a preflash or 10 and you are asking a lot.

In the meantime, let me tell you how I do flash exposure bracketing with the Fuji S2pro:

I use the "stay depressed" lever to depress the flash compensation button. Then I take a shot, dial up the flash by a half stop, take another, and dial up again, then take a third. Since the camera will fire with the flash compensation button depressed, that's not a problem, and I can get off 3 shots in a little over a second or two.

I'm not sure if the Canon cameras work that way, but I thought I'd throw it out as an idea.

There is a user here named Matthias who has designed an eTTL conversion circuit that will mount in pretty much any housing, so you should track him down. He's in Germany, but ships his parts to the US.

Cheers

James Wiseman

In any case, underwater strobes do not recycle as fast as the Canon EX flashgun, so asking them to fire flash bracketing exposures (what is that...say 3 exposures in a second?) is not going to happen unless they are 3 VERY weak flashes. Add to that that digital SLR cameras have to also fire a preflash or 10 and you are asking a lot.

I think that for flash bracketing to work with ANY strobe, the camera has to be able to wait for the strobe to indicate it's ready as any strobe could have a weak charge and a slow recycle time. And, as my DS-125 preflashes, flashes, and recycles just about as fast as I can press and release the trigger, I think it's possible

I'm not sure exactly how eTTL works (perhaps Matthias or Ike can tell us) but Nikon digital TTL fires 18 preflashes milliseconds before the shutter opens. That's a lot of flashes in a very short time. I think that may be the hardest thing for the underwater strobe to do.

I agree about taking multiple shots in quick succession though (sp??). The DS125 can fire 2 frames per second at 1/2 power.

Cheers

James

That is still a fair ways off for Ikelite, and knowing Canon, they will announce fTTL the day after Ike gets it figured out...:-)

Hi,

I really hope Canon will continue the way not changing the TTL standard as fast as Nikon does nowadays. D-TTL - i-TTL, no fall back or upwards compatibility :-(. E-TTL II does not require new strobes. Only in camera software has been modified for calculating the the flash exposure. The strobe control is still compatible with all E-TTL strobes which have been sold already before DSLRs were around for years.

The Matthias Heinrichs 300D converter results are perfect. I think one can say it is the first working E-TTL converter for the 300D.

The 10D version is not ready yet. But I simply had to try with my 10D :-)

There are differences between those cameras. So the converter is about to become modified by Matthias for the 10D now.

Astonishingly the 300D converter gave me correct exposed results within 2/3 of the different stops. But of course one should wait/get the 10D version of this converter.

I cannot say anything about the Ike E-TTL unit as there is nothing out yet. Just some anouncements.

And Aquatica? Very silent?

Julian

E-TTL II does not require new strobes.

Yeah, but has anyone given any thought as to how the distance reported by the lens is going to cause problems? I know when I have my 17-40L zoom mounted behind a dome, the distance to the subject it reports back is not accurate at all, probably because of the way a dome port functions underwater. That may cause some strange behavior with eTTL-II. Just a thought...

Tom

D10? Cannon? No E-TTL for you, one year! :wink:

Jolly, I hope you are going to post some more details soon. If Matthias's system actually works, I may go with that rather than wait X months for the Ike system to arive. I agree that Aquatica is strangely quiet on this front...

Tom, good point, but I find most of my lens distances in the EXIF are inaccurate on 10D anyway (including above water without a dome).

Large box from B&H arrived today...I wonder if it might be a Ike 10D housing...

Hi

Tom, behind a dome the lens distance values are completely incorrect.

If your lens for example reports 40cm distance, it might already be infinity uw, depending on what dome (radius) you use.

But there were a lot of guesses already for E-TTL (I) system guns having problems due to the light absorption uw causing Canons complex preflash metering to confuse. But they work perfectly uw. But of course there is a chance E-TTL II will behave different. Never know. But I don't think so.

I am just happy Canon does not force me to buy a new system gun every 2 weeks as Nikon does. :wink:

Rob, you have your housing? Great. Congratulations. But keep your EWA-Marine E-TTL approved housing as a backup until Matthias finalized the 10D converter.

I will let you know.

I'm not knocking eTTL-II, I think the idea is great. All I'm saying is that if the camera relies on distance to set exposure (which it does) it may be thrown off MORE than an algorithm that doesn't (eTTL-I). At the end of it all, the camera fires the flash until it sees enough light, so it shouldn't matter. My comment was more of a random thought that occurred to me that I thought I'd share.

Tom

Oh, I just figured out I might have solved the E-TTL II problem before it begins.

My uw lenses do not deliver distance information. What a lucky hand on lens selection :roll: :mrgreen:

Tom,

of course it is possible that vII will cause problems uw. Your thought is absolutely justified.

It was just my guess.

Julian

In my experience, E-TTL II works like it is supposed to (topside, I mean). I really hate E-TTL (the original version), however. It takes all sort of tricks to make it work, mostly because it relies so heavily on the focus point selection.

Hi Eric,

is there a noticeable difference with less focus point bounding to E-TTL II?

So you have a MkII now? :wink:

Yeah -- the E-TTL II on the Mk II is really nice. My 10D/D60 class cameras are all sold, so now I have a 1Ds and 1D Mk II, which compliment each other well. Most people focus with the focus point and then recompose to shoot, which makes focus-pointing bonding really annoying.

by the way, you could get rid of possible unsharpness in the corners with the 1.3 crop factor

focus point bounding: That's why I really miss the eye control feature of my film EOS. This feature really enabled using all the focus points for me. With my 10D I hate the automatic selection of focus points and therefore only use the center one and recompose. For most of the shots it works as the locked focus point before recomposing is correct for flash exposure (main subject). But not for all shots. For the rest it gets annoying. :-)

Have you used the MkII UW?

With regards to the Ikelite housing. I have the Ikelite housing for the D70. Its the same mold with buttons in slightly different spots so handling is similur.

I think it works great. The rig is nearly neutral with a slight tendancy to nose up with the dome port.

I find it easy to see most of the viewfinder. By shifting my eye around I can see the information bar at the bottom too. I bet its even better with the 10D.

The controls are logically laid out.

Everything is of very good quality and the plastic is very thick.

I like being able to see inside and potentially fix or at least troubleshoot a setup problem.