How powerful strobes do you really need for wide angle? Weight and size considerations (or my GAS journey)

[ChrisH]

I think it is right that using those filters will have the effect of more even out the difference between the strobe lit part of the picture and the natural light. At least I would assume that, as I never used them.

Whether you would want this effect depends on the shot you're trying to achieve and the conditions like depth, distance, color of the subject etc.

 

The attached picture was taken at I think around 25m depth. As you can see the natural light almost provides no more color, and the transition from the part lit with the strobe (within the distance that you can get the natural colors of the subject) to the distance where the colors are absorbed is kind of sudden. Just look at the corals in the lower part of the frame and on the ceiling right, you will notice the immediate fall off of color with distance to the strobes.  I would assume that putting on blue filters would "even" this transition at the cost of altering the foreground color. That would - for me - not work in this shot. But it could be of use if you are shooting subjects too far away for getting their natural colors with the strobes anyway.

 

Regarding the original topic: this shot was taken with the Retra strobes with the filters for warmer light and just auto white balance, using a fisheye lens and maintain a distance of about 1m to the subject. There was no (!) color correction whatsoever applied in post processing, just the overall saturation was increased a bit. Those are the colors you get just right out of cam with warm strobe light and auto white balance.

So you can judge for yourself.

[RomiK]

It's just a tool the filters and it has its use case depending on artistic taste of the author... there is no right or wrong really...

 

I might use blue filter for this image 

 

 

but not for this image

 

 

as there is no way I could recover colors of clarion fish... same dive... and since things happen so quickly I hate changing the equipment on the fly... so each tool has its own use case

[Adventurer]

For all the Krauts in this thread:

Quote

Viele Wege führen nach Rom.

 

..and the rest:

Quote

Many ways lead to Rome.

 

It was pointed out by some contributors to this thread that we only use strobes or video lights to restore colours underwater. I would like to remind that this is not the only way to do so and not the only purpose. Artificial light also brings back sharpness to the image in various ways. Artificial light also helps in restoring image detail on the shadows and better balances them with the highlights. Furthermore we have seen images in this thread that brought back colour by removing a certain part of the light spectrum. In fact that is what filters do, no matter if put on your artificial light source or the camera inside an underwater housing. Filters do not add photons, they subtract photons in a certain part of the light spectrum. 

 

My personal opinion and experience is that CRI and ColorTemp of artificial light sources are highly over-rated product features which just apply to a very specific application. The original path to dial-in excellent blue background is with exposure. People praising warm strobes can be sorted into the "I shoot mainly on Auto-WB in tropical waters" group. 

 

Mark my words:

 

COLOR TEMP ON PRODUCTS IS OVER-RATED

 

WHITE BALANCING IS UNDER-UTILIZED

 

To optimize gear, shooters should pay more attention to the "real" lumen output on video lights (also if lumen output is constant or decreasing over burntime). With strobes look at the "burn time curve" (speed) or the integral under that curve to make a sophisticated buying decision. Like dome radi the latter info is unfortunately hard to get in our unprofessional industry. When you buy studio lights for professional photo shoots companies like broncolor or profoto serve you this info straight from their websites.

Edited June 1 by Adventurer

[Adventurer]

On 5/31/2024 at 6:57 AM, DreiFish said:

Why do you say the S-220 is rated conservatively? Sea & Sea rates it as GN22, vs GN20 for the S-2000 and GN 16 for the Backscatter MF-2. This seems about right.

Generally I would be very cautious with advertised guide number ratings on underwater strobes.

If you ever compare them from website specs, try to stay within the same brand.

Try not to compare S&S vs INON vs BS etc. by just advertised specs, this will just give you a rough indication.

 

When I voiced up that the S-220 was rated too conservatively, I referred to D200, Z330, Z240 and S-2000 published guide numbers by INON. As I extensively shot all these products my subjective impression and some measurements with by own flash meter and lux meter ist that the S-220 leans more towards the Z330 and is for sure substantially stronger than S-2000 and D200. I would maybe describe it best as an miniaturerized Z240 with much better beam coverage.

 

I have my Marelux Apollo III 2.0 incoming and the Backscatter HF-1 should also be with me next week.

I still have to decide which of the three units will be my goto choice for the coming year. 

The travel weight and size of two S-220 is unbeatable for the two new candidates.

And yes, I am a nerd and I need to test these out for myself 🤣

[Adventurer]

On 5/31/2024 at 6:57 AM, DreiFish said:

I think that conclusion may be influenced by the fact that the Z240s weren't truly GN24 as advertised?

