1 hour ago, John E said:

I do have a concern though about the new super-bright strobes (and modern very bright snoot lights) and how much that disturbs the wildlife. It seems safest to use as much light as you need, rather than as much light as you can carry.

There have only been a few studies to look at this question and the results were essentially that strobes did not disturb the creatures whereas video lights did. The study I am thinking of involved seahorses, known for being sensitive and shy. Handling, prodding, spending excessive time on a critter, even proximity alone, are likely to affect creatures as much as a quick photo. But, hang out on top of them and pester them, anyone would be annoyed. With or without a camera and strobes.

From the test and in use, I have never seen a strobe that can go from so little to so much with the twist of the dial of the Retra Maxi. It is the most and possibly the least.

Edited September 8Sep 8 by Nemrod

9 hours ago, CCRphoto said:

Why - big underwater focus stacks - up to 300 images.

Any chance you could replicate those tests you did for me on the Retra Maxis - but using the HF-1 instead - to find out if it can 10 fps at any power settings?

Result: 1/8th power is pretty stable at 10fps with only slight shifting left (darker) of the histograms over a 15-20 shot sequence. One click higher shows significant shifting darker.

3 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

Result: 1/8th power is pretty stable at 10fps with only slight shifting left (darker) of the histograms over a 15-20 shot sequence. One click higher shows significant shifting darker.

Many many thanks once again!

Looking at an image of the back of a HF-1, it looks like it has three power settings below 1/8th - a . then 1/16th and then another . - if the . between 1/16th and 1/8th will happily chugg along at 10fps for a while and will sufficiently light a small 1:1 macro subject then one of my problems is solved!

6 minutes ago, CCRphoto said:

Many many thanks once again!

Looking at an image of the back of a HF-1, it looks like it has three power settings below 1/8th - a . then 1/16th and then another . - if the . between 1/16th and 1/8th will happily chugg along at 10fps for a while and will sufficiently light a small 1:1 macro subject then one of my problems is solved!

I think that will work just fine.

1 hour ago, Dave_Hicks said:

I think that will work just fine.

Fingers are crossed!

My copper mine shares have jumped 29% today so not long now!

This is really a great resource to compare the different strobes. The reputation of Backscatter rised a lot on my personal scale...👍

I have a question on the circles in the test images: to wich angles of view do they correspond?

Thanks, Wolfgang

6 hours ago, Architeuthis said:

This is really a great resource to compare the different strobes. The reputation of Backscatter rised a lot on my personal scale...👍

I have a question on the circles in the test images: to wich angles of view do they correspond?

Thanks, Wolfgang

They are at 30,60,90,120 degress included angles. It's listed in the how we did our beam pattern test section.

Is anyone else having trouble getting some of the bar graphs in the article to display? For me some of them just don't display as I scroll down and leave a large white space, and I get a blank white page when I click on the "Full Screen" buttons.

If anyone is able to turn the article into a pdf and send it to me I would be grateful!

31 minutes ago, CCRphoto said:

Is anyone else having trouble getting some of the bar graphs in the article to display? For me some of them just don't display as I scroll down and leave a large white space, and I get a blank white page when I click on the "Full Screen" buttons.

If anyone is able to turn the article into a pdf and send it to me I would be grateful!

What are you using to view? Phone, Laptop, etc?

1 hour ago, Dave_Hicks said:

What are you using to view? Phone, Laptop, etc?

17" laptop - have tried Chrome and Microsoft Edge - same on both.

2 minutes ago, CCRphoto said:

17" laptop - have tried Chrome and Microsoft Edge - same on both.

I tried a simple print to pdf and it looked probably much worse than what you have now.

I suggest turning off all ad-blockers, etc. Trying viewing it in an Incognito browser tab which usually disables most extensions and filters.

2 hours ago, CCRphoto said:

Is anyone else having trouble getting some of the bar graphs in the article to display? For me some of them just don't display as I scroll down and leave a large white space, and I get a blank white page when I click on the "Full Screen" buttons.

If anyone is able to turn the article into a pdf and send it to me I would be grateful!

Same problem here (Macbook Pro M1)...

working for me currently - using Windows/Firefox

8 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

I tried a simple print to pdf and it looked probably much worse than what you have now.

I suggest turning off all ad-blockers, etc. Trying viewing it in an Incognito browser tab which usually disables most extensions and filters.

Just tried an Incognito browser tab - same problem unfortunately

54 minutes ago, Chris Ross said:

working for me currently - using Windows/Firefox

Just tried the same combination - still no joy! I might contact Backscatter.

8 hours ago, Architeuthis said:

Same problem here (Macbook Pro M1)...

So probably not just a Windows problem then. I'm going to email Backscatter and see if they can send me a pdf - if so I will send a copy to you.

1 hour ago, CCRphoto said:

So probably not just a Windows problem then. I'm going to email Backscatter and see if they can send me a pdf - if so I will send a copy to you.

I didn't have any issue with any of my Windows systems. Edge and Brave (both Chromium based)

However, I had an idea I think I figured it out. If I monkey around with the >Page Zoom< level I was able to get the graph to vanish. Then I had to restore to 100% and refresh or close/open the page before the graph would render correctly again. Play around with your Page Zoom settings and see if you can't get it to work.

It is also possible a non-Chromium browser like FireFox might work differently and give a different result, but I didn't try that.

5 hours ago, Dave_Hicks said:

I didn't have any issue with any of my Windows systems. Edge and Brave (both Chromium based)

However, I had an idea I think I figured it out. If I monkey around with the >Page Zoom< level I was able to get the graph to vanish. Then I had to restore to 100% and refresh or close/open the page before the graph would render correctly again. Play around with your Page Zoom settings and see if you can't get it to work.

It is also possible a non-Chromium browser like FireFox might work differently and give a different result, but I didn't try that.

I've tried Firefox too - same result! I just tried what you suggested with the page zoom level - still no joy!

If someone could please use the Snipping Tool or something similar and send them to me I would be grateful, the graphs that I am missing are -
- Guide Numbers
- Weights
- Power Levels
- Flash Duration

Edit - I have now been able to get the full screen version of the Guide Numbers to display by reducing Page Zoom to 80%, but the others won't display even with Page Zoom set to 50%...

The others all appear as expected with Page Zoom at 100%

Edited Saturday at 06:49 AM2 days by CCRphoto

Can anyone use their comparison app? For me it looks like this: