Phottix Odin

[MrBaz]

So I ran across this product whilst googling today. I've emailed them asking if this system would function with a film camera (Nikon F5) and older flashes (SB-24/25/26).

Has anyone here used a system such as this with their film cameras? I know the system it is based off of is E-TTL. It should be able to work with the basic TTL or even matrix TTL off of the F5 right? It would be awesome if this system works. It is a little pricy, but I'll definitely be putting in an order if it does. I'm still waiting on the company to email me back. I'll let you all know what they say.

 

[Rudeofus]

E-TTL is a Canon protocol, with your F5 you should look for i-TTL compatible version (which exists IIRC). The Phottix web page claims it is compatible with digital Nikons except for D70 and D70s, which tells me that Nikon did some changes to the protocol. I'm not a Nikonian so others may chime in here.

 

[Two23]

I am a regular user of radio transmitters, for the past six years. I have real doubts the Odin will work with an F5. The reason is that film TTL and digital iTTL (for which the Odin was designed) use radically different systems to determine exposure. I'm about 95% sure it won't do TTL. It might work as a manual trigger, but I have doubts about that. Even if it did, there are far cheaper ways to accomplish that which are just as good.

Kent in SD

 

[MrBaz]

I am a regular user of radio transmitters, for the past six years. I have real doubts the Odin will work with an F5. The reason is that film TTL and digital iTTL (for which the Odin was designed) use radically different systems to determine exposure. I'm about 95% sure it won't do TTL. It might work as a manual trigger, but I have doubts about that. Even if it did, there are far cheaper ways to accomplish that which are just as good.

Kent in SD

Like?

Simple TTL will still have the camera send an 'off' signal to the flash when proper exposure is met. Doesn't seem that complicated.

 

[Rudeofus]

Simple TTL will still have the camera send an 'off' signal to the flash when proper exposure is met. Doesn't seem that complicated.

Fact is that simple TTL uses completely different signaling compared to i-TTL, and some fancy new flash trigger might not bother supporting it. Note that simple TTL is usually unsupported with digital cameras and the Phottix data sheet explicitly says it supports digital cameras.

 

[brucemuir]

Like?

Simple TTL will still have the camera send an 'off' signal to the flash when proper exposure is met. Doesn't seem that complicated.

Film era TTL reads the light reflecting off the film itself in most systems.
Digital sensor reflects completely different than film so a different way of telling when to quench the flash is used.

Quantum modules for individual sytem ttl could be "modified" for digi when digital became available to the masses but I've read some customers less than happy with these modifications and it basically is just a potentiometer for fine adjustment.

 

[MrBaz]

Film era TTL reads the light reflecting off the film itself in most systems.
Digital sensor reflects completely different than film so a different way of telling when to quench the flash is used.

Yes, but that is all handled by the camera.

It seems that an 'off' signal is an 'off' signal. No one is making NEW products for film cameras anymore, no. That would be silly. That doesn't mean these products can't work for film cameras.

I think a lot of people around here scoff at TTL. Of course, they like to spend hours on scene setting up their lights, or trod off into their nicely-set up studio. Some of us don't have the time to waste. It would be nice to have off camera TTL capablity for my film SLR so that way I can have quick and easy setup on location.

 

[Rudeofus]

I think a lot of people around here scoff at TTL.

There are different versions of TTL and I don't know for sure which one the F5 supports. While traditional TTL furnished a trigger and a quench signal, more modern systems run a clock/data protocol over the same pins to communicate settings and sensor data between flash and camera. Since digital cameras can't use traditional TTL, they are tied to that more advanced TTL system.

In theory analog cameras could implement the same fancy protocol between flash and camera, and in Canon land later analog models like my EOS 3 fully support modern E-TTL flashes and accessories. From superficially looking over Nikon data sheets there appears a distinction between the F5 with TTL and e.g. the D60 with i-TTL.

 

[MrBaz]

There are different versions of TTL and I don't know for sure which one the F5 supports. While traditional TTL furnished a trigger and a quench signal, more modern systems run a clock/data protocol over the same pins to communicate settings and sensor data between flash and camera. Since digital cameras can't use traditional TTL, they are tied to that more advanced TTL system.

In theory analog cameras could implement the same fancy protocol between flash and camera, and in Canon land later analog models like my EOS 3 fully support modern E-TTL flashes and accessories. From superficially looking over Nikon data sheets there appears a distinction between the F5 with TTL and e.g. the D60 with i-TTL.

I know the Nikon F6 supports D-TTL. Unfortunately, I can't afford an F6 quite yet.