 

Interesting impression. Maybe also factor in that to date you can just compare " aged " Z240s to the newer models. So the will always loose. Strobes are a degenerative product. They deliver substantial less light over time. 

[TimG]

2 hours ago, ChrisH said:

 

 

Super pic, Chris! That's Up On The Wall stuff.

 

2 hours ago, ChrisH said:

 

[DreiFish]

2 hours ago, Adventurer said:

Generally I would be very cautious with advertised guide number ratings on underwater strobes.

If you ever compare them from website specs, try to stay within the same brand.

Try not to compare S&S vs INON vs BS etc. by just advertised specs, this will just give you a rough indication.

 

When I voiced up that the S-220 was rated too conservatively, I referred to D200, Z330, Z240 and S-2000 published guide numbers by INON. As I extensively shot all these products my subjective impression and some measurements with by own flash meter and lux meter ist that the S-220 leans more towards the Z330 and is for sure substantially stronger than S-2000 and D200. I would maybe describe it best as an miniaturerized Z240 with much better beam coverage.

 

I know comparing across brands is pointless as they all test the GN under different conditions (in water or not). Beam spread and hotspot also impact the GN number if all you take is a central head-on reading. I was comparing within the same family.. and there, as your findings also corroborate, if the Z330 is rated as GN32 by Inon, and the Z240 was 24 and the D200 was 20, GN 22 for the S-220 seems right in comparison. 

I'm testing the S-220s side by side with the Marilux Apollo 3s and will have some side-by-side pictures to share shortly. I found a perfect 'test environment' with an underwater subject at 1m distance at around 12 m depth to try out different F stops at to see coverage, illumination and color. 

 

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, DreiFish said:

 

I know comparing across brands is pointless as they all test the GN under different conditions (in water or not). Beam spread and hotspot also impact the GN number if all you take is a central head-on reading. I was comparing within the same family.. and there, as your findings also corroborate, if the Z330 is rated as GN32 by Inon, and the Z240 was 24 and the D200 was 20, GN 22 for the S-220 seems right in comparison. 

I'm testing the S-220s side by side with the Marilux Apollo 3s and will have some side-by-side pictures to share shortly. I found a perfect 'test environment' with an underwater subject at 1m distance at around 12 m depth to try out different F stops at to see coverage, illumination and color. 

 

 

Guide number is 1 meter ISO 100 on land on the centre

backscatter measures are in water same setting

the numbers are normally very close confirming that one meter does not mean much in terms of absorption of water or color

in general cropped sensor works with GN22 strobes GN32 is full frame taking into account diffusers otherwise GN16 GN22 if the strobe has no hot spots and it is the right temperature 

[DreiFish]

4 minutes ago, DreiFish said:

 

I know comparing across brands is pointless as they all test the GN under different conditions (in water or not). Beam spread and hotspot also impact the GN number if all you take is a central head-on reading. I was comparing within the same family.. and there, as your findings also corroborate, if the Z330 is rated as GN32 by Inon, and the Z240 was 24 and the D200 was 20, GN 22 for the S-220 seems right in comparison. 

I'm testing the S-220s side by side with the Marilux Apollo 3s and will have some side-by-side pictures to share shortly. I found a perfect 'test environment' with an underwater subject at 1m distance at around 12 m depth to try out different F stops at to see coverage, illumination and color. 

 

 

 

The real comparison I'd like to see is the Seacam Seaflash 60d vs the Inon s-220. Seacam rates their strobe at 60 jules, GN 8 (underwater). Inon rates it at GN22, but this is probably in air. They don't publish jules output, but calculating backwards from rated number of shots and battery capacity, -- both use 4xAAs -- , the Seacam has 200 shots at full power, and the Inon 500. Something here doesn't add up. If the Seacam is using 60 jules for a full flash, it should be closer to 600 shots. Unless something about the design is really inefficient.

 

Working backwards from the energy density of 4x Enerloop Pro AAs, the Inon s-220s are probably maxing out around 75 jules at full power.

[Guest]

27 minutes ago, DreiFish said:

 

The real comparison I'd like to see is the Seacam Seaflash 60d vs the Inon s-220. Seacam rates their strobe at 60 jules, GN 8 (underwater). Inon rates it at GN22, but this is probably in air. They don't publish jules output, but calculating backwards from rated number of shots and battery capacity, -- both use 4xAAs -- , the Seacam has 200 shots at full power, and the Inon 500. Something here doesn't add up. If the Seacam is using 60 jules for a full flash, it should be closer to 600 shots. Unless something about the design is really inefficient.

