Strobes versus UK 100 HID Light

I have a PT 010 housing and want to add a strobe. Recently found Oceanbrite is selling UW LIGHTS in addition to strobes.! Any thoughts/results using an HID light instead of Strobe for digital cameras? Where do you get the adaptor/arm/tray? (have light already)

Thanks.

I think the general feeling here is strobes are better than lights. Strobes are certainly more powerful than lights for the times when it's important.

Specific to the HID lights, you'll find that strobes render color more accurately in addition to having greater reach.

The advantage of lights is that autoexposure becomes easy. Typical small lights will be very limited in power, not very wide, and will have limited burn times (although that's probably OK). The HID's have (relatively) poor spectrums and require warmup times before their color is best.

You get more creative options with strobes due to their high power, so that's really the best way to go.

I've got the UK HID light, and I experimented using it without a strobe with my Sony DSC-S85. The resulting shots weren't worth keeping, as it just didn't have the power of even a DS-50 strobe. It was *ok* at night, but during the day it wasn't really very effective.

Go with a strobe.

Hi!

I think, up to now, I did quite well with lights. No HIDs but off the shelf 12V halogen bulbs. 2x50W and a free flowing third one with my buddy. It's ok for most macros. The AF likes the additional light and the WB corrects for most of the shift in colors.

As I now got a wide angle dome (it's ready but not shipped yet) I fancy an additional strobe. I'm experimenting with a TTL-able one built in a housing (there's no TTL for Olympus, AFAIK).

I don't know if it will be ready before my next trip so results may be delayed ;-(

Helge ;-)=)