p.1 #1 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
Just wondering if anyone might have a guess or know what kind of problem this is?
I never encounter this problem with D70, D2X, D7100, D850, Z7,Z7 ii before using similar set up.
Basic setting is M mode, F between F13-25, iso 64-400, shutterspeed between 1/80-1/125 showed this kind of problem, not
all the times but 10-30% of the pictures are affected. SS 1/60 or 1/160 did not show this problem at all.
The lenses used were either 105/2.8S macro or 60/2.8G macro with FTZ adapter.
Housing was Nauticam and Sea&Sea YS-D2 strobe and Inon S2000 fill strobe (my trustworthy 2nd YS-D2 died at the beginning of the trip, optical trigger would not work but power was on ).
Anti flicker on or off did not make a different. I am waiting to hear from other friend who is using similar set up but review of using Z8 underwater that I could find, nobody mentioned this problem at all. Very strange.
The picture was RAW file imported into PS just for conversion to jpg and resized.
This one was shot at f18, iso 200, 1/100s.
Strobe is in manual mode, not TTL. The housing connected to the camera and bulkhead converted electrical flash trigger to optical to go to the stroe. I use this particular flash system with D850, Z7,Z7 ii i the past with no problem.
PS the bar is not in the same location everytime. It could be right near the edge or in the middle of the frame. Always horizontal.
p.1 #3 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
jlafferty wrote:
Silent mode?
Z8 only has electronic shutter so it is pretty much in silent mode full time.
I should mentioned all the previous cameras that I have, I always use mechanical shutter
and there has been no issue. Certainly I wonder if this might have something to do with
scan speed with electronic shutter and strobe flash duration time perhaps but I am
not entirely sure.
p.1 #5 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
JustShootMe wrote:
Do you have the issue of you choose the flash sync speed 1/200th and lower the ISO?
I never tried 1/200s. I did try iso 64 with slower SS and it did show the problem.
I definitely will need to get in a pool and tried a bit more setting and burrowed other strobes to try
and see if it is strobe specific problem or not.
I was using 105/2.8S macro most of the time so generally I stayed at 1/80 or 1/100.
I just tried changing SS until I find one that did not exhibit the problem. 1/60s is really a bit
too slow for many things but 1/160 worked well. Not a big deal as I can work around this if I have
to but I thought it was strange.
p.1 #7 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
1bwana1 wrote:
I thought that the Z8/9 electronic flash sync speed was limited to 1/200 sec. Maybe try that.
Yes, sync speed is 1/200 but usually that means anything slower than 1/200 should work.
At least that was the case with mechanical shutter on all the previous cameras that I used underwater.
With mechanical shutter, if I shoot faster than 1/200s, I just see part of picture, most of the time, top part of the
frame blacked out by shutter which I used sometimes in the past the achieved black background when the subject
filled the bottom part of the frame
I generally use slower shutter speed especially for wide angle work as strobe is really there just to fill in the color
but still need slower shutter speed to get the ambient light without using too high ISO.
p.1 #8 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
I’ve been running strobes with the Z8 and Z9 as low as 1/100 and generally at 1/200 and haven’t had issues (with both Nikon speed lights and profoto strobes). Maybe a camera sync issue?
p.1 #9 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
Just heard from my local Nikon dealer that now at least 2 other people are having the same issue with
Sea and Sea DS strobes. The bad news is that even the latest Sea and Sea YS-D3 ii exhibit the same problem. At the moment, Retra flash seemed to work with no problem with Z8 underwater and that's what the other two people switched to. It is an excellent flash and a friend is using one but the bad news is that it is about twice as expensive as Sea and Sea
They think that it has something to do with flash duration on Sea and Sea strobe.
p.1 #10 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
suteetat wrote:
Yes, sync speed is 1/200 but usually that means anything slower than 1/200 should work.
At least that was the case with mechanical shutter on all the previous cameras that I used underwater.
With mechanical shutter, if I shoot faster than 1/200s, I just see part of picture, most of the time, top part of the
frame blacked out by shutter which I used sometimes in the past the achieved black background when the subject
filled the bottom part of the frame
I generally use slower shutter speed especially for wide angle work as strobe is really there just to fill in the color
but still need slower shutter speed to get the ambient light without using too high ISO. ...Show more →
The flash duration on most strobes, even slow ones, is shorter than 1/200 so I don’t think the duration is an issue. It might be how you are syncing them, any option for another method to sync or trigger them?
When using strobes/flash, your aperture setting primarily controls the exposure of the strobes/flash and it is your shutter speed that controls the exposure brightness of your ambient. So I don’t think this is an ambient lighting issue that is causing this.
Is it possible that your strobes are not firing every time due to recycle tines thus the issue appears intermittent? Thus when it appears that there is no problem it’s because the exposure is either all ambient or nearly all ambient exposure.
p.1 #11 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
MRomine wrote:
The flash duration on most strobes, even slow ones, is shorter than 1/200 so I don’t think the duration is an issue. It might be how you are syncing them, any option for another method to sync or trigger them?
When using strobes/flash, your aperture setting primarily controls the exposure of the strobes/flash and it is your shutter speed that controls the exposure brightness of your ambient. So I don’t think this is an ambient lighting issue that is causing this.
