UK Light canon (HID) light for underwater photography

Anyone tried using the UK light cannon for

digital underwater water photos.

figured that for night dives probably need

additional light for the cam to focus.

trying to see if this can also be used in the

day to replace the strobe.

I also own a light cannon. During the night, your idea might work fine, but the light isn't bright enough for anything more than macro pics during the day. How do you plan to mount the light?

Have not quite thought about the mounting yet

Ultra light sells an adaptor for the the light cannon

But i assume that it would not be cheap

I have a ikelite auto35 setup, not sure if i could

modify it to use the tray and quick relase arms to

hold the light

The 3 Ultralight parts totalled about $95 to make the connection, and that was to an Ikelite housing that already had the quick release handles. Looks like if you don't have the tray and arms, you can get those separately from Ikelite. A bit expensive, but high quality and I had the light already. I seriously thought about hacking something together, and maybe drilling through the handle to permanently attach a mounting bracket, but decided that if I screwed it up, I'd end up costing myself more than just shelling out the money for the adaptors in the first place.

Although I've had the whole setup for about 2 months, I just got in the water for the first time with it yesterday, and I decided to leave the UK light behind since I was mostly just testing the housing and getting familiar with the controls. Between that and the 48F water, I figured I'd gotten in all the task loading I could for the day.

Just based on the testing I did with the UK light in a dark room, I think it will work out well for night dives, and probably macro. I did find that having the wide angle adaptors that come with the light installed (2 semi-opaque filter disks) softened the light and made it a bit more usable.

I'll be headed to Truk in 2 weeks, and I'll post an update (and hopefully some good pictures!) sometime after I get back.

Tom Shepherd

Sony DSC-S85

Ikelite Housing / DS-50