Hi at all,

I am thinking about getting strobes for my Sony A7IV in a Nauticam housing. Up to now I have no experience with strobes, since I mainly use ambient light / cheap china lights to accentuate a detail in a wide angle / cave pictures.
I have three use cases:
1) Macro photography
I am just starting in macro photography, but my feeling is, that strobes have benefit here, since they emit more light / freeze movements. Using the china lights here was not so bad, but I think strobes will improve the results...
2) Wide angle wrecks (WWL-1b)
Up to now I mostly use the ambient light and my buddy using two LED lights to accentuate details on the wreck. Which turns out to work quite nice. For stuff closer to the camera, or if my buddy is the central subject of the picture it might be useful to use strobes on the camera rig. Depths of 100m (maybe plus)

3) Cave diving pictures
Up to now using cheap china lights on the camera rig and another two with my buddy / positioned in the cave.
Not sure if it is a good idea to mix strobes and LEDs. Might need to stick with LEDs in this case.

So my questions are, if I decide to go for strobes, which suit my needs best? How do i connect them with my camera, I guess fiber optics? If I get it right, I need a trigger, e.g. s-turtle. Which one? Just from my feeling I would say TTL might be useful to start?

Thanks a lot!
Jens

Edit: most diving is cold waters, so the strobes need to be operable with thicker / dry gloves.

Edited April 30Apr 30 by airisfortires
Add operation in cold waters

You are spoiled for choice with the current available strobes, a great many recently released. It would help to narrow down your choice with a few considerations:

• Budget - strobes range a great deal in asking price!

• Travel limitations - some are more travel friendly than other due to size and weight - a lot of new strobes are big and heavy

• Depth rating - the vast majority of strobes are rated to 100m There are one or two expensive option rated for 200m

• Strobe power - again a wide range. Macro requires less power due to the close range compared to lighting up big wide angle scenes.

• Battery power - AA cell strobes versus Li-ion cells vs Custom (expensive) battery packs

• Charging - standard battery chargers or USB versus custom chargers

• Reliability??

Fibre optics is probably indeed the best way to trigger - you can get TTL and manual triggers. Manual stobe work is not that hard, but TTL seems to be getting better. The Nauticam manual trigger is a cheaper option, then you have UWT or Turtle as choices.

To give you an idea of the range from budget to high end:

INON S220- 469 Euro incl VAT, 463 gr (with batteries - 4 x AA) 140 x 100 deg beam. A very compact and quite capable little strobe, small size means positioning for macro will be easier. Maybe a slightly wanting for power for big wide angle shots, but very capable for macro. You can get around the power somewhat with ISO if ambient light is not included in the mix or if light is very low.

OneUW ONE160X, 1930 Euro plus VAT, 1460 gram, 200m depth rating. 130deg beam. Built in TTL circuit for Sony and other brands. A large and rugged strobe with TTL, HSS and other faetures and nic soft even beam. Proprietary battery pack (185 euro) and charger.

There is whole range of other strobes in between these price points and a few for a bit less plus some that are pricier.

Dear Chris,
thanks a lot for your very helpful response!
Budget: since I don't have experience with strobes, for now I have no idea how much money is needed for a good solution here. As you mentioned the span is quite large and as a newbie the differences are hard to see and even harder decide, if needed or not. So I am trying to get an idea, on how much money is needed and what I get for the money.
Actually your point regarding size for macro is something I didn't have on my list. Thanks a lot for that!
Traveling: I travel, but mainly in Europe and by car. So size and weight, on this aspect, are secondary. Nonetheless, for macro and also for diving with a lot of gear from boat, the size (and ruggedness) are a point.
Depth rating: from what I see now, there is a high chance to stick with the 100m. More is very expensive. And 100m fits more than 98% of my dives. And if I go deeper than 100m there is high chance, that the camera stays dry.
Power: it looks like, since I like shooting with ambient light (when shooting wide angle), I don't need so much power.
Battery and charging: AA is a plus. LiIon is more complex / expensive, but not a deal-breaker.
Reliability: is important for me.

So actually, your first example with the Inon S220 looks like a good match. Before your post I was somehow tending to have a closer look to the Retras. They are very present. But I wasn't sure, if they are really good or just have good marketing. And if they fit my needs. But since they are larger, heavier and way more expensive than the Inons, I now tend to latter.
Thank you!
Jens

Particularly for macro, the little INONS will be quite fine I would expect, you might want to get into snooting later on, which is a different matter but start simple. Even if you find you outgrow the little S220, it will be fine for macro work later on. If you can have a look at them first they are surprisingly small, they now have better controls than their predecessors. The Backscatter video review gives a good idea of the size and control layout.

On the Retras they are certainly a good strobe and hove very good quality of light, a lot of well regarded photographers use them and like them for this.

I just started with one Retra Pro Max, UW-Technics Trigger and A7IV.

I cana't say anything else than everything works quite fine, especially with TTL.

That's a great shot and I wouldn't have believed it was done with TTL! The shark is perfectly exposed.

On 5/8/2025 at 12:26 PM, Oskar - Retra UWT said:

That's a great shot and I wouldn't have believed it was done with TTL! The shark is perfectly exposed.

All thanks to you and UW-Technics (and of course Sony)- Great Job. Works as a no-brainer.

On 4/30/2025 at 2:30 PM, fruehaufsteher2 said:

I just started with one Retra Pro Max, UW-Technics Trigger and A7IV.

I cana't say anything else than everything works quite fine, especially with TTL.

Hey @Oskar - Retra UWT , just got your advertisement on the new Pro Max II.

You should have taken my picture… ok, only one Pro Max I , but way better and it shows how good TTL can be.

Ist the picture in the ad taken by Alex? He’s recently been there , just two weeks after us, but I think they had bad weather.

Vince and Debra are so cool 🤗 we‘ll sure will visit them again.