Paul C. Buff, Inc. Technical Forum

I recently purchased 2 CyberSync™ CSRB+ and a CyberSync™ CST. Sadly I found out yesterday the trigger on my camera won't talk to the flash which is out of water. So, I have no idea with the technical side on how I could make this work. (I'm guessing it's not possible with what I currently have.)

I have 2 canon flashes and also 2 alienbees, I'd prefer to be able to use the flashes near the pool instead of my bees. I'd love any thoughts or suggestions so I could make this possible. I was looking for a way with my canon flashes instead buying new underwater strobes/lights.

Thank you in advance. :)

Water is a heck of an attenuator, inhibiting radio signals. Quick Google search suggests even Pocket Wizards with thier longer reach are not able to do this. Depending on the housing you have, you may need to utilize a speedlite or the pop up flash on camera and use an optical slave connected to something outside the water. This can be connected to a CST or to a cord running to one of the lights. Be sure if you use the on camera method your slave eye is a digital slave eye, or the flash is set to manual. Flashzebra.com has an array of slave eyes, but I do not recall any that are "digital" compatible (i.e. ignores the preflash, they work fine with flashes set to manual).

This isn't unique to flash triggers, even submarines have to (at least had to) surface an antennae to send and recieve radio signals.

Shoot. And I was hoping there was an "easy" solution. I did want to avoid the on camera flash, since ever since a couple years ago I try to avoid using that method. Even underwater I don't find it very flattering. I'm going to have to do something in the future though so I may end up running cords.

Thank you for the advice, I'll figure something out since I know my options now. :)

This is why sonar was created. RF doesn't travel through water.

using on camera flash doesnt mean the flash has to add to the exposure. Only the slave eye has to see it. Much of this will depend on your housing, but a cheap $30 IR transmitter (similar to Canon's ST-E2 or Nikon's CU-800, only without the whiz bang electronics) in the hot shoe will not add to the exposure but can trigger an optical slave. A speedlite aimed in another direction will achive the same, if not do it better (if you have room in the housing), but be sure it does not emit a preflash.

I do not know the water proofness of the slave eyes or how the sync cords would work, but, you could try running a sync cord with a slave eye under water with you and the other end to a remote transmitter outside the water. Again, there could be risk to the slave eye and the cord being in the water, but there would not be a physical risk to you as the remote transmitter would isolate you from any high voltage.

1. Poolside optical triggers won't work well in your situation, as the water->air boundary will reflect over 90% of the trigger flash's energy back into the pool, and the remaining few % would be easily overpowered by ambient light.

2. Your speedlites, if placed poolside would have to be placed and aimed rather particularly, taking into account that air-> water boundary will change the direction of light and can also reflect much of the energy away if you are not careful.

3. RF can travel underwater a limited distance if it is designed accordingly. My air-integrated cordless diving computer is using that tech (range of a few feet), and RF based underwater voice comm (range around 100 yards) originally designed for the U.S. Navy has been trickling into commercial products the last few years (though it's still expensive). I know of no off-the-shelf underwater camera triggers though.

In your situation I can think of 2 approaches:

A). Go under. Get your speedlites with digital-capable optical triggers into some Ewa-Marine flexible housings (intended for compact cams, relatively inexpensive). The whole setup should work in the pool about as well as in the air.

B). Go wired. A soldering iron and a silicone caulk are your friends.

-- Alex Karasev
principal photographer
Karasev Studio
http://karasevstudio.com/

Does not have to be direct flash - just bounce it. Off the water->air boundary. It's a rippled mirror. You can float a white reflector (or a bedsheet) if you want to stabilize the surface and soften the bounced light.

Thank you so much for all of the ideas! I probably will use the speedlights underwater eventually. The only problem was I bought the housing that doesn't hold a flash. (Figures, haha.) I'll probably buy the flash housing in the near future and then go that direction, but for now we're using reflectors underwater. It's a half decent solution for now. :)

WHAT IF we waterproof a cyber sync,change the frequency to 1.80Mh and use it to fire Ikelite DS 160s remotely? Now thats my solution. How do I do it? I think that would be simple.Transmitter to send,receiver to trigger. Now ,how do I use the canon TTl? Yes I am serious.Unfortunatly, I,m not a photographer. Just a diver who takes pictures.Any ideas?

RF still does not travel through water. 1.80Mh is not within the frequency ranger of CyberSync. And Cyber Sync does not support TTL, not sure about Ikelites.