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IMO this is just a company politics. If you take a look back in the days when Nauticam was launched the housing were as cheap as an Ikelite but with the quaity of a Sea&Sea or Subal, now a Nauticam housing has more or less the same price than a Subal or even a Seacam. They launched the brand and got captive clients because of the domes and ports for its price, once they had a good name, a good product and several captive costumers they increased the prices. Pure marketing. And IMO Retra have done the same, when they launched the brand the strobes had a very fair price, and in every single version they have increased the price, the only difference is that is more difficoult to make captive costumers with flash accesories, but again I think is a marketing plan.

Sorry about the late reply, I had very busy days. In the pictures above the difference of power of about 1/2 stop in the pictures above is clearly noticiable. Take a look at the carpet, it's darker in the pciture to the left. But I agree with you than the hotspot is still more noticiable in the Ikelite strobe. Now I'm fancy to do the same test with the Subtronic and the Sea&Sea D2 which I still have one, let's see how much does it last...

I haven't done this test this way, but I have done underwater with the inon Z330 and Z240 and with the Sea&Sea D1 and D2, and in all of them the hot spots were noticiable with difussers and without. Furthermore, the use of diffusers to reach a determinate quality of light means loosing of power, and when you are shooting aganist the sun in shallow waters you need all the power avaliable. Specially when shooting with a FF camera.

Yes, there are significant variants depending of the light bulb and the reflector in terms of power but again the GN is not true guide. How do they calculate this number, on land or underwater ? what about the iso ? Did they use reflector or zomms ? I don't trust in a guide number if they don't calculate ir fairly. And in my experience comparing with partners using the third generation of Retra the difference is 1/2 stop between Subtronic 160 and Retra pro. That said, another very big question is about quality of light, and this quality is impossible to reach with square bulbs. So this leave a part all Inon, Sea&Sea (except old YS 250) and Marelux. These strobes are fine for macro shooting but not for wide angle.

Well, as I said, I never care about the GN, because everybody lies about it and there are so many ways to calculate it, the only accurate number is watt/s and these 160 plays in the same league than the retras's, for power and for quality of light, compare a Subtronic with an Inon is comparing a Ferrari with a Renault. I normally dive with partners with Inon's and Retra's and I have test all of them. I have had Sea&Sea 120, D1, D2 and D2j, Inon z240 and Z330. Trust me, no Inon have nothing to do against a Subtronic, and the only Sea&Sea which can make shadow to the Subtronic is the old 250. We can talk about the batteries used, the system for the batteries, the size, how heavy they are or even the design, the website only in german, but in terms of power and quality, they are definitely in the top league. Even the service is top, I had to use it two times, quick and unexpensive. When I said that none cares about the spaniards I didn't think about the football, or the tenis 😜

Well, it's true that the website only in german doesn't help. But it must be me, spanish, that I am used to translating all te sites from german, english, french...because in this little underwater photography world nobody seems to care about about spaniards. It doesn't matter, I speak english. Anyway, Subtronic have always answer in english to my emails in english. About the GN, it's not a number anyone can trust, I only trust in watt/sec. There are many ways to calculate that GN, in land, in water, with an snooot, without. In watts/sec there is no possible confusion. That said, the Subtronic 160 pro it's way smaller than a Retra Pro, and comparing with my partners with Retra only 1/2 point of difference as much in terms of power, better the Retra. The battery it's not inside the strobe, they are external connected by wire, and you can choose between an strobe arm-battery or a battery which you insert in the neopren cover. One unit with no accesories is worth 880 euros vat incluided https://www.subtronic.de/produkte/Pro160-ohne-Zubehoer.07966.php Add about 500 euros in accesories per strobe and you will be so far from retras with almost the same performance.

I can' understand why nobody consider the Subtronic strobes. Made in Germany, with the service in Germany, great light quality with circular light tube, 160 wat/sec and lithium batterry pack.

