Sea&Sea YS-D2 TTL Problem with new J Version

1 minute ago, Interceptor121 said:

If the light is green it means the camera has sent a succesful start stop signal. What is probably happening is that the camera is not reading the exposure correctly try aiming the strobe at the subject to ensure the light bounces back into the lens

Thats what I did in my first tests (and actually also what I did under water naturally ). The strobes fire and the green light comes up, but the picture looks as if there where no strobes at all. Dark as a pit. Sea and Sea themselfs recommend makeing a picture of either the strobe or a mirror to see if the strobes are working correctly.

If the strobes has green it means it is getting what is expected I would look into the flash settings for red eye preflashes and other settings that may compromise the strobes

1 hour ago, Interceptor121 said:

If the strobes has green it means it is getting what is expected I would look into the flash settings for red eye preflashes and other settings that may compromise the strobes

That is so weird. As you can imagine, I've turned my camera inside out already. Basically check and rechecked all the settings at least 5 times and even experimented with settings that I'm pretty damn sure can't be the reason. But you know.. one tries everything. But wanting to be throughout I just now checked again both strobes with all available flash modes on the camera.The only combination that works is the Pre-Flash ignoring manual mode on the strobe and normal TTL mode on the camera or TTL mode on the strobe and manual mode on the camera (in which case of course there is also no green light on the strobe). Quite frankly I'm at a loss what could possibly be wrong.

HUH? IF the strobe is in manual and the camera is in TTL it should not work consistently. Does it work with camera in manual and strobe in manual (your discussion suggests not and that is very weird).

Bill

To make sure I don't brabble nonsense or misinterpreted some of the result I just retested. Here is what I got:

• Camera: TTL Strobe: TTL => Flashes, LED green but dark picture
• Camera: Manual Strobe: TTL => Flashes, LED not green and picture is completely white
• Camera: TTL Strobe: Manual (ignore Pre-Flash Mode) => Flashes, LED not green and picture is completely white
• Camera: Manual Strobe: Manual (ignore Pre-Flash Mode) => No Flash, dark picture
• Camera: Manual Strobe Manual (manual Mode) => Flashes, LED not green and picture is completely white

To clear up what I mean regarding the strobes modes:

• Manual (ignore Pre-Flash Mode): The first and yellow glowing setting.
• Manual (manual Mode): The second and green glowing setting.
• TTL: Obviously the third and blue glowing TTL Mode setting.

The fact that in manual/manual (ignore preflash) mode nothing is happening makes sense. The strobe thinks the flash from the camera is the preflash and ignores it. And that manual/manual (manual Mode) is working also makes sense.. its the most basic way to use the strobe. That TTL/manual (ignore preflash) works is also quite sensible since the preflash of the camera is just ignored. The other two are more of a mystery. manual/TTL should not work at all, because the strobe should think the manually triggered flash is the preflash. It does however not show the green light.. so the strobe apparently realizes that the flash is not a preflash at all. Hence the TTL mode does indeed recognize the preflash as you said. Why then it is triggering instead of waiting for the main flash remains a mystery to me.

P.S. Camera firmware update did (as was to be expected) not resolve the issue .

It certainly seems like it is related to camera settings - probably unlikely to be an issue with both of the strobes.  It does seem strange that the old flash worked. 

One workaround might be to use the old strobe as your master flash and run a cable from the the master to one of your new strobes as shown on page e-22 of manual?  The new strobe in TTL should mimic the pre-flash and main flash from your old strobe.

Googling around there a few posts on issues with D750 pre-flash such as difficulties in turning off red-eye mode.  The manual says the camera emits multiple pre-flashes in TTL mode which the strobe may be having difficulty with.  After a TTL test does the strobe come back with a ready light very quickly or not?

Which TTL mode are you using?  It appears you can activate D-TTL (as opposed to i-TTL) by switching to spot metering which is a less complicated system .

4 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

One workaround might be to use the old strobe as your master flash and run a cable from the the master to one of your new strobes as shown on page e-22 of manual?

Unfortunately I sold the old strobe to finance the two new ones . Is did test the new ones before.. but not against a mirror.. just tested if they fire . Not the best decision I ever made I suppose.

9 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

After a TTL test does the strobe come back with a ready light very quickly or not? 

Yes it comes back pretty quickly. Shows the green light and about a second later its ready again. I do use pretty good batteries though. However the red eye mode can be turned on and off pretty easily as far as I can see it.

11 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

Which TTL mode are you using?  It appears you can activate D-TTL (as opposed to i-TTL) by switching to spot metering which is a less complicated system . 

I usually use the matrix metering. I did however try all the other metering modes (Matrix, Center, Spot and Light). No difference in strobe behavior though.

One last thing to try -  did you try using Slave TTL mode (mention on page E-25 of manual)?  I noticed that on cameras listed as DS-TTL-II mode impossible they list Slave TTL as possible.  I really can't think of other reasons they won't work.

26 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

One last thing to try -  did you try using Slave TTL mode (mention on page E-25 of manual)?  I noticed that on cameras listed as DS-TTL-II mode impossible they list Slave TTL as possible.  I really can't think of other reasons they won't work.