 

Working backwards from the energy density of 4x Enerloop Pro AAs, the Inon s-220s are probably maxing out around 75 jules at full power.

You don’t work out the power based on batteries

if the capacitor is large low current just means long recycle like the retra 5 seconds 

also power and output are related but not identical

you can have large power output resulting in low guide number as the strobe is inefficient spefically if your focus is wide beam the actual guide number may drop 

[Adventurer]

8 hours ago, DreiFish said:

Marilux Apollo

 
why do you keep writing  Marilux  instead of Marelux ?

[Chris Ross]

20 hours ago, Adventurer said:

 People praising warm strobes can be sorted into the "I shoot mainly on Auto-WB in tropical waters" group. 

 

 

Which is exactly the application they are suited for, warm strobes really give you no advantage in cold dirtier waters. 

[Chris Ross]

19 hours ago, Adventurer said:

Generally I would be very cautious with advertised guide number ratings on underwater strobes.

If you ever compare them from website specs, try to stay within the same brand.

Try not to compare S&S vs INON vs BS etc. by just advertised specs, this will just give you a rough indication.

 

When I voiced up that the S-220 was rated too conservatively, I referred to D200, Z330, Z240 and S-2000 published guide numbers by INON. As I extensively shot all these products my subjective impression and some measurements with by own flash meter and lux meter ist that the S-220 leans more towards the Z330 and is for sure substantially stronger than S-2000 and D200. I would maybe describe it best as an miniaturerized Z240 with much better beam coverage.

 

I have my Marelux Apollo III 2.0 incoming and the Backscatter HF-1 should also be with me next week.

I still have to decide which of the three units will be my goto choice for the coming year. 

The travel weight and size of two S-220 is unbeatable for the two new candidates.

And yes, I am a nerd and I need to test these out for myself 🤣

Advertised Guide numbers are somewhere between a general guide and works of fiction, most seem to report centre brightness in air and previous studies have shown some strobe models are quite bright in the centre with more than average fall off. 

 

It sounds like the S220 should be on my list to replce my Z-240s one day!

 

If you have all of this data it would make a great write up to give people some objectivity when choosing strobes.  Would you consider writing it up as an article for the site?

[DreiFish]

17 hours ago, Interceptor121 said:

You don’t work out the power based on batteries

if the capacitor is large low current just means long recycle like the retra 5 seconds 

also power and output are related but not identical

you can have large power output resulting in low guide number as the strobe is inefficient spefically if your focus is wide beam the actual guide number may drop 

 

Not following -- why wouldn't the battery capacity in Jules divided by the number of shots at full power give you a fair approximation at least of the power used for each shot? 

 

13 hours ago, Adventurer said:

 
why do you keep writing  Marilux  instead of Marelux ?

 

Typo.. or dyslexia 🙂

 

5 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Which is exactly the application they are suited for, warm strobes really give you no advantage in cold dirtier waters. 

 

Eh.. it's not about auto white balance only. I have my in-camera white balance set at 5000k. But I do a global white balance adjustment in post to get the color temperature correct for the foreground subject. In the process, you get a different color for the background water column.

 

5 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

Advertised Guide numbers are somewhere between a general guide and works of fiction, most seem to report centre brightness in air and previous studies have shown some strobe models are quite bright in the centre with more than average fall off. 

 

It sounds like the S220 should be on my list to replce my Z-240s one day!

 

If you have all of this data it would make a great write up to give people some objectivity when choosing strobes.  Would you consider writing it up as an article for the site?

 

Well, I promised in-water tests, and here they are. Subject is the side of a wreck, so fairly flat, distance is approximately 1m.  All images white balanced to 5000k, so you can also see the color temperature.

 

First, Marelux Apollo 3s at full power, without diffuser (first image) and with diffuser (second image). I judged good exposure to be ISO 100 F16. 

 

 

Second, the Inon S-220s at full power, without diffuser (first image) and with the 4600k filter (second image) Best exposure was at ISO 100 F11. 

 

 

And now the Apollo 3 first and the S220 2nd. Basically, the Apollo 3 is one stop brighter, but the biggest difference is coverage. These are both shot with a fisheye. I think the real weakness of the S-220 is not power, it's coverage.

 

Edited June 2 by DreiFish

[Guest]

1 hour ago, DreiFish said:

 

Not following -- why wouldn't the battery capacity in Jules divided by the number of shots at full power give you a fair approximation at least of the power used for each shot? 

