underwater Strobes for land use - possible?

After spending so much on the underwater strobes, is it possible to connect them to the hot shoe of the S2 Camera (not via bulkhead in housing) and use them as per normal flash for land use? Afterall, it would look wierd to shoot land shots (say in Paris or Africa) in an underwater setup. Just imagine me with my S2, housing, arms and strobes taking pictures in Fifth Ave, New York!!!

Please tell me it is possible and how to do it for Ikelite and Sea&sea strobes.

Possible. You need to purchase a bulkhead connector just like the one in your housing. Slide into hot shoe, connect sync cord and there you have it. But.....

1) You've still got a rather bulky strobe not directly connected to the camera.

2) You've got a really hot flash for topside use. It can overheat if fired too quickly.

Best use of this configuration is a studio environment, where you can attach strobes to something fixed.

Agreed. You can buy a custom cord from Ikelite for this. My friend Dr. Wood did it for studio (lab) use.

I wouldn't want to have to carry a strobe around, but a SS50 might not be too bad.

Cheers

James

Over heat ?

I have asked my self that question too. Plastics are typically poor thermal conductors, so I wonder if air cooling on the outside or water cooling would really make that much difference.

Is it just a marketing ploy by strobe manufacturers to make sure they dont compete with the normal flash manufacturers ?

Try it and find out...

I use my Substrobes as slaves for "studio" shots sometimes and the front gets VERY hot. You can actually feel heat on your hand 6" away when you fire the strobes!

Cheers

James

I've heard the same arguments about dive lights. "They are designed for underwater use and will overheat when used in air". Heck, the only flashlights I have at home are my dive lights. I use them often. I use my PCa light when hiking pre-dawn to go shoot a sunrise. No problems yet.

Interestingly, you used to be able to buy a Hubble light at Home Depot. It was not sold as an underwater dive light, but was submersible. It was a clone of a Pelican light. Pelican sued them.

And remember you don't have to greese the o-rings!

I've heard the same arguments about dive lights.  "They are designed for underwater use and will overheat when used in air".   Heck, the only flashlights I have at home are my dive lights.  I use them often.  I use my PCa light when hiking pre-dawn to go shoot a sunrise.  No problems yet.

 

Interestingly, you used to be able to buy a Hubble light at Home Depot.  It was not sold as an underwater dive light, but was submersible.  It was a clone of a Pelican light.  Pelican sued them.

I use the PCa's around the house, too, but I've stopped since I melted a lens. It softened and deformed but still worked fine. I don't mind using them briefly but I keep an eye on it.

I had a PCa leak underwater with NiMH cells inside. It exploded and blew the front pieces off very impressively. I wonder now if using them above water contributed. I've never had a flood due to a O-ring failure otherwise.

Someone on another forum mentioned flooding a DS-50 when using NiMH batteries. We thought they were okay to use, but wonder now if there is a difference in contacts or battery size between brands? I would like to see the type that flooded your PCa light............

Strobes should have gas relief valves if using HP MiMH batteries, but any leak into a battery compartment will cause a chemical reaction followed by the inevitable byproduct - GAS! Hot batteries too should not be loaded into sealed compartments.

tks guys. At least now my DS50 can be utilised whenever I go holidaying, instead of just my miserable 2 dive trips a year.

Please keep the exchange going. I also had some problems with my Nimh batteries. I thought my DS 50 was flooded when it stopped firing. However when I opened the compartment, all i had was some blackish fluid and very little water.

Also before the strobe died, i could hear audible hissing sound. Was this overheating of the batteries, leading to corrosion of batteries, or some moisture into the compartment leading to corrosion?

I thought I would pitch in a thought real quick...

I agree with James - using a UW strobe topside results in a lot of heat. From a purely physics standpoint, water dissipates heat MUCH faster than air and using your strobe topside could very quickly destroy your strobe and possibly even result in someone getting hurt.

Theoretically, a chemical change could happen within the strobe, causing a pressure change to great for your cover to withstand - resulting in your battery cover (or the strobe itself) to "give" and release the internal pressure of the strobe.

In fact, I seem to recall Sea&Sea had to recall a lot of YS50s because something in the battery cover was not designed properly, causing a few serious accidents when the cover forcefully popped off the back of the strobe. In what case I remember a diver got hit in the head underwater.

And it appears as though you are saying this particular strobe was flooded and you didn't send it in for repair - even if the strobe works

there could be (and probably is) some level of internal damage. That seems problematic to me, at best.

To be more direct - if it were me, I dont think I would use a UW strobe (previously flooded or not) topside as a replacement for a hot-shoe mounted flash for regular shooting.

Btw... about diving flashlights... I accidentally left the batteries in one once and during the flight the switch turned to "On."

By the time I saw it, the plastic and a portion of the front cover had all melted. This was a light using only 4 C batteries and a moderately sized bulb (about the size of the last digit of your pinky finger). Some of the larger lights using D batteries would get a LOT hotter than that!

I now routinely take one battery (if not all of them) out of my flashlights before traveling....

Did somebody try the other way ?

using standard land strobe like a canon 580EX but underwater ? With a homemade housing sealed nicely, would it be a problem ?

You probably should have started a new topic rather than revived this 14-year old thread. Anyway, there were some housings available a while back for different strobes. For example, here's one for a Canon 580EX II (no longer available):

So in answer to your question, it is possible to use a topside strobe underwater and it has been done.