Mid-Range Strobes

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.