anyone ever use two ds-51's on a rig- maybe on compact??

Hi folks,

Am currently using a ds-51 strobe and was wondering about buying a second one to go with my current olympus mju 800 set up.

Or would I be better upgrading to a larger strobe say as ds-125/ds-160- particularly for wide angle stuff?

Any thoughts advice much appreciated

Happy easter!

Dam

Damo:

I'm not on a compact, but I currently only have two DS50's (functionally almost the same as the DS51's) and was shooting in Dominica with up to a 14mm (on 4:3 system, so 28mm film equiv focal length) wide angle lens. I do believe I wasn't getting "enough" light spread to cover many of the shots to my full satisfaction. The ones left after weeding out are on my Flickr page if you want to see (check my profile) - it should be pretty obvious which ones are wide angle even before checking the EXIF details.

If you're comfortable with the way your rig overall works and want more light, then my advice would be to get the bigger strobe vs. another DS51. When/if you upgrade to a DSLR and want to go to a 2-arm rig, the 125 or 160 and 51 can work in combination off the same dual sync cord. Plus upgrading now to a 2-arm tray means another slave sensor doesn't it? I didnt' think Ike sold a dual trigger cord off the same slave, but I could be very wrong there.

Basically I think the DS50 / 51 series was designed for a more focused light cone. So 2 of them doesn't really "equal" one DS125 or 160 in either light output or coverage, without a whole lot of fiddling with strobe positioning.

Something else to think about: even on the ike housing, which is pretty 'large' relative to OEM housings for compact cameras, with a 2-arm tray and arms, your rig is going to be VERY negatively buoyant I bet. So swapping out only the strobe head is probably a better option from that perspective as well.

Yea i use a DS51 and a DS 50.....I wiuld advise a strobe with more power for wide angle.

Cheers,

Diggy

Thanx a million guys- for the tips.

Much appreciated.

Damo

I have two DS-51 and use them on a 15mm FE lens (cropped). On the green water forum digigreen there is one that uses them with the 10-17mm FE from tokina.

I did some pool tests (with the 15mm on a canon 20D) to see if I really needed larger coverage. Without diffusors, you get dark corners : depending on your subject it is usable but you need to be carefull.

With diffusors, it lights the entire frame easily (it is darker in the corners, but that has more distance as well.

Without diffusor

diffusors on both strobes..

Actually, the ds-125's are negative under water as well, dont think you will gain much.

According to Backscatter's old article, the underwater weight (fresh) of the DS51 vs. DS125 is a negligible change (-0.25 vs. -0.19 lbs). So adding a 2nd DS51 which entails swapping to a 2 arm tray, adding a strobe head, segments and clamps, vs. changing to a single 125 from the single 51 and therefore maintaining a single-arm arrangement and just incurring the slight delta on one strobe head, is clearly going to add much more negative buoyancy. That was the point I was trying to make.

Thanks for the with and without diffusers comparison - it illustrates both the coverage and brightness hits.

Hi folks,

 

Am currently using a ds-51 strobe and was wondering about buying a second one to go with my current olympus mju 800 set up.

 

Or would I be better upgrading to a larger strobe say as ds-125/ds-160- particularly for wide angle stuff?

 

Any thoughts advice much appreciated

 

Happy easter!

 

Dam

Hello,

You can have a look at my gallerie : http://www.6klid.com/gal/evasion/index.php?/category/12

I always use two Ds51 with an Ikelite D70 (60 micro Nikkor and fisheye 10.5)

Maybe it could help you?

I exclusively use 2 x ds 51 strobes. That being said, I dont shoot much wide angle unless its CFWA