Well, I don't have experience with the Retras's, but I have experience with my olders Sea&Sea YS 120, which works with 8 AA battery, so I finally found me travelling with 32 AA batteries and 2 chargers for 8 batteries each, changing batteries after every single dive on a trip. After change to that shitty Sea&Sea D2 which gave me nothing but disappoinment I finally got 2 Subtronic 160 pro fusion, which work with battery packs made with 2 x 18650 cells each. I have 4 batterry packs but I don't like the battery packs, they stop working fine always in the middle of a trip because Murphy exists and he is a motherfu..er. I remember a trip to Bali which I had to dive 5 days only with one strobes due to issues in my battery packs, and those packs are expensive. So I finally made my own battery packs, in which I can remove the cells and charge it. This way if the cells have issues I simply replace it with no worries and unexpensive. Now I make my trips with a 8 cell 18650 charger and 16 cells. With this battery packs I can do 3 dives without changing batteries and I have spare for everytihing.

Hi all, I own two Subtronic Alpha 160 pro fusion, which I really love because of its power, light quality and size. for me the handicap of this flashes is its batteries, they are dedicated and I don't really like it. The main thing that I don't like about it it's the charger, only a red or green led to know if they are charged or not. Several times I have noticed issues with the charger, I connect the batterym switch the power on and after 15 minutes turns green, It feels strange, so I restart the procedure and this time the battery is charging for 2 hours. If i don't notice I'll run out of batteries in 10 pictures the next dive, Presumibly just before you find an Orca having sex with a whale shark. So as I was tired of the situation I planned to do on myself new battery packs that I can control the cells individually in a normal charger. Then I noticed than the original battery packs are simple as two 18650 cells connected in series, so they give 7,4 volts (nominal). So I decided that if I am going to do it I want to not charge batteies in a day during a trip, tipically 4 dives. So I made my packs with two packs of two 18650 batteries connectd in parallel, so I double de mah. resulting in this packs you can see in the pictures. I made the design and went to a turner to make the pack with the threads and the o'ring channels, I bought the cables with the conector already welded from Subtronic and I bougt the battery holders from Aliexpress, sended the alluminum pack to anodize and I got the cable penetrators from BlueRov which i had to modificate a little bit in order to hold 6.5 mm cable. It's been a bit expensive, around 300 euros each plus my time and my job, but I can control every cell one by one, but everytime I go to the water I am absolutely sure they are perfectly charged, if any of the cells it's damaged i can change it for a ridicculous price comparing with a wole pack, and I can do on myself in seconds. The contra is that this battery packs are big. So now I am planning to make another packs with only to cells in serial connection, ir order to make it thinner, to use it when at home and tipically dive once or two a week. The connector is an S4, so if Seacam uses the same voltage this would also work with them

I have done on myself several dome ports, zoom gears, flip brackets for macro lenses....What I have found about 3D printing is no piece which have to be waterproff must be done on 3D printing, I don't trust on it. So when I am planning to make for example a new dome port I use to 3D printing as a prototipe provider. I build the whole piece in 3D printing and make all the tests needed in dry. After that, I divide the dome port in 3 pieces, bayonet fitting, cylinder and dome. I order the dome to a workshop which makes it the way I need and really cheap for my surprise, then I take the prototype to the turner and ask him to make an exact model in Delrin (way cheaper than alluminium) and I finally print in 3D de bayonet fitting for the housing. Then I put it all together, tipically the bayonet screwed to the body and the dome glued with polyurethane sealant. The last 4" dome port I did this way it's now 2 years that I'm diving with. And it costed me about 150 euros.

Thank you very much !! The picture was taken in Ibiza, there was a time years ago that was quite common to sea the John Dory's throw the island, after that I have been a lot of years of not seeing nor a single one. And suddenly this year we have had two months of see them almost in every dive.

