Sealux CD70 Housing for D70 - Review

http://www.gans.co.nz/dive/rig/ColinGansSe...xCD70Review.pdf

Very nice report.....I have viewfinder envy

Looks like an excellent housing....who are the US dealers?

Karl

First and foremost: Excellent review and thanks for posting. You system looks awesome!

One question regarding TTL:

If used in conjunction with another strobe such as the Ikelite DS-50, the SB800 must be set to manual or automatic rather

than iTTL in order to trigger the slave on main flash rather than pre-flash.

Can't you use the Ikelite TTL controllers along with either the DS50 or DS125 to get TTL from all the strobes? I think the DS125s should have the power and recycle time to mimic the preflash? This would seem like an excellent route to TTL that is available today.

So in your setup, for wideangle are you using the SB800 in TTL and the inons manually? I'm confused.

If the Ikelite TTL controller can get past the complicated series of preflashes in the D70 then I finally "get" why you would want to house an SB800.

Looks very interesting. I was able to have a look at theire housings at the last BOOT show in Germany. I especially like the new viewfinder. Fortunately Subal offers the same system now.

I had a Sealux Housing for my Nikon F801s. I was very disappointed by their unreliable, unprofessional and slow service. :-(

I had a problem with the housing and Sealux had four weeks to get it fixed. After two weeks they told me they have my housing "here somewhere". They promised and promised and I ended up doing my assignment with a borrowed setup of a friend.

Sealux returned the housing after I got back and the apperture gear was still not working.

I did a mistake once, I'll never get a Sealux product again :!:

Cheers from Manila

Torben

One question regarding TTL:  

"...If used in conjunction with another strobe such as the Ikelite DS-50, the SB800 must be set to manual or automatic rather

than iTTL in order to trigger the slave on main flash rather than pre-flash..."

 

Can't you use the Ikelite TTL controllers along with either the DS50 or DS125 to get TTL from all the strobes? I think the DS125s should have the power and recycle time to mimic the pre-flash? This would seem like an excellent route to TTL that is available today.  

 

So in your setup, for wide-angle are you using the SB800 in TTL and the Inons manually? I'm confused.  

 

If the Ikelite TTL controller can get past the complicated series of pre-flashes in the D70 then I finally "get" why you would want to house an SB800.

The issue of what strobes can be used comes down to the wiring of the strobe port(s). On the D70 camera side is a 6 pin hotshoe. On the outside of the housing a 5 or six pin port. A six pin port is provided as standard and a Nikonos style port as an optional extra to drive non iTTL strobes (because this is a commonly used style of port).

How the pins are wired is the crucial bit and this problem is not peculiar to Sealux. There are no components (thus no logic) in the configuration, simply wires from hotshoe to port. The logic is built into the strobes being used and the camera of course.

To use a Nikonos SB800 by itself is straightforward and requires the standard wiring of all 6 pins in the six pin port. Unfortunately this is where 'straightforward' ends...

Sealux supply the second, optional Nikonos style port with only two of the five wires active. This is to allow non iTTL strobes such as the Ikelite to function together with the SB800. To the best of my knowledge, non iTTL strobes must be in 'manual', ie if using an Ikelite DS50 for example the manual controller must be connected. Also, (here's the crunch) the SB800 must be set to either manual or automatic, not iTTL. If set to iTTL the pre-flashes will trigger the non iTTL strobes prematurely.

There's another little catch depending on which non-iTTL strobes you use. The Sealux default Nikonos port wiring (2 active pins only) will work with the likes of the Sea&Sea YS90 and Ikelite DS50/125 and other European strobes. However, it will not work with the Inon optical converter firing a D180. Note that the Inon D180 is an optical slave strobe and does not have an electrical cable. To use the SB800 together with the Inon optical converter, the traditional Nikonos 5 wiring must be used. I know this because I gutted one and wired it to do the testing as evidenced in the image below.