I did try this shortly, but not try out all the possible cases (camera settings etc.) as with the normal TTL mode. I'll try again and more extensive when I come home this evening.

Do you have a strobe for overwater use? If so, you can test optical ttl also with a "normal" strobe and try to figure out if the problem might be camera setting or the strobe.

Maybe you can inspect the housing that the "window" for the optical cable is clean. I don't think that that will be the problem, but just to be sure.

Also it could be possible you have to use other optical cables. I think I remember some statements that the new version of the D2 has a different sensor, so the optical cables that worked with the old version might not work with the new one.

I have the old version of the Sea&Sea YS D2, so you could test again if the old version would still shoot in ttl-mode, just to make shure nothing else has changed (camera settings), but I live in the south of Germany.

Also, it seems strange, but the Nikon D750 is not listed in the compatibility chart for the D2:

http://www.seaandsea.jp/file_master/misc/files/YS%20Strobe%20Slave%20function%20compatibility%20chart%20%2020191028%281%29.pdf

3 minutes ago, ChrisH80 said:

Do you have a strobe for overwater use? If so, you can test optical ttl also with a "normal" strobe and try to figure out if the problem might be camera setting or the strobe.

Unfortunately not. I don't like strobe photography really. But alas.. under water we hardly have a chance do we?

6 minutes ago, ChrisH80 said:

Maybe you can inspect the housing that the "window" for the optical cable is clean. I don't think that that will be the problem, but just to be sure.

In all my last tests the camera was out of the housing and I held the cable directly against the pop-up strobe of the camera. Just to be sure .

7 minutes ago, ChrisH80 said:

Also it could be possible you have to use other optical cables. I think I remember some statements that the new version of the D2 has a different sensor, so the optical cables that worked with the old version might not work with the new one.

I've also tried this holding the strobes fiber port directly against the cameras strobe. The effect is the same, so I guess I can pretty much rule out a cable problem.

8 minutes ago, ChrisH80 said:

I have the old version of the Sea&Sea YS D2, so you could test again if the old version would still shoot in ttl-mode, just to make shure nothing else has changed (camera settings), but I live in the south of Germany. 

I do every now and then (about every 1 1/2 month) drive down to Saarland to visit my parents. But that ist more west of germany then really south germany.

9 minutes ago, ChrisH80 said:

Also, it seems strange, but the Nikon D750 is not listed in the compatibility chart for the D2:

I did notice that too. But considering that the old flash was working and that the D750 is quite a popular model, it would be very strange if the new version of the strobe did not support it. I did also write an E-Mail to the neatherlands support team of Sea&Sea (they seem to be responsible for europe) describing my problems, but am still waiting for a reply.

2 minutes ago, DanielD said:

I do every now and then (about every 1 1/2 month) drive down to Saarland to visit my parents. But that ist more west of germany then really south germany.

I live there Lets say its south-west

I have also Retra strobes, so it would be possible to test if they work with the D750 in ttl.

21 minutes ago, ChrisH80 said:

I live there Lets say its south-west 

I have also Retra strobes, so it would be possible to test if they work with the D750 in ttl.

That would be really cool. My parents live pretty much on the northward border of RLP about 30km from Trier. But when I go there, I usually do so by car, so it wouldn't be much of a problem to drive to wherever you live. So if I don't find a solution for this till the next time I'll come down, I'll most definately contact you .

10 hours ago, ChrisRoss said:

One last thing to try -  did you try using Slave TTL mode (mention on page E-25 of manual)?  I noticed that on cameras listed as DS-TTL-II mode impossible they list Slave TTL as possible.  I really can't think of other reasons they won't work.

So I tried this and the strobe is behaving the exact same way as in normal TTL mode .

This gets more weird by the minute. I just tested the strobes with a camera of a friend (a canon) and it shows the exact same behavior with both strobes . That would point to broken strobes I guess.. but BOTH at the same time? Seems highly unlikely to me.

Have you tried sea and sea or nauticam cables?

Sent from my SM-A505FN using Tapatalk

2 hours ago, Interceptor121 said:

Have you tried sea and sea or nauticam cables?

I have 3 cables, but they are all INON multicore cables. I also tried it without cable (holding the strobe against the internal flash of the camera). All those tests produced the same result.

Sea and Sea say you need 613 multi core to make it work so you don't have yet a case to complain with them

Get one of their own cables and try

1 hour ago, Interceptor121 said:

Sea and Sea say you need 613 multi core to make it work so you don't have yet a case to complain with them 

Get one of their own cables and try 

Considering that the strobe also doesn't work when I put the port directly to the flash, this doesn't make any sense whatsoever. The cable that has gain instead of loss has yet to be invented. And I'm certainly not going to buy a 90€ cable just to prove what I already know.

So far Sea&Sea has yet to respond to my mail. If they don't I'm just going to sell the strobes again and buy another model. It's sad relly because I was quite happy with the old version.

The point is that you cannot prove that your old system worked as you no longer have it and you are not following their requirements so you are on your own. You have spent now over a week on this would it not be better to get a cable so at least you can ask for support?