Adventurer

No please do not get me wrong. I am not saying anything is better. The HF-1 is a tick stronger than my Apollo III 2.0 when put to +2 mode and you do not want to utilize burst shooting. But when you want high fps strobe burst shooting it seems to me that no other manufacturer has mastered this technology than Marelux. Maybe also the other competing companies did just not aim their design at this particular discipline. And I just want to say that I have noticed that this particular aspect of the product seems to get downplayed in many reviews or comments during the last 1.5 years. Most reviewers seem to have adapted their testing ground to an fps level or use case that the competitor products still can cope with. The only guy who can not be critiqued for being an Ambassador and having written a fair independent review about the Apollo III is Henley Spiers on DPG. Many others seem downplay the aspect and image opportunity of high fps strobe shooting, even if they found the product to perform that decently during their tests. I own and paid both strobes (HF-1 and Apollo III) and think their are both great tools where they go stellar in different disciplines. My impression is that for some reason I do not understand there seems to be some kind of Marelux or Apollo bashing going on or beeing popular to say - and just few people credit this brand of having introduced a new piece of tech that others still need to catch up to. The whole thing with the high fps downplay reminds me of my old Hugyfot housing, when that brand introduced vacuum systems on their housings as the only manufacturer around. Everybody else was making fun about them for this and said „our housings also seal without this“. Look now 20 years later and vacuum valves and pumps on housings are a standard. Especially on brands that were shouting Extra loud against them in the period were they did not sell this technology.

That seems a bit different from what you said in the video. I actually stumbled across it again while trying to find Dr. Alex Mustard’s Marelux Apollo review. It’s not easy to locate, because the review is kind of “hidden” under a subtle title and isn’t as heavily keyworded or clearly titled as the RETRA strobe episodes on The Underwater Photography Show. As a regular viewer and big fan of the show, I’d like to suggest something: maybe you could give the Marelux “Apollo S” and “Apollo III (revisited)” strobes their own dedicated episode, so they’re covered as fairly and prominently as the Retras and Krakens—which have been episode headliners, sometimes with less overall content. Anyway,... Thanks to ChatGPT I was able to pull out a well formatted and still exact quote from the videos transcript. This is actually where you 100% confirm my experience with the Apollo III 2.0 ... The Backscatter HF-1 on quarter power will approx the same at 1/4 power as the Apollo III 2.0 at FULL in MTL - It will hold it's stamina at 12fps .CR3 RAWs for approx 1000 frames. And the Apollo holds its stamina: it can keep up at around 12 fps shooting CR3 RAW bursts for roughly 1,000 frames. In my case, the limiting factor is my camera buffer * — not the Apollo III strobe. With the HF-1 set to 1/4 power and trying the same kind of burst, the strobe quickly starts producing blackout frames or underexposed frames every few shots. * Well,... if you cross 1000 shots the battery cells in any strobe also become a limiting factor. When there is talk about power drain, I can confirm that firing above 800 shots will drain strobe batteries... but not light output provided in MTL by the strobe. That is until you cross a critical battery level signaled by the strobe indicator light going yellow or purple.

@Alex_Mustard Didn't you shoot Apollo S strobes, not Apollo III 2.0 in blackwater ? From what I understand smaller sized Apollo S are supposed to be much weaker than HF-1. I just recall you not finding the MTL mode when you had Apollo III 2.0 in the Red Sea with Oceanic Whitetips? You must have gotten distracted by the lovely bouncing batteries, you were so enchanted about 😏

Great Job and some very inspirational imaging in the video! The complete system is quite a canon though. 😂 Question: I noticed the test person shooting the OS-3 most times had two aiming lights coming out of the OS-3. Could you find out if it the HF-1 was used in spot-light mode or will the flood light also produce these two beams? Furthermore, can the crossing of these two beams (paralax) be used for something, such as finding the optimal working distance for the OS-3 + HF-1 ? I assume this would be where the beams cross? "Crossing The Streams" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyKQe_i9yyo

Hi Dreifish, I think your Apollo III units where not functioning OK or your test setup was faulty in some way. I cannot confirm the way you trashed that strobe, having now shot this and the HF-1 for two years. I bought the HF-1 because of your disruptive Excel sheet back in the days. In fact my HF-1 does not deliver the power you claimed at high frame rates and does many blackout frames and light variation. You may want to reach out to your dealer or Marelux to get your strobes replaced.

Just want to report back that I am using the 8-15mm fisheye with Kenko 1.4x and 2.0x TC on a Canon, unable to take advantage of the Sony 2.0x TC…. but… … recently I got myself the comlite EF RF and modified it to host the Canon RF 1.4x TC. I am really curious to try this and consider buying also the RF 2.0x TC to upgrade my IQ by a small fraction.

I think this supports also the 5% measurement and test + item variation delta I previously pointed out. Also a fresh from the factory strobe will be brighter than one that already has fired a few hundred shots. So no need in beating a dead horse and over-doing and over-interpreting these land tests. What would be interesting though is a beam (1-1.5m) wall test submerged in water to see the different dome and reflector designs come into play.