Even if the price has grow up a lot in the last years and the quality of the buttons is getting down with each new version, me and some of my dive partners have been using this chinese diving torches for years https://es.aliexpress.com/item/1005003416026342.html?spm=a2g0o.productlist.main.3.6dfb71e60NAPpf&algo_pvid=b126115e-3507-4451-b3aa-896adf429855&aem_p4p_detail=202401181233001582522761348160000439163&algo_exp_id=b126115e-3507-4451-b3aa-896adf429855-1&pdp_npi=4%40dis!EUR!112.92!59.85!!!120.19!63.70!%4021038e8317056099799656540eb44f!12000027370551359!sea!ES!2040584551!&curPageLogUid=qd6dCTn2kINB&utparam-url=scene%3Asearch|query_from%3A&search_p4p_id=202401181233001582522761348160000439163_2 They have been with me a lot deeper than 40 meters with no issues and they have been with me in a lot of trips. The oldest one that i own must have around 1000 dives. I don't believe they give the 20.000 announced lumens, but if is around 10.000 for me is more than enough, anyway I always use it in he half power. With good batteries i have done 100 minutes night dives. It never switch off when low battery, it simply gives less light.

My favorite pictures of the year. Not for being stuning, just because I think those are pictures that every single photographer wants to have on his portfolio. All of them were taken in my last trip to Tulamben last october

What I do for travelling is to put the camera inside the housing with the macro lens and its port and I carry it with a lanyard hanging from my shoulder. The rest of the equipment, strobes, arms, batteries, dome, lenses, laptop...in a cabin suitcase with me all the time. Since I do that I have a less problems in the airport filters and my cabin suitcase is much less heavy so I have less issues with the airline.

Thankcyour very much, it's my fault taht you can't see the first pic. It's the same one, but I made a mistake and I first uploaded the tiff version which is 70 MB. So I deleted it and uploaded the Jpeg low quality version for internet..

After my last trip to Bali where I took a huge bunch of pictures, back home to the Mediterranean it's sometimes a but heartbraking due to the lack of life comparing to other seas. But here we also have some beautiful creatures to take pictures. SVF15122023048.tif

Just in case it's any consolation. Lot of years ago I had an issue with an Inon Z240, I sent it to the dealer in Spain, and they had to send it to Japan as long are they who hold the warranty, so the dealer in Spain doesn't have the avaibility to decide a warranty case. 3 month did it take. Same with Sea&Sea, but still worst, due it was a clear case of warranty. I always had to pay for the shipping. This is what drives me to never ever buy a japanese strobe while living in Europe.

It's a pity. Too much money to spend if I have to change my rig to nauticam just for one lens. Thank you fr the links, really interesting.

I wouln't even consider a Sea&Sea strobe, I have had D1, D2 and D2J, one of those D2J are still working fine, as spare. The other 5 I owned and the 4 of my dive budy died. Never again. That said, Retra plays in another league but they are not free of issues. In another forum someone reported a 2 retra strobes fail at the same time in a deep dive, one of my dive buddies have flooded one of them, and not by the batteries cap, so the strobe died after the warranty. After being working flawlesly more than 2 years. This doesn't mean the other brands are free os issues. I am running Subtronic 160 pro right now, one of them has gone twice to the factory for repairing, the factory response has been fast and right, but the issue was there. I can't talk of other premier league strobes but as far as I know they all work with dedicated batteries, which is for me a handicap and a point extra for the retra's. For me only one thing is clear, Sea&Sea never ever.

I have been making a search in Ebay and I couldn't guess how cheap they really are. Before making a compulsory buying I have been looking for the possibilities to put it in an Aquatica Housing and the only adapter that I have found is for Nauticam housings... Does anybody knows how to adapt it to an Aquatica or Subal housing ?

I wish I would need that service. The holy grail of the underwater lenses.

Hi All, I am atus, commercial and recreational diver based in Ibiza, the Balearic Islands, in Spain. I'm glad of this forum and I am happy to find here the people in wetpixels. Here I am to help you in everything I can.