Inon Z240's

About 18 months ago I upgraded from some old S&S 200's to two Iketite 200's which were subsequently converted to DS capability thanks to the late & great Ike Brigham.

As such I am very happy with the DS200's & manual controllers - they are powerful, have great coverage & light, are quick to recycle and so far 100% reliable. I just completed my third liveaboard trip with them & no backups and very pleased to say I did not need any....

However, they are big & heavy and take up a lot of space in my carry on luggage! It is not going to get any easier with carry on stuff so I am always looking for ways to reduce the size & weight of what I take on my trips.

I have heard a lot of good things about Inon strobes and I'll be in Japan soon on business and was considering buying a pair of the new Z240's, but I have also heard that the color temp is quite cold for wide angle. I am also struggling to understand how they can hope to compare in performance against the DS200's when the claimed guide numbers are 24 for the Inon's versus 76 for the Ikelites....

So....when in doubt, consult the oracle - is there anybody out there who owns, or has owned both and give me some guidance?

Thanks, Don

About 18 months ago I upgraded from some old S&S 200's to two Iketite 200's which were subsequently converted to DS capability thanks to the late & great Ike Brigham.

 

As such I am very happy with the DS200's & manual controllers - they are powerful, have great coverage & light, are quick to recycle and so far 100% reliable. I just completed my third liveaboard trip with them & no backups and very pleased to say I did not need any....

 

However, they are big & heavy and take up a lot of space in my carry on luggage! It is not going to get any easier with carry on stuff so I am always looking for ways to reduce the size & weight of what I take on my trips.

 

I have heard a lot of good things about Inon strobes and I'll be in Japan soon on business and was considering buying a pair of the new Z240's, but I have also heard that the color temp is quite cold for wide angle. I am also struggling to understand how they can hope to compare in performance against the DS200's when the claimed guide numbers are 24 for the Inon's versus 76 for the Ikelites....

 

So....when in doubt, consult the oracle - is there anybody out there who owns, or has owned both and give me some guidance?

 

Thanks, Don

Haven't owned any Ike strobes, but I believe that they use feet in their GN and Inon metres, hence the dramatic difference. The equivialent of GN 24/metres in feet would be roughly x3, which is 72 vs 76 for the Ike's (on paper). Most prbably not a real world difference. Regarding the colour temperature, the Inons are pretty much the same (exactly the same on paper) as a semi modern and modern Sea&sea strobe (YS60, 90, 120, 110). Not sure about the 200:s. I guess it's more a question of what you preffer.

/christian

edit note, when checking Inon Americas site, they actually rate the Z240 at GN79.

I use dual z240's and love them. They work great both for wide angle and Macro. Color is very warm. When I compare the photos to my friend that uses ike 125s, his a "softer". ttl converter does not seem to work as well for wide angle as macro.

Well....I have decided to buy two Z240's and see for myself how they stack up against the Ikelite 200's. The deciding factor being the current strength of the Aussie dollar which makes the Inon's quite a bargain - I just need to make sure I hide the credit card statement from my wife!

Well....I have decided to buy two Z240's and see for myself how they stack up against the Ikelite 200's. The deciding factor being the current strength of the Aussie dollar which makes the Inon's quite a bargain - I just need to make sure I hide the credit card statement from my wife!

One of the nice things about the Inon is that you can warm the image to get skin tones right without having the entire image overly red. It's pretty much the opposite of what the "get the blues" technique does, but i like the resulting image. Call me an anarchist

I do use my 200 for single-strobe handheld shooting though, the Inons really are not quite powerful enough in that situation in my opinion. Good luck with your buy. They won't save you any weight underwater but topside travel weight and underwater size is very very nice.