I'd be interested in some experiences and thoughts on mid-range strobes.

Right now I am shooting with a Sony A6400 in a Seafrogs / Salted Line housing which I will eventually upgrade, I'd rather upgrade the strobes first, but am uncertain if I would stick to a mirrorless/APC or look to upgrade to FF, as I do prefer a smaller rig overall.

Most commonly I shoot with the Sony 10-18mm rectilinear lens behind a 6" dome or a converted Tokina 10-17mm fisheye, so focused on wide angle without any great interest in macro, at least not yet.

Most of my diving is local, however I'd still like to be able to travel reasonably easy given I do take the occasional trip and liveaboard.

I have only used old secondhand Sea & Sea strobes (YS-110a and YS-27) in manual so almost anything will be an upgrade.

In general my preference is for smaller/lower weight, <=$1000 USD per strobe and reasonable power to support wide angle shots in the context of my current system.

I would prefer 18650s or other Li-ion batteries, but I do already have plenty of NiMHs from my existing strobes so it isn't a major consideration.

With that in mind the three strobes that have got my attention are the following, but also open to others;

• Sea&Sea YS-D3

• Marelux Apollo S

• Backscatter Atom

Outside of the obvious spec differences, any particular other items to share on light quality, ease of use, etc.?

Given the long timeframe so far I'm going to assume Inon 'Z335' still isn't going to be available any time soon.

Edited 11 hours ago11 hr by ubiquitous226

I shoot an A6100, in a Nauticam A6400 housing, with the Tokina 10-17 or Zeiss Touit 50mm macro.

I use a pair of YS-D3's and they're excellent. The snoot is great for macro, and they're plenty powerful for WA, especially with the dome diffusers.

You can also get them for $500 a piece from divervision in japan. Sea&Sea YS-D3 DUO Strobe – DiverVision Underwater Photo Equipment

35 minutes ago, Lewis88 said:

I shoot an A6100, in a Nauticam A6400 housing, with the Tokina 10-17 or Zeiss Touit 50mm macro.

I use a pair of YS-D3's and they're excellent. The snoot is great for macro, and they're plenty powerful for WA, especially with the dome diffusers.

You can also get them for $500 a piece from divervision in japan. Sea&Sea YS-D3 DUO Strobe – DiverVision Underwater Photo Equipment

Sea&Sea seems to have quite a bit of chatter around reliability/durability but unclear to me how much is because they've sold so many of them.

That is a very attractive price, I was pretty tempted by the specs of the Marelux S's but I don't know anyone who uses them, but that could change the equation a fair bit.

1 hour ago, ubiquitous226 said:

Sea&Sea seems to have quite a bit of chatter around reliability/durability but unclear to me how much is because they've sold so many of them.

From what I understand, there were a lot of issues with the D2 when it came out, which was mostly resolved with the D2j release.

All I can say is I've been diving S&S strobes for 20+ years, starting with YS-25a's, then a pair of YS-110a's for many years, and now with D3's for the last few years. I personally have never had any issues, following normal maintenance, o-ring inspection and lubrication, and storage practices.

There were certainly a number of reports some years ago of issues around the Sea & Sea D2 strobes. At the time some users thought the D2J resolved the problems.

I don’t think there have been an unusual number of problems reported with the D3.

Been diving a D3 for several years and no issues other than a minor flood which I was able to clean out and put a new cap on it. Continues to work as advertised. Also shooting a D1 that I've had since 2013 and it's still working well. Another D1 I had....not so much.

As a cold water Sony shooter I prefer the ergonomics of the S&S (I'm on an original set of D2) vs the Z240 that I've also used. Mainly the manual pre flash cancel is easier to activate and the color change showing mode.

I'd like to see some longer term reviews of the new strobe they just released and hopefully these D2s last until the durability on those is known.

I have shot about 15,000 images with a pair of Apollo S strobes and had no issues. I used them first in manual and later moved to TTL with the UWT internal and external flash triggers having shot about 12,000 of the 15,000 in TTL, again no issues and the most accurate TTL I have ever used. You may also want to have a look at the new Apollo Y strobes which are very competitively priced V specs.

Edited 1 hour ago1 hr by Phil Rudin