aquatica digital rebel housing questions

Hello All: last weekend my aquatica housing arrived and i took it on a dive sans camera and everything worked out great. So, now I've been experimenting topside with the camera in the housing and can not get my strobes to fire at all.

I'm using an inon z220s (i meant to order the 220 and a replacement is on the way, but i assume they have very similar controls.) My dual strobe is my old inon d180 that i am going to try to use as a slave and see how things workout.

Anyway, i have read the housing instruction manual twice and there was very little TTL information included to help me set this thing up. I've got the battery installed on the TTL card with the writing on the battery facing up so that you can read it - can anyone confirm that this is correct? Then, I have everything plugged into the camera and have triple checked this. I have the nikonos cable running from housing to the strobe and have the inon's right contol set to TTL. The left control is simply turned one space to the right which is labeled "on" I'm sorry this is so basic but want to describe it exactly as i have it set up.

I don't believe there is anything left to do, but the strobe isnt' firing. when i move the stobe contol to test, the strobe emits a nice blast so it is in working order. I have removed the contector from the top of the camera and pointed it towards a black surface and fired and it of course pops it's own flash to take the photo. Once i replace the connector on top of the camera and shoot a similar photo, the camera struggles and eventually shoots what turns out to be a black shot because the strobe never fires.

Anyone have any suggestions? A follow up question: If i have the TTL chip switched to manual on the housing, and the battery on the housing is dead, would i still be able to fire my strobe in manual as opposed to TTL or would the dead battery on the housing render my strobes useless? thanks in advance for any help.

Please explain exactly how your strobes are connected to the housing.

Cheers

James

>>Please explain exactly how your strobes are connected to the housing. <<

There is only one strobe (the Z220 S) conntected to the right bulkhead of the housing (the left bulkhead has a screw in cap covering it.) The nikonos TTL connector is fit into place on top of the camera and the housing in sealed. The TTL chip inside the housing is switched too TTL (as opposed to manual.) From the right bulkhead, I have a sea & sea nikonos cable that has 3-pin holes leaving the bulkhead running to the 220 and has 5-pin holes plugging into the strobe. That's about as much information as I know to give. I did bring the entire setup with me to work so I can answer more specific quesitons if need be. Again, thanks for any suggestions.

Interesting. It doesn't sound like you do not have a TTL cable as they typically have 5 connections at each end for use with "Nikonos" type bulkheads. Are you sure it doesn't have 5? Typically a few are "holes" and a few are just flat metal contacts.

I would also suggest changing the battery in the eTTL converter - I think you can get them at any store that sells watch batteries.

Cheers

James

it does have 5 pins, but 3 holes, my bad. I just returned from picking up 2 spare batteries - keeping my fingers crossed the one shipped with the housing was DOA.

The Inon Z220 is also configurable via the magnet insert. I don't remeber what they do, it works without the magnet on manual mode. With one magnet and 2 holes there's 3 possible configurations to try, or you can read the manual and try to figure out which configuration to use.

Are you sure the battery is not a moisture sensor instead of the ttl to start?

If it is the ttl, if I recall do you not have to turn the strobes two positions to the right not just one. I think from memory the on position is one away from the test fire position.

After that, are you sure your sync cords are properly functioning. I just had one go south last trip so not strobe firing as a result. Replaced it and no problems.

After that, are you sure the hotshoe is going in the right way to the camera. I think it is cord faces the front of the housing when sliding it on the hotshoe.

After that I am running out of ideas. I hope one of these helps.

I replaced the battery with a new one and still no luck. The strobe won't even fire when i have the TTL switch set to manual - and the strobe set for any other function than TTL. I even tried every "on" swtich on the left of the inon strobe. This leads me to believe I either have a bad TTL card in the housing or a bad nikonos sync cord.

The great news is that Aquatica was very quick to do everything on their end to resolve the matter and are shipping out a brand new TTL card to try. They went way above board without asking me to send in the housing for a check on their end which is rediculously nice from my vantage point. I won't be able to try a new sync cord until friday. Either way, I believe I will still take the housing and camera sans strobes (if a new sync cord doesn't solve the problem) on my shark dives this weekend keeping my fingers crossed that the water is so blue, it won't require a strobe to get a couple of decent shots. Anyway, I appreciate everyone's input tremendously and will update this thread once this gets solved. Heck, I can't rule out moronic user error at this point either.

Hello,

I am not familiar with this particular setup, but generally testing the sync cord is quite easy using instructions in http://www.ikelite.com/faq/faq_syncwiring.html for example.