The end result for me was that I could have one or the other but not both when it came to using the SB800 with Ikelite or Inon as the Inon optical converter required all five pins whereas the Ikelite DS50 functioned on just two. Other housing vendors must face the same challenge in inter-operating an iTTL strobe with non-iTTL slave strobe(s) and it will be interesting to see how they have overcome this.

Footnote:

As you can imagine resolving the strobe issue involved a fair bit of my time to set up and test but I have been rewarded with a working configuration, which is interchangeable with my Oly5050. I can still use of my two Inon D180 strobes on the PT015 and with my D70 use the Inons plus the SB800 in varying combinations depending on range and mobility requirements. My preference is to stay with my two Inons rather than use my single Ikelite DS50 as they have built in focus lights that also work. The ability to use the Inon D180 strobe is dependent upon the optical converter.

A brief note on Sealux's level of service: first I am attempting to be as non-partisan as possible though naturally with the amount of time and money invested I now have a bias. Second, the Sealux gear was sold to me at retail pricing as published on their website. They have been very helpful in assisting me troubleshooting my strobe issues and provided me with a rewired Nikonos style port at no extra cost. I could see them being a little slow at times - this may be a function of their size. This is a boutique manufacturer and as such there are only so many hours in the day for the small group of people working there. In these times of 'quickest to respond' wins it may be worthwhile giving some thought to how the gear will stand the test of time and use. I personally place a lot of weight in being able to maintain (and modify where required) and for this reason I'm happy with my purchase. I should also add that Sealux have won a couple of awards for their housings and a well-known professional underwater photographer initially recommended the CD70 to me. Based in New Zealand and being geographically remote from all large markets does perhaps instill an element of DIY to help progress to a solution. Maybe this fuelled my persistence but I must say that they did 'come to the party'. Plus my bank balance is looking healthier than if I had decided to go with Subal, Nexus or Seacam.

It looks like you have done a lot of testing and useful work. Thanks for sharing your experience. Forgive me if I misunderstand your post but it looks like you misinterpreted my suggestion.

The issue of what strobes can be used comes down to the wiring of the strobe port(s).

What I was suggesting was to use the setup you have for iTTL with the SB800 but instead of hard wiring the larger Inon strobes, triggering two DS125s optically with Ikelite's wireless TTL Digital Slave Sensor:

http://www.ikelite.com/web_pages/dsensors.html

This device triggers the DS125 or DS50 optically on the SB800 flash and mimics what the master strobe does. Depending upon what setting you use it either ignores the pre-flash or mimics the preflash giving you true TTL. The DS125 recycle time is pretty good and should be able to keep up with the pre-flash.

I know that lots of people are using this successfully with the PT housings and 5050 5060 cameras so it appearently works great for housings that you can't access the hotshoe directly. This would be a good option for trading back and forth with your backup system. (I use the manual controllers to loan a strobe to my brother who uses the 5050. Since I connect one strobe with a single sync cord and the other as an optical slave I can loan him one even underwater).

The main problem with doing this using the internal flash is that it uses camera battery power, steams up the housing and in the case of the D70--no housing allows you to use the pop-up flash. But with the SB800 to do the work on an arm away from the camera it would be a great solution. Now the real question is, can the TTL sensor and the DS125 keep up with the complex series of 12 or so pre-flashes/commands to remore strobes etc? My TTL sensor never worked right with my digital elph because the preflashes were too quick.

Thanks for bearing with me. [/code]

What I was suggesting was to use the setup you have for iTTL with the SB800 but instead of hard wiring the larger Inon strobes, triggering two DS125s optically with Ikelite's wireless TTL Digital Slave Sensor....Now the real question is, can the TTL sensor and the DS125 keep up with the complex series of 12 or so pre-flashes/commands to remore strobes etc? My TTL sensor never worked right with my digital elph because the preflashes were too quick.

Thanks for bearing with me. [/code]

Sorry, I thought you meant triggering the DS125s with a sync cable. The SB800 can be set to either Manual or Auto (not AA) modes which disables the pre-flash sequence.

Colin