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Flash Cables

Reliable firing of your underwater flash is obviously vital to making good underwater images. There are three main ways to fire a flashgun used with a compact camera underwater. Through water slave, hard-wired cable or fibre optic wet lead. Each has
strengths and weaknesses.

Through water slave triggering is the least expensive option, but also by far the most problematic. Slaves rely on seeing a pulse of light from your cameras built in flash. They have to detect this pulse against the background light levels. So the brighter the ambient light, the less reliable the firing can become. The position of the external strobe can also influence how reliably it fires. In some positions, which might help you light your subject better, the external flash might not fire. Other underwater photographers flashguns can also set off your flash. This can mean your flash is still recycling when you go to take your own picture, ruining your photography, and that your flash goes off when someone else takes a photo ruining their photograph....

Hard-wired cables involve using an electrical cable running between your camera housing and your underwater strobe. Inside your housing another cable makes the connection to your cameras hot shoe or strobe socket. Many compact cameras lack these connections, so many underwater photographers will not have the choice of a hard -wired connector. Firing is reliable and is unaffected by other photographers underwater strobes going off. TTL circuits can be used so long as all of the equipment is compatible - this is something you'll need to confirm. Many camera and underwater strobe combinations that might physically connect together don't recognise each other's operating systems and will not work. Because your built in flash does not need to fire to use a hard- wired system, you may benefit from faster recycling times so you can shoot more quickly. Disadvantages include cables breaking down, which are expensive to replace, the number of contacts involved (around 30 is the minimum), all of which need to work flawlessly and leak points at each O ring seal, which means more pre dive maintenance.

Fibre optic wet leads are used by INON to connect their underwater flashes to digital compact cameras, the INON X2- GF-1 Panasonic GF-1 underwater case and many underwater D- SLR systems, including Nauticam. The fibre optic cables rely on seeing your built in flash fire, then relay this signal to your INON strobe and fire that in turn. TTL is available with virtually any compact underwater camera. Like a hard-wired system, firing is extremely reliable and other photographers won't set off your strobe by accident. There are no electrical contacts to go wrong. The multi stranded construction of INON fibre optic cables means that, in our experience, they are much more rugged than hard-wired cables. Because it is a wet lead, there are no O ring seals that you must maintain or that can fail. You can even remove the strobe from your camera underwater if you want to - a technique you might use if you have more than one strobe and want to use one off camera for creative lighting, for instance. Ocean Optics is developing an INON UK advanced lighting underwater photography course, which will include off camera strobe techniques.

INON cable sets use properly designed attachment points to secure the cable to your housing, not straps, tape or Velcro. Each cable mount uses a small mirror to divert the light from your built in flash into the cable. A robust holder accepts two cables for dual underwater strobe photography. The holder features a lock to prevent your cable pulling out by accident. Different types of holders are made to fit a choice of underwater cameras.

Mark or Steve will be happy to answer any questions you have about choosing an underwater flash for your
digital underwater camera.