OMD EM5 MK2 & Sea&Sea YS d1/2 PROBLEMS???

Good day.

i have a EM5 MK2 in a Nauticam Housing, I recently upgraded my one YS D1 strobe and added a D2. now when I startet on doing some wide-angle, I figured out, that my Pictures don't get the light of the strobes, if I Fire them at the 3 highest powers. (4 on the D2) WTF how can I get my strobes on full power to light up my picture?? is it any camera setting? or are the strobes on full power just to slow/ fast? even If I change my shutter 1/60 - 1/100 1/250 theres no difference in the fact

any advise/ help, how to solve this?

cheers Chris

Hi Chris,

I would try to post some pictures showing the issue so we can try and help...

All the best

Adam

Chris:

I don't use S&S strobes and don't have a solution for you but perhaps the following links might help. I fear it might not be helpful to say buy something else, but FWIW, Inon strobes have worked well for me for years.

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=56787

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=57441

https://www.scubaboard.com/community/threads/om-d-e-m1-mk-ii-ys-d1-ys-d2.540461/

Well let me try to explain again, since pictures won't help. alright, heres the situation.

i have my 2 strobes connected as slaves via fiber optical cables.

I press the shutter, my internal flash is triggering both flashes, the D1 and the D2 correctly. if I put both Strobes at their highest output power, the picture is NOT LIT by the strobes even though they fired.

if I go down 3 stops on the strobe (4 on the D2 since it got 1 lvl more) I get the light of the strobes on my pictures. I even tried with setting different shutter speeds on the camera, but this doesn't affect the outcome. I will try the less powerful settings on the strobe all the way down, but didn't want to fire them more then 1 -2 times out of the water. will jump in tomorrow morning and check once again all different power levels..... it makes no sense to me, that the highest power is not visible on the pictures, but less power is... ?????

I'll have a look through these 3 links you send, I might find the answer...

i was pretty annoyed underwater, when I found out about it.. all pictures are useless... (maybe because of that I saw so much stuff ) murpheys law...

EDIT: I use everything Camera as well as strobes in manual)

What mode do you have your strobes in? What flash mode is your camera in? If your strobes are in manual, you need to have the camera flash in manual (I put mine at 1/64 power). If the strobes are in TTL, you need to have the camera set to "fill in" flash. I had the same problem when I started out.

With strobes, changing the shutter speed won't affect how bright the strobe lights are. You need to change your ISO or your Aperture (f-stop).

Just so long as you only fire a couple shots above water and give them a minute or two to cool down, you can shoot occasionally above water. Better to figure it out before getting in the water.

What mode do you have your strobes in? What flash mode is your camera in? If your strobes are in manual, you need to have the camera flash in manual (I put mine at 1/64 power). If the strobes are in TTL, you need to have the camera set to "fill in" flash. I had the same problem when I started out.

 

With strobes, changing the shutter speed won't affect how bright the strobe lights are. You need to change your ISO or your Aperture (f-stop).

 

Just so long as you only fire a couple shots above water and give them a minute or two to cool down, you can shoot occasionally above water. Better to figure it out before getting in the water.

my strobes are in manual, on the single flash sign on both strobes. once I put them higher in power (the highest three powers) the light is not visible on the pictures, they are dark. my internal flash is set on default, had all my camera settings set to default once the issue came up, thought maybe it was my custom settings. but even on default camera settings, the issue still exists... I had the internal flash set on lowest power before. but they fire... its really weird. and maybe my camera technical understanding is not enough to understand whats causing it

your camera is most likely producing a preflash. either turn off the camera preflash or set your stobes to handle the preflash.

at low power settings yours strobes can manually fire for the preflash and then manually fire again for the normal exposure. at high power settings they will not be able to fire twice very quickly as they are still recharging after the preflash full dump.

your camera is most likely producing a preflash. either turn off the camera preflash or set your stobes to handle the preflash.

 

at low power settings yours strobes can manually fire for the preflash and then manually fire again for the normal exposure. at high power settings they will not be able to fire twice very quickly as they are still recharging after the preflash full dump.

