Recent Subtronic experience?

It's been several months since Subtronic flash gun reliability issues were discussed in some detail in this forum, and I wonder whether anyone out there would like to comment on their more recent Subtronic experiences, in particular with strobes bought in the last few months.

I love my single Alpha Pro which I have had for 6 years and which has never let me down once (I only do 40-50 dives a year), but I've now got my new D200 and Subal housing and will definitely be looking to buy new dual strobes before my next big trip early next year. What to buy?...

I am on the verge of going the Inon Z-240 route (I love the compact size), but don't want to give up on Subtronic just yet. I love Sub's colour temp, angle of coverage, recycle time and tank-like construction. I wouldn't mind going for something smaller and lighter than my Alpha Pro and won't say no to TTL circuitry for ocassional use (despite what Alex and others have said!).

So, I'm thinking about two of the new Subtronic Mini S's....

I figure they're a bit heavier/bigger/more expensive and have slower recycle time than the Z-240's. But they are nevertheless relatively compact and have wide coverage, warmer light. I can't tell from the specs, but I believe they are at least as powerful as the Inons.

If I get them, I hope I won't be disappointed that they don't perform like my alpha's in terms of power and recycle time. The fact that I will be shooting dual strobes might help close the power gap.

I suppose I could be thinking about the Midi's, but I am only put off by the additional size and weight, which I am trying to minimise.

I also wonder about the benefits of external versus internal battery. I have't done any travel with my Alpha Pro in the last 18 months and never had security issues at airports, but that might all be different now. Is it important to have external batteries now, and does that make the flash gun itself considerably lighter?

I've gone on a bit, and realise now that most of what I have written above are statements rather than questions. I would be grateful for people's thoughts and recent experience in repect to my thoughts and questions above.

cheers,

Mark

PS I'm on Wetpixel a lot and can't believe that this is my first post... shame on me!

I just have sold my Subtronic Gamma plus Mark.

As you say, exelent strobe but really big and heavey, security issues on airports and not posible to have a reserve internal battery.

I stay with my Hartenberger 250. With it i can have a internal backup battery in cases i need one very fast but i am as you thinking to get smaller strobes as INON 240 or IKELITE 125.

i just bought a NOVA with external battery and will stress test it in one week for 6 weeks.

can report when iam back in january.

but one thing i can tell you right now is that the external battery is a really good idea.

1.you can buy a spare one.

2.with the external battery the strobe is much lighter.

3.because its (imo) so light now ,you can adjust the strobe body much easyer.

4.better handling at the airport

5.charching very fast with the new cells (2h)

Thanks for this input so far. n@utilus, I may hold off on my purchase until end January, so definitely keen to hear how your new guns perform.

Ciao,

Mark

ok,here we go.

as i wrote earlier i was going to test my new (first) subtronic nova strobe on a 6 week diving holiday in indonesia.

and it was a real good/bad experience

after we arrived in indonesia we boarded the mv pelagian(wakatobi) for 2 trips.

at the second day of diving and after 5 or 6 dives my NOVA stopped to produce a flash,everything worked fine

but no more flash at all.i mean the leds(red-green) were still working,the pilot light and also the behaivour of the strobe when you take a picture with the camera/strobe was ok.but no more flash after about 150 pictures.

it seemed like the flashtube was broken but it was not visible to me(no burned flashtube).

i tried with 3 different sync cabels,2 different strobe connectors on the housing and 2 D70s,no luck.

i immediately decided to call subtronic here in germany to report what happend.

they were of course very suprised about what i told them (as i was shocked) but took it serious.

i told them that i was on a big holiday for 6 weeks and really need a new strobe here as fast as possible

which also was possible to deliver on time because my first part of the holiday was 2 trips on pelagian and then later on 12 days in bali and that the new strobe could reach me for my second trip on the boat because

8 days later there will be a flight from bali to wakatobi to bring in the guests for the next trip.

so they told me to wait for the next day so that they can check for a replacement strobe and talk with the boss what to do.

luckily one day later they told me that they have a twin strobe of mine in place and that they will send it off to bali on the same day so it could reach me for the next trip on time.

after that i was really suprised but also a little skeptic about what they trying to to but i hoped it will come true and so it did !!

they really got me an replacement strobe from germany to wakatobi in one weeks time

the new strobe worked just fine without problems for about 100 dives and i must admit,despite the shocking

failure of the first one after just 150 pictures iam really happy with subtronic and this amazing service they did to me.

i really like the quality of the strobe and the ITTL with it,also the manuell correction +/-3 on the strobe is really a good feature,the external battery was holding for about 150 pictures after a few recharges and its also very quick to charge at any time (mangan cells) without memory effect...

the only thing not so good is the size of the strobe,even its still small imo for a strobe like that and the

automatic focus light i had on my first one,imo its useless and to turn on and off the plight by hand is

the better option.

next week i will send back the not working one so i still dont know what caused the failure yet.

if you have any questions,plz ask

regards

n@utilus

p.s. luckily i had my housed sb-800 with me so i was able to go ahead taking pictures as well as a magic filter

That is great to hear.

Quite the opposite of my experience of trying to get my strobe fixed within Europe... I am curious how a company can treat two individuals so differently. I was without my strobe for 7 months of 2006 while they fixed it, while you got a replacement to the other side of the world in a few days.

Looking forward to seeing your pictures from the trip.

Alex

My repair (my fault I dropped it a few days befor it went on the blink) took about two months.

Whilst no consolation for Alex, I guess a manufacturer is always going to be more inclined to quickly replace a broken new strobe than a broken old one.

n@utilus, sorry to hear it packed up on you, but glad to hear you got good service from Subtronic.

Tamara at Subtronic was very quick, thorough and courteous in answering my many questions about my potential acquisition. I finally decided to go with Inons which I picked up the other day (though I will not put my Alpha Pro out to pasture). I'm sure I will be very happy with these, but would not be surprised if I upgrade back to Subtronics in a couple of years time if the good people there can pack the same punch in a smaller package and demonstrate the degree of continuing reliability and service that u/w photographers have come to expect of big name manufacturers.

It would be really interesting if there were some type of 'reliability' database for equipment, especially strobes.

My sense is that Subtronics are at least as reliable if not more so than any other strobe, the frustration of course is one expects good service when they do crash on you, especially for the price we pay. When I am on trips I routinely see folks who have other less expensive strobes dying on them, flooding, etc.

It would be cool if somehow we could have an online database where folks can post problems by manufacturer, strobe type, service etc. I think it might help to keep the manufacturers honest.