Is it possible that your strobes are not firing every time due to recycle tines thus the issue appears intermittent? Thus when it appears that there is no problem it’s because the exposure is either all ambient or nearly all ambient exposure. ...Show more →
If the strobe does not fire, it will be all black pretty much as I was using f16-f25 mostly and underwater ambient light is low anyhow.
I am not 100% sure what exactly is the problem but my local did say that 2 other customers had the same problem with Sea&Sea strobes and needed the same 1/160s to get rid off the problem, unfortunately even with the most current YS-D3 ii strobes as well. But for whatever reason, Retra flash seemed to have no problem so those 2 people have switched. The bad news is that Retra strobes cost about twice as much as Sea&Sea
Certainly could be a sync problem as now a day, most people now use optical trigger rather than electrical as it elimiates one
more potential weak spot for flooding so there is an extra step to convert electrical signal to light to trigger a strobe via fiber optic cable. Never used Retra myself and I am more familiar with Inon and Sea & Sea myself. I used optical trigger for underwater strobe since D7100 days after I flooded Nikonos port on my D2X housing a couple of times years ago
My local dealer thinks that Sea & Sea actually has one of the shortest peak of flash burst so he thinks may be scan speed is too slow and the flash peak ended before the sensor is completely scan. Retra on the other hand seems to have longer burst.
However that does not make sense to me as 1/60s also seems to work with no problem.
p.1 #12 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
Based on 1/160 working and 1/200 showing a band I would say the flash is triggering late or out of sync. Assuming the Z8/Z9 scan from the physical top of the sensor down (which means it starts at the bottom of the image and works up, since sensor images are vertically flipped), the fact your image has the lighter band at the bottom of the image would be consistent with a late trigger.
p.1 #13 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
snapsy wrote:
Based on 1/160 working and 1/200 showing a band I would say the flash is triggering late or out of sync. Assuming the Z8/Z9 scan from the physical top of the sensor down (which means it starts at the bottom of the image and works up, since sensor images are vertically flipped), the fact your image has the lighter band at the bottom of the image would be consistent with a late trigger.
I did not try 1/200 as 1/160 was fine.
I had banding problem when shutterspeed was between 1/80-1/125. 1/80 only had occasional banding but 1/100-1/125 was
quite problematic. I did not notice any problem at 1/60 either but that shutterspeed is a bit too slow as I got quite a bit of
motion artifact then (probably from animal moving as well as there is almost always some current). In the past 1/80-1/100 is probably what I use the most for macro work).
p.1 #14 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
suteetat wrote:
If the strobe does not fire, it will be all black pretty much as I was using f16-f25 mostly and underwater ambient light is low anyhow.
That is correct, my bad, when you said this, "I generally use slower shutter speed especially for wide angle work as strobe is really there just to fill in the color but still need slower shutter speed to get the ambient light without using too high ISO." I read more into what you were saying than you intended.
I have no idea other than the gear that you are working with has a really weird burst timing. Try some other gear by renting.
p.1 #15 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
MRomine wrote:
That is correct, my bad, when you said this, "I generally use slower shutter speed especially for wide angle work as strobe is really there just to fill in the color but still need slower shutter speed to get the ambient light without using too high ISO." I read more into what you were saying than you intended.
I have no idea other than the gear that you are working with has a really weird burst timing. Try some other gear by renting.
Yes, I think there is something going on with sync speed or timing. Z8 is pretty much the first camera that does not have mechanical shutter and I don't think I ever used electronic shutter with any other cameras in the past underwater.
At least I am not alone as my local dealer now reported 2 other people with similar problem using the same Sea and Sea strobes. A friend has been using Retra strobe for a few years and also got Z8 and Nauticam housing with the same electric to optical converter for flash trigger reported no problem. At least there will be one strobe that I can try to make sure that it works before buying them.
It is a good thing that one of my Sea and Sea strobe decided to die after 6-7 years of use so I will need to buy new strobe anyhow. I was thinking of a pair of Sea and Sea YS-D3 ii and use my YS-D2 as a backup but it has the same problem apparently
I am more familiar with Sea and Sea and Inon strobes but Retra looks very nice and a friend swear by it.
p.1 #16 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
suteetat wrote:
Z8 only has electronic shutter so it is pretty much in silent mode full time.
I should mentioned all the previous cameras that I have, I always use mechanical shutter
and there has been no issue. Certainly I wonder if this might have something to do with
scan speed with electronic shutter and strobe flash duration time perhaps but I am
not entirely sure.
Your correct that the Z8 only has an electronic shutter but if the camera is in silent mode it will not fire the flash. At least Nikon and Profoto flashes. Unsure about other types of triggers/flashes but I would assume they wouldn't fire either.
p.1 #17 · strange problem with Z8 and manual strobes.
I get that line when adjusting the delay sync speed. Something I ALWAYS needed to do with DSLR to prevent that line. With the Z9, my Godox trigger delay sync speed is set to OFF, when using hyper sync speed (not HSS). See if you can upgrade your strobe/trigger firmware. I think it has to do with the Z8 only using electronic shutter. You may need to use a different strobe/trigger system. FYI, I am using a Godox AD400 pro.
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