stupid strobe questions

is a "strobe" and an "external flash" the same thing? (i told you it was a stupid Q)

what exactly is a bouyancy float, and do i need one?

(have a sealife dc800 and about to buy the sealife SL961 strobe (as soon as B+H re-opens after their Passover break)

what is the consensus on re-chargeable batteries? I like the idea of not screwing up the environment (anymore than it already is!), but my friend say they don't hold their charge and are nearly useless.

I'm on my way to Lembeh in N. Sulawesi and packing/weight will be an issue.

??

An an external flash is a strobe but a strobe doesn't necessarily have to be external (if that makes sense).

I think a buoyancy float is something that brings the overall buoyancy of your system back to neutral if it's too heavy.

Most people I know use rechargeable batteries. The good ones work just fine and are even recommended by strobe manufactures such as sea & sea. There's a thread somewhere here that's been stickied with lots of replies and opinions.

I meant a 'Buoyancy Control Weight". It weights 13 oz., and I don't understand why I would want to make my camera heavier.

I'm confused.

It's the weight in water that really matters. If it weighs 13oz out of water, it probably doesn't weigh much underwater.

Cheers

James

I meant a 'Buoyancy Control Weight". It weights 13 oz., and I don't understand why I would want to make my camera heavier.

I'm confused.

These often come with small cameras to offset the positive buoyancy. It probably is designed to make it neutral in the water.

Floating cameras are hard to use: if the camera is any larger than a compact, your wrists will feel the strain (heavy cameras are equally annoying). Just as the best diver is neutrally bouyant, the best camera is also neutrally bouyant, hence weights and floats that are attached to bouyant and heavy systems. Curiously, acrylic housings are usually heavier in air than their aluminium versions, but much more bouyant.

Strobes are usually heavy, and adding incompressible floats has become very popular.

Tim

Thanks Tim!

I get what you're saying but I'm still confused. Sounds like I need to take the new gear down before I can figure out what I need.

I'm (obviously) very new to this, and I'm starting to have nightmares about buoyancy weights, white balance and shutter speed...

If only I could just put down the stupid instruction manuals and get in the water! ....(she sighs and looks out the window at the falling snow)

Two things from the other Brit Tim. Use your camera on the surface practice with it in the modes you will use U/W especially manual if it has it. Keep using it until you know all the controls and use backwards with out thinking. You might even take a few good photos on the way! Use in difficult lighting situations (high contrast/ into the light/ balanced flash) Then you will get the feel of what will be right in a picture.

Get in the water its not just the overall boancy that matters though its important as other one says, but the balance, hold the whole rig with one hand underwater and try to feel which way it twists/ which bit is heavy or bouant and add weight or boancy according.

Have fun and delete often after thinking.

Tim Digger

I wish I had put the little weights in my camera housing, it would have made handling the camera much simpler. I had the camera tethered to a D-ring on my vest, and if I let go of it, it would float overhead, behind my head, out of sight, tangle in the hoses, etc. I felt slightly stoopid thinking I had somehow lost the camera, then thrashing around awkwardly to grasp it. If it had been at neutral bouyancy it would have been floating in view. Also, try sticking something floaty in your BC pocket -- it does not want to stay put. The weights will go in the housing before my next dive trip, for sure!

I used rechargeable batteries; one set to use, another set to charge. No issues whatsoever, although I did not have a strobe draining their power. (Another accessory to pick up for my next dive trip.)

You are going to have so much fun!!

Rechargeable batteries are definitely the way to go. The only good ones are NiMH and Lithium. The latter are generally only available as proprietary battery packs, not standard sizes like AA and the like. There are two types of NiMH:

1) high capacity cells which don't hold a charge long (more than a couple of weeks and I'd recharge, personally, for top performance, more than a couple of months and they'll be dead)

2) Lower capacity cells which a "slow self-discharge" such as the Sanyo Eneloop batteries, which DO hold their charge for a long time. They are even the recommended batteries for some manufacturers. Inon, for instance, recommends only Eneloop rechargeables for their strobes.

Thanks everyone for the excellent advice -- I just ordered a buoyancy weight.

You know, this just started out as having a simple underwater camera. Next thing I know I have to buy a strobe. Then come the batteries and chargers and extra memory and orings. Then a bouynacy weight and oh yes you have to buy this stupid extra long screw to hold it on...

and now I'm supposed to pack all this stuff into a carry-on...

And I read these forums and people are talking about bigger and better cameras and bigger and better strobes -- two strobes!

This is not gonna end, is it?

I feel I'm getting sucked into something and I hope it's worth it!

This is not gonna end, is it?

I feel I'm getting sucked into something and I hope it's worth it!

It's a black hole to your bank account

With my old Aquatica housing I needed a weight fitted when using the dome port as this made the housing positively bouyant

I feel I'm getting sucked into something and I hope it's worth it!

Why do you think there all those advertisers' logos scattered around the screen?

We want to buy stuff, and do all the work for them!

Tim

This is not gonna end, is it?

There is always just that extra gadget that will give you the last tiny bit of excellence. Or maybe another gadget. An extra diopter! Three strobes! A focus light costing like a reasonable used car. A new lens (f/2,8 instead of f/4, another used car). Strobes for macro and strobes for wa. Strobes with white balance for blue water and strobes with white balance for blue water. Filters. A bigger dome. A travel dome. And when you think you are about to have it all, the new camera housing is announced. It is extraordinarily unlikely that this camera will fit in your by now very expensive housing!!! More unlikely the bigger the difference between your old camera and the new is. So, no, it is not, never, no way, gonna end. Never!

Bent C

LOL stop! you guys are scaring the $hit out of me!

I don't even know what a diopter or a dome is...and please don't tell me, because i do NOT want to know!

Ugh, this all sounds horrendously confusing! I still can't get my head around how a strobe works...