Well no. I tried both flash modes... problem is still the same. on medium or low power, I get my pictures illuminated, on fullest power and the few steps before it, the picture remains dark - without light of my strobes.

One thing that is at least worth trying is to cycle through the Flash Modes menu and see if any particular Flash Mode might address the problem. Note that the available Flash Modes will be determined by the shooting mode.

Well no. I tried both flash modes... problem is still the same. on medium or low power, I get my pictures illuminated, on fullest power and the few steps before it, the picture remains dark - without light of my strobes.

 

The symptoms you describe WILL occur if your strobes are not capable of properly recognizing and reacting to a camera preflash sequence. My description above explains what happens when this situation occurs. your strobes are being fooled by the camera preflash. they do not support it in manual strobe mode.

if you google for sea and sea ys-01 compatibilty chart you will find a list of strobes versus cameras along with some special footnotes.

have you tried ensuring that the camera does not preflash? what mode is your camera flash in?

The symptoms you describe WILL occur if your strobes are not capable of properly recognizing and reacting to a camera preflash sequence. My description above explains what happens when this situation occurs. your strobes are being fooled by the camera preflash. they do not support it in manual strobe mode.

if you google for sea and sea ys-01 compatibilty chart you will find a list of strobes versus cameras along with some special footnotes.

have you tried ensuring that the camera does not preflash? what mode is your camera flash in?

 

The symptoms you describe WILL occur if your strobes are not capable of properly recognizing and reacting to a camera preflash sequence. My description above explains what happens when this situation occurs. your strobes are being fooled by the camera preflash. they do not support it in manual strobe mode.

 

if you google for sea and sea ys-01 compatibilty chart you will find a list of strobes versus cameras along with some special footnotes.

An additional thought occurred to me: my response above is based upon my knowledge of a YS-D1 strobe - the compatibility sheet note *10 indicates the strobe needs to be in single lightning icon mode and the camera flash in manual. This means that the YS-D1 can not handle the EM5 preflash when the strobe is in manual mode. This matches my description above. In manual mode the D1 can not handle the EM5 preflash.

BUT: The YS-D2 appears to be able to handle the EM5 preflash in manual mode. But not with the factory default strobe settings (mode A). You need to customize the strobe (mode B) to tell it that you are using a EM5. the Olympus preflash is a bit screwy (more flashes than Nikon or Canon?).

Since you are using a mix of D1 & D2 you will need to ensure that your camera does not preflash since the D1 does not support it. I am unsure if changing the custom mode of the D2 is required. Please experiment and let us know the results.

An additional thought occurred to me: my response above is based upon my knowledge of a YS-D1 strobe - the compatibility sheet note *10 indicates the strobe needs to be in single lightning icon mode and the camera flash in manual. This means that the YS-D1 can not handle the EM5 preflash when the strobe is in manual mode. This matches my description above. In manual mode the D1 can not handle the EM5 preflash.

 

BUT: The YS-D2 appears to be able to handle the EM5 preflash in manual mode. But not with the factory default strobe settings (mode A). You need to customize the strobe (mode B) to tell it that you are using a EM5. the Olympus preflash is a bit screwy (more flashes than Nikon or Canon?).

 

Since you are using a mix of D1 & D2 you will need to ensure that your camera does not preflash since the D1 does not support it. I am unsure if changing the custom mode of the D2 is required. Please experiment and let us know the results.

Well I want to thank everyone in giving me ideas to fix it. I FINALLY FIXED THE PROBLEM...

Well I "forgot" that there is the -Quick Menu- where you can set your internal strobe manual in strength etc. I changed it to a quite low value in order to save some battery life. and now it is working just fine. so I think there was really the pre flash, even though I couldn't really tell the difference with my bare eyes.

Well, Thanks to everyone who helped. Issue Solved - it was the pre flash...

cheers

Glad you figured out the cause of your problem and have it straightened out.

Low power versus high power "burst" strobe behavior is confusing. Until you screw around with it a bit. At first glance the strobe behavior seems totally wrong and counter intuitive. Upon reflection it is simple and correct.

Understanding proper preflash behaviour is not obvious.