Help With Strobe Purchase

Greetings,

I previously shot film underwater and am now putting together a digital system. (I know- I am not exactly an early adapter!) I have a D300 with Aquatica housing. I am down to choosing between two types of strobes but am having difficulty picking - either Inon Z240's or Ikelite DS 160/161's. Both appear to be excellent strobes but have different characteristics. The Ikelite 160's have straightforward controls and have great Ike service, but they are larger and heavier and the controls are located on the side, which does not seem very convenient. The Z240's are smaller and lighter with controls on the back (seems like a better position to me), but the controls look confusing from the pictures I have seen and I am not sure about the quality of service Inon provides.

Would someone who has used these strobes please provide some real world experience on the ease of use and features of these strobes? I have already read all the benefits the manufacturers point out, but instead would like to obtain some feedback from actual users. For the Inon, how easy is it to adjust the power levels? For the Ikelite would this optional controller that works both strobes at once make power levels easier to adjust. For both how easy and expensive is it to set up and use TTL?

Thanks

Tom

Greetings,

 

I previously shot film underwater and am now putting together a digital system. (I know- I am not exactly an early adapter!) I have a D300 with Aquatica housing. I am down to choosing between two types of strobes but am having difficulty picking - either Inon Z240's or Ikelite DS 160/161's. Both appear to be excellent strobes but have different characteristics. The Ikelite 160's have straightforward controls and have great Ike service, but they are larger and heavier and the controls are located on the side, which does not seem very convenient. The Z240's are smaller and lighter with controls on the back (seems like a better position to me), but the controls look confusing from the pictures I have seen and I am not sure about the quality of service Inon provides.

 

Would someone who has used these strobes please provide some real world experience on the ease of use and features of these strobes? I have already read all the benefits the manufacturers point out, but instead would like to obtain some feedback from actual users. For the Inon, how easy is it to adjust the power levels? For the Ikelite would this optional controller that works both strobes at once make power levels easier to adjust. For both how easy and expensive is it to set up and use TTL?

 

Thanks

 

Tom

In manual mode changing power levels on either is pretty simple. The Inon is labeled with more light/less light as well as f stop info. The Ike is labeled as full and a bunch of lower power levels. Both are pretty simple. As for TTL depends a lot on which camera you use but the Inon can do optical sttl which for me at least is quite good. I haven't tried to get an IKE to do ttl without a ttl adapter but on the Ike housings it should be pretty simple.

One thing to think about is that the Ike uses a proprietary battery while the Inon uses AA. YMMV on this score, I don't personally much like proprietary batteries but that's just me.

Bill

I have used both strobes and must say that I prefer the Ikelite 160 over the Inons. One thing you touched on was a controller to change the settings on both strobes at once, I personally like to be able to change the power on the strobes separately in certain instances in order to give soft shadows and for few other situations too.

The strobes both produce great color and I was happy with the performance of both brands, but I think the Ikelite 160 strobes have way more pros and the Inons have way more cons image results aside.

As far as the strobes go, I have heard of lots of people flooding Inon due to poor design and having to toss them because there is no service for them. Ikelight on the other hand has awesome customer service and a great repair dept. and the only time I flooded an Ikelite it was my fault cause I put the wrong o-ring in the battery, but the great part is that the light itself is sealed, so you only have to buy a new battery.

For TTL I would need to know what camera and housing you are using. The Sea & Sea TTL converter is around $600 and should work with the inon strobes. The Ikelite TTL is in the $300s, but it only works with Nikons ( if you have an Ikelite housing then it has built in TTL for Ikelite strobes). Personally, I don't think TTL is worth the headache, the extra weight, and the extra money. With digital being so quick and easy to review and then re-shoot if the image was over/under exposed I just don't find TTL as useful as it was back in the days of film where you could shoot 50 rolls of film on a trip only to get home and find that they were all over exposed. If I was going to get a rig with TTL I would just get an Ikelite housing and Ikelite strobes.

The Ikelite has a synch cord to TTL with other housings, which is a big plus. I generally prefer non-proprietary batteries myself (give me AAA and a charger), but I do have a couple of Ikelites (DS-125s) that I shoot manually with my Aquatica housings. Other than one bad one that was DOA (bad tube it seems, and Ike took are of it) the locking mechanism and strobe are very rock solid. I also have some other strobes which I like (AAA and lighter) and usually carry both.

