15 hours ago, ubiquitous226 said:

I just missed the chance to get some well priced secondhand Retras locally which would have been great to try, although with the the boosters they lose some of that compactness, and not willing to pile that much cash into strobes for the new versions.

And yes very familiar with the high prices here!

The reduction rings is interesting, maybe something to experiment with on a shore dive here which can range from 10m visibility to 0.5m 😅

I'm not sure what route I'll take next, if I want to upgrade to a Nauticam system I'd want a newer body like an A6700, but then I'd need a trigger too.

Upgrading to a full frame A7RV or one of the older variants would be the other alternative, but I suspect the trade offs in size and escalating cost may not be worth it to me when I can't currently dive that much.

Don't forget Nauticam is not the only game in town, Isotta has quite a big presence in Australia and their housings and particularly ports are quite a bit cheaper.

If budget is tight, don't rule out buying second hand, if you are flexible on what system you get, you can get away from a lot of the issues with pre-flash cancel etc with right camera body - one that will allow manual flash and more so if it has a popup flash or like a small accessory flash. Expect to pay 40% or less of new price for one-two generation old gear. I'm sitting on my EM-1MkII housing and camera as selling is a hassle and returns not that high, so I haven't bothered trying to sell since I switched to my OM-1.

I was a long time Canon shooter and when it came to buying UW gear I went with m43, in aluminium housings the price for the housing is significantly less, lenses, ports etc are all cheaper. They have a small accessory flash that can fire at 1/64 power and is perfect to trigger strobes. Plus they have arguably the best range of lenses suited to UW work. I ended up switching above water shooting to Olympus as well and find the image quality is good enough for me. Full frame is in general too expensive and bulky to take UW.

9 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

While you can attach a Tokina 10-17 lens to the A7C, it is an APS-C lens and the image circle is only designed to cover that format. Apparently it will work on full frame and produce an image but the quality drops off rapidly as you move outside the APS-C frame.

Unfortunately strobe triggers are a niche product which are reverse engineered to work with a great many camera models and to play with a wide variety of strobes, the market is relatively small and there is a lot of work to reverse engineer these systems to give you something that actually works. There are manual triggers available which cost quite a bit less, but still not cheap. If you can get an AOI housing for your camera then the built in triggers do save you some money.

Hey Chris, thanks again for your feedback. The tokina seems to be usable between 12-15mm in FF, and give a good 180 degree image at 15mm. My thinking was to keep it with a FF camera, instead of the more pricey Canon 8-15mm route. The AOI housing for the A7C II would solve some strobe-related issues, but then there's the cost of the dome, plus extensions ($$$ !).

I'm discovering the complications of FF, mostly in terms of lack of low cost options. And I've read time and time again that APS-C is more than enough for UW. And I guess M43 too, judging from many images I've seen. Are your topside photos also taken with a M43 system?

We took our OM1 cameras to Africa with friends shooting Nikon full frame Z9 and Z8 and our shots were comparable for most shots, UW micro 4/3 seems to be as good for even big prints (16x20)

Just now, bvanant said:

We took our OM1 cameras to Africa with friends shooting Nikon full frame Z9 and Z8 and our shots were comparable for most shots, UW micro 4/3 seems to be as good for even big prints (16x20)

I had an Olympus OMD EM10 original before I changed to Sony A6000 as I lost it while overseas, and the Sony was the next best option. Loved that camera!

The mkIV and the AOI housing would probably be my pick for an entry level system if starting from scratch, got to see one in action at the Rowley Shoals and it was a good little system.

On 2/13/2026 at 11:52 AM, Chris Ross said:

Don't forget Nauticam is not the only game in town, Isotta has quite a big presence in Australia and their housings and particularly ports are quite a bit cheaper.

If budget is tight, don't rule out buying second hand, if you are flexible on what system you get, you can get away from a lot of the issues with pre-flash cancel etc with right camera body - one that will allow manual flash and more so if it has a popup flash or like a small accessory flash. Expect to pay 40% or less of new price for one-two generation old gear. I'm sitting on my EM-1MkII housing and camera as selling is a hassle and returns not that high, so I haven't bothered trying to sell since I switched to my OM-1.

I have no issues at all with secondhand, and I'm not in a rush so I'll keep an eye on what comes up.

Being on the west coast of Australia there isn't that much.

I wouldn't actually mind if a A6400 housing came up for some additional flexibility on ports, extensions and zoom gears, but at the same time it wouldn't change that much for my photos.

