Strobes, Strobes, Strobes (for Digicams)

Hello all

I'm getting pretty close to picking out a digicam system but I am a bit stuck on the strobe options. I'm a long time Nikonos user with a couple of Ikelite Substrobe 50's and know I'll need a new strobe for the new rig. The options as I see it are:

1. Cheap, Fantasea nano, or Sealife, both optic sync to the digicams internal flash Question do they fire and quench with the digicam's strobe or just fire and full dump every time?

2. Ikelite DS51 w/manual controller. Sort of mid priced, I'm a bit unsure of the manual controller route, I'd love to hear comments on how easy it is to get the right exposure wit this rig. I confess to being a TTL user with the Nikonos, I've got strobe to subject distance so that in combination with TTL everythgin works out "most" times.

3. Inon or Sea&Sea most $$ but most features, if I were to go this route I'm leaning towards the Inon 2000 as it looks like it has a lot of features, can anyone confirm the features a) work and B) are worth it

Feel free to try and confuse me with more options I may have missed.

FYI the camera looks like it will be a Canon A640 in and Ike housing. a second dtrobe will be added after I master whatever strobe I get initially. And shots will be 75% macro 25% WA.

Thanks

Kerry

I've used the nano-flash and it is NOT TTL. It merely is designed to ignore one, two, or three preflashes and fire on the camera's main flash. It's quite effective though - but it's one power only.

Cheers

James

I think you would be alright with the Manual controller option. As you say, you have strobe to subject distance down. All you need to do then is figure out what power setting works best on the strobe, probably around 1/2 to 3/4 power and leave it there for everything further than about 2 feet away and just change your fstops. Then once you get closer and get to the limit of fstops on your camera, start to turn the strobe down via the controller. With digital you can see the results and will learn quickly which settings work for which distances. You will probably only use 3 or 4 settings altogether i would imagine.

Thanks for the responses. I admit to being intrigued by the Inon products and S-TTL and External Auto mode.

I'm also looking at some of the cheaper Sea&Sea offerings like the YS-15 and YS27.

Correct me if I am wrong but any strobe with optical sync and variable power settings should work similar to the Ikelite model right???

Any Inon users out there want to try and convince me to spend the extra dollars?

It was easier when there was really only Ike and Nikon Strobes to pick from in the old days (ok and my first old used Subsea)

Thanks

Kerry

I have experience with the Inon 2000s, they are a good strobe, much more powerful than the small Sea and Sea's from what i understand. You simply match the fstop on the dial to the fstop on your camera...

Nice and small and light too

http://www.digitaldiver.net/strobes.php

This should help. You can't beat Inon's ttl and flash cancelling (extends battery life inside the P&S you're using also speeds recycle time between pics) if you've got the cash. Otherwise there are several cheaper, manual strobes with multiple stops of adjustment.

Yes thanks, I have looked here and it does both help and add to the confusion :-)

One thing I notice is that they list Ikelite's DS-51 as able to both ignore and mimic preflash. This is news to me I thought using the manual controller it would only ignore the preflash, or perhaps it will mimic if hard wired to a DSLR???

I should also have mentioned I'm the type of person who buys gear once a decade or longer :-) so what I buy now will have to do for quite some time thus I'm thinking about the Inon, but of course I have 15 years of great Ikelite service im my past.

Thanks

Kerry

http://www.digitaldiver.net/strobes.php

 

This should help. You can't beat Inon's ttl and flash cancelling (extends battery life inside the P&S you're using also speeds recycle time between pics) if you've got the cash. Otherwise there are several cheaper, manual strobes with multiple stops of adjustment.