 

 

Typo.. or dyslexia 🙂

 

 

Eh.. it's not about auto white balance only. I have my in-camera white balance set at 5000k. But I do a global white balance adjustment in post to get the color temperature correct for the foreground subject. In the process, you get a different color for the background water column.

 

 

Well, I promised in-water tests, and here they are. Subject is the side of a wreck, so fairly flat, distance is approximately 1m.  All images white balanced to 5000k, so you can also see the color temperature.

 

First, Marelux Apollo 3s at full power, without diffuser (first image) and with diffuser (second image). I judged good exposure to be ISO 100 F16. 

 

 

Second, the Inon S-220s at full power, without diffuser (first image) and with the 4600k filter (second image) Best exposure was at ISO 100 F11. 

 

 

And now the Apollo 3 first and the S220 2nd. Basically, the Apollo 3 is one stop brighter, but the biggest difference is coverage. These are both shot with a fisheye. I think the real weakness of the S-220 is not power, it's coverage.

 not all energy is transformed into light so even if you know the energy that is accumulated this doesn’t translate into light equally for all strobes 

Not all the energy transforms into light some gets dispersed into heat and transmission 

otherwise all the strobes that take 4 2500 mah batteries and fire 200 shots would produce the same light

they dont

knowing the energy that can be accumulated is not the right way to look at things

guise number is the way

also consider that while at 1 meter you can tell the difference in the beam spread at longer distance all light sources resemble a point source

at short range you can use a variety if methods to increase the width of the beam but at long range sheer power is all that matters 

pretty much any strobe can produce decent results at close range using a diffuser so a lot of the points raised as just hype

however if your strobe is really tiny it wont cover shots further away

in conclusion guide number and temperature do matter

joules beam width without diffuser etc are nice built not the answer if the power ends up lacking

backscatter new strobe if holds the test is a good example two straight bulbs each powered by a large battery with high ampere and you are good to go

[Chris Ross]

1 hour ago, DreiFish said:

Eh.. it's not about auto white balance only. I have my in-camera white balance set at 5000k. But I do a global white balance adjustment in post to get the color temperature correct for the foreground subject. In the process, you get a different color for the background water column.

Indeed, It's really WB method independent and requires no more thought than doing the standard WB adjustment on your subject.  The main point if that it really only is a big benefit in clean tropical waters.  I've left the 4600K diffusers on in temperate Sydney water and the photos come out just fine, but I don't see a big benefit for it in that situation.

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, Chris Ross said:

Indeed, It's really WB method independent and requires no more thought than doing the standard WB adjustment on your subject.  The main point if that it really only is a big benefit in clean tropical waters.  I've left the 4600K diffusers on in temperate Sydney water and the photos come out just fine, but I don't see a big benefit for it in that situation.

I don’t understand how 4600K strobes can turn green water into blue

green is related to tint not temperature 

I can see how pale blue could become

deeper blue but not how green turns to blue

[ChrisH]

48 minutes ago, Interceptor121 said:

I don’t understand how 4600K strobes can turn green water into blue

green is related to tint not temperature 

I can see how pale blue could become

deeper blue but not how green turns to blue

You can see the effect in the backscatter video about the filters at around 5:50.

[Guest]

19 minutes ago, ChrisH said:

You can see the effect in the backscatter video about the filters at around 5:50.

It still makes no sense to me. I have used 4600K diffusers and the water didnt turn green 

to turn green into blue you need to change hues which a simple warming diffuser doesn’t do

if i take a picture of grass and then change the white balance to a low value that should turn blue too?

i am skeptic of backscatter reviewing their own strobe and will wait for user feedback 

 

[ChrisH]

3 hours ago, DreiFish said:

 

Not following -- why wouldn't the battery capacity in Jules divided by the number of shots at full power give you a fair approximation at least of the power used for each shot? 

 

 

Typo.. or dyslexia 🙂

 

 

Eh.. it's not about auto white balance only. I have my in-camera white balance set at 5000k. But I do a global white balance adjustment in post to get the color temperature correct for the foreground subject. In the process, you get a different color for the background water column.

 

 

Well, I promised in-water tests, and here they are. Subject is the side of a wreck, so fairly flat, distance is approximately 1m.  All images white balanced to 5000k, so you can also see the color temperature.

 

First, Marelux Apollo 3s at full power, without diffuser (first image) and with diffuser (second image). I judged good exposure to be ISO 100 F16. 

 

 

Second, the Inon S-220s at full power, without diffuser (first image) and with the 4600k filter (second image) Best exposure was at ISO 100 F11. 