Longer term I am not stuck on Sony, Nauticam or full frame, but there are some advantages to availability for all so I'll just wait and see.

The info on strobes was very helpful for me, I'll be keeping an eye on the general equipment threads too for some ideas on future upgrades.

17 hours ago, tailwind_marseille said:

Hey Chris, thanks again for your feedback. The tokina seems to be usable between 12-15mm in FF, and give a good 180 degree image at 15mm. My thinking was to keep it with a FF camera, instead of the more pricey Canon 8-15mm route. The AOI housing for the A7C II would solve some strobe-related issues, but then there's the cost of the dome, plus extensions ($$$ !).

I'm discovering the complications of FF, mostly in terms of lack of low cost options. And I've read time and time again that APS-C is more than enough for UW. And I guess M43 too, judging from many images I've seen. Are your topside photos also taken with a M43 system?

Yes, I use it for air based macro and wildlife. Even dabble in Astro work with it. This sunbird image for example is with the OM-1 plus 300mm f4/1.4x:

Australian Natural Images

and this is a focus stack with OM-1 + 90mm macro of a thumbnail sized terrestrial orchid:

Australian Natural Images

I personally will not buy again a Sea&Sea strobe until their reliability and service become trustworthy. I have had the YS120 which were great, after them I had YS D1, YS D2 and YS D2 j, all of them failed with no reason, some of them while underwater, some of them checking the rig on land with a low power. And the response for Sea&Sea was slow and non satisfactory. For the moment I can't trust in them.

I have bought th AOI UIS P1 strobes, about 850 euros each. I have test them in a 35 dives in 9 days trip. They were great, nor a single fail, and with only 1 battery set I have run all the trip with not a single shot missing. They are not perfect, I don't like the light temperature, I don't like the power knob and I don't like the way to switch them on. But they works in HSS with your Sony and with the AOI trigger, and lastly also with the Turtle trigger. With 150 watts is enough for wide angle, even the sync speed of your camera is only 1/160

Do any strobe manufactures have good service? The only saving grace for Inon has been they are pretty rock solid. Inon has absolutely zero support in North America. It keeps getting said, YAFS, and yet, there are really darn few strobes and some of what there are come from the same place with just rebranding and different features mix.

1 hour ago, Nemrod said:

Do any strobe manufactures have good service? The only saving grace for Inon has been they are pretty rock solid. Inon has absolutely zero support in North America. It keeps getting said, YAFS, and yet, there are really darn few strobes and some of what there are come from the same place with just rebranding and different features mix.

I have had fantastic service from Backscatter, especially with the first run of the flaky MF-1 strobe. They also went above and beyond expectations dealing with some Nauticam flash trigger issues.

Retra is also very responsive and easy to deal with based on experience of several friends.

I had an Inon 330 repaired maybe 5 years ago, no problems.

In the past Ikelite service was very good. Recently the experience was not as good.

My personal experience with strobe service is extremely bad with Sea&Sea (Europe; located in Netherlands), time span was approx. 2-4 years ago: I had four total losses (YS-D2) and it was not possible to contact them or get any response from them, nether by telephone nor by EMail. The service is(was?) practically non existing...

Completely different situation with Backscatter (just now): Two HF-1 had their electrodes corroded. Very fast response, quick and kind handling (although at present there are problems in sending items between US and Europe and the repaired flashes are, at present, delayed in the customs; this is, however, not Backscatters fault)...

Wolfgang

On 2/17/2026 at 5:26 AM, atus said:

I personally will not buy again a Sea&Sea strobe until their reliability and service become trustworthy.

I have bought th AOI UIS P1 strobes, about 850 euros each. I have test them in a 35 dives in 9 days trip. They were great, nor a single fail, and with only 1 battery set I have run all the trip with not a single shot missing.

14 hours ago, Architeuthis said:

My personal experience with strobe service is extremely bad with Sea&Sea (Europe; located in Netherlands), time span was approx. 2-4 years ago: I had four total losses (YS-D2) and it was not possible to contact them or get any response from them, nether by telephone nor by EMail. The service is(was?) practically non existing...

Completely different situation with Backscatter (just now): Two HF-1 had their electrodes corroded. Very fast response, quick and kind handling (although at present there are problems in sending items between US and Europe and the repaired flashes are, at present, delayed in the customs; this is, however, not Backscatters fault)...

