Kiliii Yuyan

Oh hell yes, that would be amazing. I owe ya one. See you there! I'll be diving my new and improved EMWL setup so there may be some hallelujahs or some cursing. Or both.

@Dave_Hicks Just measured the Retra Pro Max II knobs, the mode dial is 18.8mm at the base diameter, 25.5mm high. Power dial is also 18.8mm at base diameter, 33.5mm high.

I do understand how the relative shift of color temperature underwater works. What I am saying, though, is that despite that, what I can see is that the strobe light has a quality that is more penetrating, which appears to give more contrast and clarity, and overpowers the ambient a bit more. I don't know why this is the case- other people have mentioned this before as well. It may well be cognitive bias, it could be the visibility. If I am correct, however, I would guess the effect is due to the fact that that the wavelengths of blue light travel further underwater than warmer wavelengths (water absorbs wavelengths increasingly towards red)- in both directions to and from the subject. While you can adjust the global warmth of an image in Lightroom, say, you can't adjust the color temperature differences coming from the same light source hitting different parts of the subject. There are probably other subtle effects going on as well, such as the scattering of different color wavelengths and the interference with existing light. One other possibility is simpler- perhaps the camera or Lightroom's automatic white balance adjustment treats the scene differently depending on the color temperature of the strobe, and does not compensate as much towards warmth. The algorithms I assume are complex and probably not just trying to neutralize the subject's color temperature.

Thanks Alex for the real-life images, the one thing I do notice is that in blue water, the Maxi's color temperature seems to make everything just that bit bluer and more crispy, which is not my favorite thing (tastes will vary one this a lot). The warming diffusers would seem to be important to me. I also updated my strobe test review, after some great (minor) feedback from Oskar at Retra on testing methodology. I re-analyzed the the light quality of the strobes and the Pro Max II and Seacam you can now see are slightly better in falloff, although both Retras and the Seacam are quite close. The Apollo falls well behind. Details here: https://blog.kiliii.com/underwater-strobe-shootout-marelux-apollo-iii-2-0-retra-maxi-seacam-160d-retra-pro-ii/

Hi everyone, I see there's been quite a bit of activity while I was away being horrified by the news... @Dave_Hicks Thank you for the Retra knob issue, I often am annoyed by the knob designs, especially when power level and mode knobs are not enormously different. I too, shoot with strobes way out as a backlight and often find myself flipping the wrong knob. I guess we share the same dyslexia that way. If you have any desire to do the same more controlled testing with the Backscatter strobes, happy to share the Photoshop scripts! @Architeuthis I did indeed include the Retra Pro Max II, their latest high-end pro strobe. For some reason I wrote Pro Max 2 throughout but my brain can't keep track of how manufacturers write their numbers. mk2, mkII, v2, 2, TWO, II... @Adventurer The Apollo III 2.0 strobes are what I tested. They are the glass-domed ones, that came to me in early November 2025. I presume they are the very latest, although I did receive two slightly different versions, with minor different knob designs and other differences in packaging. Both designs however seemed to be the same as far as performance. They are quite pretty too. I had to buy all the strobes I tested, so alas, no way to test the Backscatter unless someone wants to give me some. Seems like a pretty reasonable trade. I would be happy to test the Retra Maxi and Apollo at higher frame rates, but the testing took A LOT of time, 2 full workdays with writing the scripts and all of that. I might find the time to do more testing but my personal curiosity is satisfied -for now- and I learned a lot. @Chris Ross Thx mate.

Hi everyone, I just did a pretty extensive review of the Retra Maxis compared to several other top of the line strobes, using quantitative methods in a studio. I reckon it's a good counterpart to Dave's review in the field here. https://blog.kiliii.com/underwater-strobe-shootout-marelux-apollo-iii-2-0-retra-maxi-seacam-160d-retra-pro-ii/ All of Dave's findings are echoed in my results as well, although I did come up with some big surprises when I did my controlled tests. The Retra Maxi is essentially a burst-shooting beast with a vastly better light quality than the Marelux Apollo III. And it does it at high power. Take a look!

Hi folks, good to be here! Stumbled into this forum accidentally but I see that there's lots of people I know here already and lots of activity. In brief, I'm a National Geographic photographer and public speaker, and much of my work is underwater but I am documentary photographer first and foremost. Cheers, happy shooting this winter! Kiliii Yuyan