I shoot Canon, so no TTL for me with Ike, but the strobes are easy to dial down, even though I have less settings than the DS-160s. With the Aquatica , I would probably go with a Ike Bulkhead and the cord to TTL with Ike strobes. Keeping in mind the Ike strobes are bigger/heavier than some other options and you do need the chargers, but they have been solid for me.

Ive had both the Ike 125s and Z240's.

The Ikes weigh a ton and their length is an issue when trying to move them around underwater, eg for macro, they can get blocked by the camera body with some positions. But the recycle time is great, being able to take fast 4 shots in a row can make a huge difference sometimes, eg when something is going past you.

Adjusting power is easy on either, but I must confess I did miss TTL at times, and thats one reason why Im glad I was able to finally go optical with my new system and have it back with my Z240's as an option. I also missed the warmth/colour temperature of the light the 125's put out, particularly when it comes to wide angle in blue water. But I also like being able to use AA's a lot, and I just used lex Mustard's suggestion of 1/8 straw filter gels i the strobes to fix up the colour temperature.

I haven't had leaks with either, but if the Inon battery compartment leaks, having extra AA's is a lot cheaper than getting a new Ikelite battery. I have had a dual sync cord go on me with the Ikelites, which cost me several hundred dollars to replace, and I do think they need more work maintenance wise overall, eg greasing o-rings etc with the sync cords and avoiding sync cords getting stuck on.

My decision was to go manual and Z240's but weight and bulk was the main reason for that decision - chargers, batteries, sync cords and strobes add up to a fair bit. My view is the main downside of Ikelite strobes now is their lack of an optical option. You may not want it now, but if you eyer upgrade housings to one with an optical option, it will be useful choice to have.

Otara

I have a DS-125 for my Ikelite D90 riga and a D-2000 strobe for my Patima G11 rig.

I bought the DS-125 mainly because the Ikelite housing has a buillt in TTL adaptor and this attracted me.

The DS-125 and i guess the other also are sturdy, powerfull and widely used by amateurs and professionals.

My Inon DS-2000 is 3 years old, survived about 150 dives and travels to various locations ad i never had any issue.

My pro and con list:

Ikelite DS-125/160/200

- no optical connection

- bulky and heavy

- expensive

+ fast recycle and powerful

+ good and simple o-ring design (like their housing, they work only on compression, no twisting)

+ e/i-TTL possible

+ very bright focus/video/dive light (DS-161)

+ excellent customer service

Inon D-2000

- no electrical connection (the Z-240 has)

- o-ring works under screw on cap, this may lead to pinching or contort with subsequently leaking

+ well priced

+ optical (and electrical (Z-240)) connection

+ leightweight and relativly small

+ various "programs" manual, S-TTL, Auto

Modern camera strobe combinations work very well when the strobe work in manual mode.

Optical triggered flashes are much less "troublesome" and often they use normal AA batteries,

and this may save a dive trip due they are widely available. If the Ikelite charger dies on a remote

dive trip you are lost....

Chris

Thanks for all of your advice. I am still not decided- it seems that if I do not want to use TTL with my Aquatica housing then the Inons would seem better due to the smaller size and use of AA batteries. As for optical TTL, I am not quite sure what this means but believe this refers to the use of the pop-up flash on the camera with the TTL system. Since I just purchased the Aquatica D300 housing and the pop-up flash is not avaialble for use, I would go the TTL route using the converter. In this case, the Ikelites would work well and probably be cheaper with the Ike TTL converter. The great Ikelite service also means a lot to me.

So, it looks like I need to decide whether or not I have to have TTL for macro subjects. I have heard many times that manual is easy with digital, but still like spending more time composing a shot than worrying about exposure and fiddling with knobs on the strobes.

Thanks

Tom

I have just been doing some TTL testing with new Ikelite 161's. I am very pleased with the results so far. If you shoot TTL with your D300, you can easily vary the TTL output if your housing has a control for the flash compensation button which is located just below the button you push to have the built-in flash pop up. The Ikelite work very well using this and when you push the flash comp button, you see the amount of compensation right in the camera viewfinder. No having to look on some external converter for it. IF you can make your housing control "lock" the flash comp button down, you can shoot one shot after another at different flash compensations by simply turning the front input dial control. This allows you to shoot a series of bracketed shots without ever taking the camera away from your eye and losing contact with the subject. This ability to use the flash compensation for TTL with "external" (not just the pop-up flash) was the reason I sold the D3 I bought first and replaced it with the D700.

Fred

I prefer Inon Z240's over Ikelite's because they are smaller. The difference in size makes traveling easier and lighter since I carry my setup as a carry-on.