Wolfgang

Thanks for sharing your experiences, I have seen a lot of issues with the Sea&Sea strobes, particularly the D1 and D2.

The lack of service support is the key theme though that I am wary of.

The AOI UIS P1 specifically were too heavy to appeal to me, if I was going up to that level I'd look at the Backscatter HF-1 and Marelux Apollo IIIs. I also wasn't clear on their equivalent power, when converted to a GN it was usually quoted as 22, sometimes 28.

With Backscatter I considered the Atom which was definitely in the range of what I was looking for.l, albeit a bit less power.

In my case, I currently use 2 S&S D3 Duo with zero problems. And was using before two D2 also with no problems at all.

Planning to update the D3 for the new ones YS-D130R this year.

12 hours ago, ubiquitous226 said:

Thanks for sharing your experiences, I have seen a lot of issues with the Sea&Sea strobes, particularly the D1 and D2.

The lack of service support is the key theme though that I am wary of.

The AOI UIS P1 specifically were too heavy to appeal to me, if I was going up to that level I'd look at the Backscatter HF-1 and Marelux Apollo IIIs. I also wasn't clear on their equivalent power, when converted to a GN it was usually quoted as 22, sometimes 28.

With Backscatter I considered the Atom which was definitely in the range of what I was looking for.l, albeit a bit less power.

Guide numbers can be quite misleading, A lot depends on how the light is distributed in the beam. Quite a few strobe tests have been posted on here in the last couple of years, it's probably about the best comparison you could find. Assume you've looked at the pinned strobe comparison table in this forum, the spreadsheet linked has larger images.

GNs are really not all that useful except possible computing exposures in a studio. GN is a function of beam angle and distance. Watt second is a more useful measure when given.

A strobe with a beam angle of 80 degrees and a GN of 32 might be similar watt seconds as a strobe with a GN of 22 and a 120 degree beam angle. And then there is the evenness, for lack of a better word, of the beam. Many strobe are really hot in the middle with a lot of fall off but they have a high GN because it was taken in the hot spot.

watt seconds has similar problems unless you are always using the same reflector design. The photons hitting the subject is always complex to measure.

Bill

Regardless, I will take watt seconds over GN. At least I know how much energy is being dumped, the efficiency of the flash tube and reflector/lens design aside. The strobe test that is a sticky in this forum is one of the better if not best attempts at displaying relative power/brightness.

On 2/18/2026 at 7:55 PM, Chris Ross said:

Guide numbers can be quite misleading, A lot depends on how the light is distributed in the beam. Quite a few strobe tests have been posted on here in the last couple of years, it's probably about the best comparison you could find. Assume you've looked at the pinned strobe comparison table in this forum, the spreadsheet linked has larger images.

Yes it's one of the reasons I posted here to hopefully get some real experiences.

I came in leaning towards the Apollo S's, but discovered some limitations I wasn't aware of, and the availability of the YS-D3s at a lower price than I was aware of, and a very simple upgrade from my YS-110a's.

I ended up ordering the YS-D3s after spending some time considering the YS-D130Rs and a few secondhand options, but decided I'd keep to the slightly more compact option with only a small premium for new ones as I still think I'm unlikely to go full frame anywhere in the near to medium future.

They landed today, just over a week after ordering, and without additional customs which I expected to pay so extra bonus.

On 3/3/2026 at 9:48 PM, ubiquitous226 said:

Yes it's one of the reasons I posted here to hopefully get some real experiences.

I came in leaning towards the Apollo S's, but discovered some limitations I wasn't aware of, and the availability of the YS-D3s at a lower price than I was aware of, and a very simple upgrade from my YS-110a's.

I ended up ordering the YS-D3s after spending some time considering the YS-D130Rs and a few secondhand options, but decided I'd keep to the slightly more compact option with only a small premium for new ones as I still think I'm unlikely to go full frame anywhere in the near to medium future.

They landed today, just over a week after ordering, and without additional customs which I expected to pay so extra bonus.

First let me say congratulations on the new strobes and to the newish owner of Sea & Sea who I have known for over twenty years.

Above you have stated that you discovered "limitations" with Marelux Apollo S strobes but did not articulate what those limitations are. If you are talking about specs. as opposed to cost/availability in your area I would be interested to know what specs you may take issue with. I would submit that regarding specs. the new $549.00 Apollo Y has specs equal to or better than YS-D3. Could you help me understand what is lacking in the Apollo line of strobes.