If you intend to pursue that road and cannot get your hands on a cheap 2nd hand ZEN dome from the example above, I suggest everyone to take a look at INONs very affordable small glas dome. You will need to get an adapter made, if you do not shoot their INON X-2 housing. *the sunshade is removable

oK - specs are out… 15 cm MFD look promising. Canon RF sensor to flange = 20 mm Canon RF 7-14 lens length = 109 mm I = 20 mm + 109 mm = 129 mm MFD = 150 mm MFD - I = 21 mm Focuses 2,1 cm in front of front glas. But if the 190 degree FOV at 7mm focal length is not a typo it will create lots of headaches with port positioning.

Even more interesting would be the option to use the RF2.0x TC 🤩 let‘s wait and pray that the technical data will serve us underwater photographers! There is still the minimal chance that Canon totally screws this up with a humongous minimum focusing distance (MFD) which would render it useless for underwater photography.

Hi all, does anybody know the author / anchorman of these four videos ? At first I thought he is affiliated with the former British camera store OceanOptics, because of the channel name. That however seems wrong. The channel origin seems to come from The Netherlands and I think that this might be confirmed by a slight Dutch accent I am hearing. I am interested to learn more about his uw photographic works and if he maybe is a well established pro or even a waterpixeler 😉 ?

If it is coming at an ultra humongous price, I am afraid. It will be interesting (but also a very slim chance) if we can combine it with RF1.4x and RF2.0x teleconverters. Let‘s also pray that Canon will keep the MFD ultra low and the entrance pupil in the front as on our beloved EF 8-15 fisheye.

Be aware: the cooler color temp strobes will usually marginally win the brightness test. So as HF-1 and Maxi are really just 1% difference this can be solely blamed to color temp difference. Furthermore, here in the community of underwater shooters we are unable to fullfill industrial test standards, where we would take 10 units of each type and multiple measurements (a hell lot of work) to counter-act production variances and variance resulting from your own measurement errors. You commonly observe 3-5% variation across same production models industrial testing for the before mentioned reasons. So I would conclude,... they are basically equally bright and Retra Maxi caught up to the HF-1 . One more question to Dave: as you put housing and dome around for your test. Was this shot in Air (I mean the wall) or did you submerge everything in a pool test ? This would be an interesting detail for me. Maybe you want to mark this in your beam shot .jpg (in water / or in air shots) and also name the lens as a 15mm fisheye for readers who just stare at the table or will see this quoted somewhere in the future. Thanks for putting so much work in this @Dave_Hicks 💪

I totally agree with @Architeuthis on this point. In real world shooting switching from FULL to +2 level in M Mode on the Backscatter HF-1 has really efficient and high impact. It will substantially light bigger reef sceenes. Also I would like to point out, that the beam coverage and quality of light with my Apollo III 2.0 is really decent underwater and I have the gut feeling this might be related to the dome glas in front, which will have no effect in air but once submerged play out a substantial role. In land test the coverage looks like you have put a reduction ring on the Apollo.

Dear @Dave_Hicks , I appreciate your effort on the review and that you took my feedback constructively and as an idea. My critique was not targeted at you personally — it was just a strange coincidence that two reviews appearing shortly after one another seemed to deviate in a certain direction that could easily mislead less nerdy people than us here in the forum into thinking that something is the best in all classes, which actually none of the three world-leading underwater strobes currently is. Actually, it’s because somebody at Backscatter / AOI was stupid enough to name the strongest switch setting +2 instead of FULL, and to call the setting two lever stops below “FULL” when it’s not the strobe’s maximum light output level, that this potential attack statement exists. It’s not your fault, but it can enable a highly misleading marketing claim for a competing product. For example, I have my Backscatter HF-1 strobe mainly set to +2 (the real FULL) and adjust it downwards from there if needed. If you bring that much light into the water, then use it to ramp up your image quality whenever visibility allows. The Retra Maxi might be able to challenge it on a full dump. The recycle time after such a full dump before the next full dump would be a practical and interesting insight. If it really cracks the HF-1, how much do you gain? A full stop of light, or just a marginal gain? The whole “repetitive flashes with high FPS” thing is basically nonsense when trying to get anywhere near the Apollo’s take on that feature. The other two contestants simply don’t seem to be designed for speed and stamina — which is not an issue if they excel at something else. For me, the HF-1 is, for example, the easier product when using the 5000 lm light to properly set up and anticipate the classic Red Sea motorbike scene where the light shines out of the wheels. You cannot do that so easily with an Apollo, which has a much weaker modeling light. Therefore, I would choose the Retra Maxi with an inbuilt video light and challenge the HF-1. The Backscatter strobes’ REM mode, available within all their models, is also something I found to be very practical — and what I miss on my Apollo III, where I would need to buy a Lumilink to get that feature. Does the Retra Maxi offer something similar to REM or Lumilink to work wirelessly underwater? Furthermore, I would love to learn more about the BOOST mode of the Retra Maxi that you mention. How do you activate it, and how accessible is it?