Selecting Strobes for WA system

I am a topside photographer that has always wanted to take my gear down with me. I finally have a great opportunity to justify purchasing a system as I will be joining an excavation of a 2nd century BC (yes, 2000 years old) wreck of a marble carrier ship off Turkey at 150 feet. My primary role will be to photograph the excavation's progress at depth as well as any artifacts that are discovered during the dig. Most of the images I take will be either diver portraits or wide angles of the entire site including the raising of 6 ton marble drums to the surface.

I am currently shooting topside with a Nikon D3 with 14-24, 16 Fisheye, 24-70, and own the 12-24 from my DX days (with a D2xs as well). I am currently looking at a Subal housing and am trying to figure out the strobe setup. The previous photographer at the site uses a pair of large dive lights to light his images but I believe I will feel more comfortable shooting with a pair of strobes though hope to take advantage of those lights as well.

While I am using this project as an excuse to get into the UW scene, I hope to also be able to use the strobes in the future for more personal work including WA and Macros.

I am trying to figure out what pair of strobes I should be looking at as well as whether I should go the TTL route or not. Any suggestions or ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Drew

This is a tough nut to crack. Generally you would want:

1) as wide beam as possible,

2) a nice and warm colour

3) Strong and powerful

4) Small and light during transport

5) Cheap

6) Easy to get them to good service

7) preferably 2 of them

By reading the list you realize that it is unsolveable problem. Unless, you have an unlimited budget and always fly first class

If I had an unlimited budget for strobes. I would probably land with 2 big Subtronics, Seacams or something similar.

To prevent that my wife requires a sanity check on me. So, I ended up with 2 INON Z240

The Excavation site sounds pretty big and deep.

Good luck!

On the issue of TTL-strobes ... keep in mind that with digital, you get to see the results on site. I don't have TTL strobes and it has never taken me more than one or two test shots to get the right exposure.

I shoot - I see - I fix.

My only point is that while TTL flash can be helpful, it really isn't the end-all-be-all that it was with film when you had no idea what had just been captured.

Archaeological sites are likely to be silty, and particulate backscatter is going to be a problem for you. Good strobe arms (aim the strobes so that they just overlap in the centre of the image, about 30-degrees outwards) and as much use of ambient light as possible will help, so strobes with variable power are useful. TTL is not terribly reliable when shooting wide-angle underwater because the exposure values shift dramatically across an underwater scene in a way that is quite unlike a terrestrial landscape. Distance from the subject has a much greater effect than the output of the strobe, so really powerful strobes are less important than you would think. In a complex environment small strobes may be easier to maneouvre, and a number of us like the Inon strobes for that reason.

Tim