 

 

And now the Apollo 3 first and the S220 2nd. Basically, the Apollo 3 is one stop brighter, but the biggest difference is coverage. These are both shot with a fisheye. I think the real weakness of the S-220 is not power, it's coverage.

 

 

I think the pictures clearly show that a wide, even beam just gives a much more pleasing light. The light of the S220 ist more harsh, because the coverage is just not enough for these shots, giving a hotspot in the middle of the frame and ha hard "fall off" of the light at the edges.

 

I agree that this will mostly show up on close distance shots, as with subject further away the light source is getting smaller and water scatters the light, acting as a natural diffusor.

 

But as it is highly beneficial to shoot at close ranges, for a wide angle strobe I would almost go for the one with the most widest, even beam. You can add a diffusor to every strobe. And I would agree that it is kind of "leveling the field" to some degree but it does not level the field completely. There is still a noticeable difference in the quality of light. Also you just need diffusors on some strobes anyway, as they might give really harsh light without it (see the S220 without diffusor above, oder the Sea&Sea in the Reta comparison). A strobe with the wide, even beam without diffusers will give you options (add a diffusor if you need it), the smaller one won't and you are limited with what the diffusor gives you.

 

There remains a difference in the light from a strobe with a wide beam angle (common for round flash tubes) to a strobe that gets this beam only if you add a diffusor. At least that is true for the strobes that I have been shooting with and know their light out of personal experience. There is a difference between a Sea&Sea YS-D2 with diffusor and a Retra Pro and there is a difference between the Retra Pro and the bigger Seacams.

Of course how much of the difference shows up in your images will depend on shooting style and the standards you want to achieve. Some might just see no difference, which is fine. They will be lucky and can get away with the cheaper strobe and just be happy! But once you notice the difference, it cannot be "unseen" in my opinion. I don't belong in that category of having to justify a big expense, while just can't admit that I could have get the same results with a cheaper solution. The Seacams were lend to me to try them out and compare them to my Retras. And I bought them after testing them, so I knew what I was getting and for me and my style of shooting it was an upgrade and worth the expense (got them used).

 

[ChrisH]

2 minutes ago, Interceptor121 said:

It still makes no sense to me. I have used 4600K diffusers and the water didnt turn green 

to turn green into blue you need to change hues which a simple warming diffuser doesn’t do

if i take a picture of grass and then change the white balance to a low value that should turn blue too?

i am skeptic of backscatter reviewing their own strobe and will wait for user feedback 

 

As I don't shoot green waters, I have no experience in that. I would rather trust that their claim on this is right but as stated, I don't know from personal experience. Also I could imagine that not everybody wants to have green water turn blue, as that might look very unnatural in some cases. That would indeed be a point worth considering if buying a strobe with warmer color temperature and shooting in green water!

[Guest]

3 minutes ago, ChrisH said:

As I don't shoot green waters, I have no experience in that. I would rather trust that their claim on this is right but as stated, I don't know from personal experience. Also I could imagine that not everybody wants to have green water turn blue, as that might look very unnatural in some cases. That would indeed be a point worth considering if buying a strobe with warmer color temperature and shooting in green water!

In green water you normally use cool temperature not warm anyway

 

either way 5500K is what is needed for my use cases. when the light travels it cools anyway

[ChipBPhoto]

5 hours ago, DreiFish said:

Well, I promised in-water tests, and here they are. Subject is the side of a wreck, so fairly flat, distance is approximately 1m.  All images white balanced to 5000k, so you can also see the color temperature.

 

Hey @DreiFish Thank you for a quality, practical demonstration of the strobes.  For me, this particular scene shows how the light impacts the various 3-D aspects (fish, reef, etc.), overall coverage, and coloring.  There is a noticeable difference.  

 

Is one "better" than the other?  That is completely subjective based on personal taste and needs.  (right tool for the right need)  I feel this is, however, a terrific performance demonstration in this wide scene for people to use in making up their own minds.  Nice job!! 

[Adventurer]

14 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

If you have all of this data it would make a great write up to give people some objectivity when choosing strobes.  Would you consider writing it up as an article for the site?

Honored by your request Chris, I will try to find the time and and gather all the products to make a proper comparison.

[Adventurer]

5 hours ago, Interceptor121 said:

It still makes no sense to me. I have used 4600K diffusers and the water didnt turn green 

It makes sense if Backscatter did not change the WB to 4500K in the first „no diffusor“ shot. 🤑