Another weird problem I have run into with my Nikon and Hugyfot housing is that one of the spring-loaded pins of the hotshoe connector were not pressing against the hotshoe. This was due to a problem in the "spring" loading system of the connector pins which in the case of Hugy is simply a neoprene pad putting pressure on the contacts. In my case, one of the pins was slightly shorter than the others and hence not getting enough pressure.

timo

Lee, unlikely you'll need the strobes for that dive. I did it last summer, we were blessed with 100+ foot viz, sharks are unlikely to come close enough to need the strobe......

And the "cage" thing is very frustrating, its a snorkel cage, banging around with a ton of other people, need mucho weight to stabilize, and the camera kept focusing on the bars of the cage or the chum in the water.... I only got a couple good shots, and even then only from the actual dive

Have fun!

Chris

Which dive is this? Near San Diego?

Cheers

James

Hi, all I promissed a reply once I isolated the problem and this past weekend I did- the TTL board in the housing. I had been away on a shark dive off catalina and spent a week on maui with the mrs using this setup so much that I just let it lie for the past week.

This past weekend I sat down to correct a few things and swapped out the TTL board that aquatica had sent to me within 2 days and had the inon z220 working right away. Unfortuantely, the pointer and the laser on the 220 are not compatible with the TTL chip and thus, users are fine with just the inon z220s in this setup. Ken Ashman from california digital diving gladly agreed to send out a 220s and credit me $70 once he figured out they're not compatible. I thought I'd give a quick plug to him as he has been incredibly patient and helpful to me during this entire process.

So, now I'm down to one nagging problem and even have it isolated. When I latch close the rear of the housing my camera's viewfinder works fine in automatic mode but not at all in any of the manual modes. If the housing is unlatched everything works great. So, one of the buttons on the housing must be pressing against something on the camera to not let the viewfinder work. Anyone seen this or have any suggestions as to which one? I'll just file it down ever so slightly once i giure out for certain which one it is.

Thanks again for everyones help and suggestions. I've taken the camera on ~ 15 dives and love it underwater as it is incredibly easy to use. I'll include a pair of links below to photos from each trip....

http://img42.exs.cx/img42/5589/IMG_0513f.jpg

http://img100.exs.cx/img100/3116/IMG_4747f.jpg

So, now I'm down to one nagging problem and even have it isolated. When I latch close the rear of the housing my camera's viewfinder works fine in automatic mode but not at all in any of the manual modes. If the housing is unlatched everything works great. So, one of the buttons on the housing must be pressing against something on the camera to not let the viewfinder work. Anyone seen this or have any suggestions as to which one? I'll just file it down ever so slightly once i giure out for certain which one it is.

I have trouble imaging the viewfinder stop working when you change modes. What happends? You can frame the shot on auto and when you change to manual the view goes away?

I got the Z220 modeling light and laser to work with a little mod. I'm not sure the same can be done with the Aquatica TTL board. I think Matthias has a TTL board that will turn on the modeling light.

http://wetpixel.com/PNphpBB2-viewtopic-t-5...ight-inon.phtml

>>I have trouble imaging the viewfinder stop working when you change modes. What happends? You can frame the shot on auto and when you change to manual the view goes away? <<<

herb, I'm sorry but I'm not sure if you're asking for more detail or trying to communicate a solution. I type fast too, but rereading that comment isn't helping me decipher your intention. Specifically what happens is that my viewfinder works in automatic all day and all night. it never works in manual. i'll try switching between modes tomorrow night (i won't be around this evening) to see if that could be the problem. As for your last sentance, I've only used my viewfinder to review photos after their taken. Spefically, I'm intersted in that 2-second flash after the photo is shot to let me know about exposure. To be honest I didn't realize I could frame the shot in the viewfinder on auto mode. I've read the manual in full but obviously that portion didn't making much, if any, impact on me as the reader.

>>I have trouble imaging the viewfinder stop working when you change modes. What happends? You can frame the shot on auto and when you change to manual the view goes away? <<<

 

herb, I'm sorry but I'm not sure if you're asking for more detail or trying to communicate a solution. I type fast too, but rereading that comment isn't helping me decipher your intention. Specifically what happens is that my viewfinder works in automatic all day and all night. it never works in manual. i'll try switching between modes tomorrow night (i won't be around this evening) to see if that could be the problem. As for your last sentance, I've only used my viewfinder to review photos after their taken. Spefically, I'm intersted in that 2-second flash after the photo is shot to let me know about exposure. To be honest I didn't realize I could frame the shot in the viewfinder on auto mode. I've read the manual in full but obviously that portion didn't making much, if any, impact on me as the reader.

Ah.... I misunderstood what you meant by viewfinder. In an SLR that usually refers to the optical element near the top of the camera that lets you look through the lens. What you called viewfinder is the LCD display that shows the shots taken.

I can see how one of the buttons, if kept pressed, can disable the LCD. The first one I'd check is the lock down button for the * key.

>>What you called viewfinder is the LCD display that shows the shots taken. <<

Got it, thanks. I'll begin with the * key.