6 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

First let me say congratulations on the new strobes and to the newish owner of Sea & Sea who I have known for over twenty years.

Above you have stated that you discovered "limitations" with Marelux Apollo S strobes but did not articulate what those limitations are. If you are talking about specs. as opposed to cost/availability in your area I would be interested to know what specs you may take issue with. I would submit that regarding specs. the new $549.00 Apollo Y has specs equal to or better than YS-D3. Could you help me understand what is lacking in the Apollo line of strobes.

Of course, the Apollo S's were an appealing option to me.

The biggest factor was the statement they didn't offer the option for a pre-flash cancel so I'd have to purchase an additional trigger for them, which I'll likely eventually get if I upgrade but right now I'd prefer not to rely on, and I wasn't sure how it would fit in my housing as I also have a third party vacuum setup.

The Apollo Y's from what I understand do offer the pre-flash cancel option, the specs show them at a similar GN to my previous strobes and therefore a fair bit lower than the D3s or Ss - as they're new there wasn't a lot of info on how they compare in real life.

7 hours ago, Phil Rudin said:

First let me say congratulations on the new strobes and to the newish owner of Sea & Sea who I have known for over twenty years.

Above you have stated that you discovered "limitations" with Marelux Apollo S strobes but did not articulate what those limitations are. If you are talking about specs. as opposed to cost/availability in your area I would be interested to know what specs you may take issue with. I would submit that regarding specs. the new $549.00 Apollo Y has specs equal to or better than YS-D3. Could you help me understand what is lacking in the Apollo line of strobes.

The OP has a Sony A6400 in a Sea frogs housing. I think he is syncing using the pop up flash. The Sony A6XXX cameras always fire a preflash and the Marelux strobe does not have a preflash cancel. Not a problem shooting TTL but if wanting to run the strobes in manual mode the Marelux fire on the preflash.

My NA-6400 is equipped with a UWT trigger board so I have a workaround. But using the pop up, which I actually prefer, manual strobes were not possible. I have found trigger boards to be expensive and less than 100% reliable. When I know I am going to be shooting something that will not sit still and pose for me, I prefer the pop up, it is rock solid, 100%, all the time, every time. The UWT trigger, well, it is not.

Otherwise the Marelux were superb strobes. And then along comes Backscatter and leaves out the standard mimic TTL! Preflash cancel for manual strobes and universal mimic TTL are two things that are really not optional inclusions.

Edited 2 hours ago2 hr by Nemrod

9 minutes ago, Nemrod said:

The OP has a Sony A6400 in a Sea frogs housing. I think he is syncing using the pop up flash. The Sony A6XXX cameras always fire a preflash and the Marelux strobe does not have a preflash cancel. Not a problem shooting TTL but if wanting to run the strobes in manual mode the Marelux fire on the preflash.

My NA-6400 is equipped with a UWT trigger board so I have a workaround. But using the pop up, which I actually prefer, manual strobes were not possible. I have found trigger boards to be expensive and less than 100% reliable. When I know I am going to be shooting something that will not sit still and pose for me, I prefer the pop up, it is rock solid, 100%, all the time, every time. The UWT trigger, well, it is not.

Otherwise the Marelux were superb strobes. And then along comes Backscatter and leaves out the standard mimic TTL! Preflash cancel for manual strobes and universal mimic TTL are two things that are really not optional inclusions.

Would the Backscatter "learning mode" be an option to get around the pre flash not being able to be turned off?

I haven't done any research on the Marelux strobes but perhaps they have something similar - if not then I guess that would rule them out for all of the Sony cameras with pop up flashes, which could be an extra opportunity for more sales.

1 hour ago, Yorkie88 said:

Would the Backscatter "learning mode" be an option to get around the pre flash not being able to be turned off?

I haven't done any research on the Marelux strobes but perhaps they have something similar - if not then I guess that would rule them out for all of the Sony cameras with pop up flashes, which could be an extra opportunity for more sales.

It would be great to get clarity on that for future or other potential buyers for Marelux strobes.

Given the Apollo Y's specifically have a pre-flash cancel option, either Marelux have picked up on it or decided it was more important for that market segment (they quote it as making it compatible with "compacts").

On the Backscatter side they would work, but I believe @Nemrod was referring to the lack of normal TTL mode being the frustration as opposed to not being able to deal with pre-flashes.

In the end the price I could get the D3s was too good to ignore otherwise I would have put more effort into confirming.