My first strobe...

After some frustration with the quality of my pics, I'm now finally getting around to investigating a strobe setup. I have a basic p&s camera and housing setup from Intova at the moment, and will be buying a wide angle and macro lens for it when I buy the strobe. I'm kind of tossing up between the Sea & Sea YS-17 kit and the Ikelike AF-35 kit at the moment. I'm looking for something that's going to last a few years without me needing to upgrade. For me this is just a bit of fun, not something I'm likely to take too seriously and spend huge $$$ on. Does anybody have any recommendations on which of the strobe kits might be most suitable for my setup? Or if there's another that I should be looking at?

Cheers!

As you are using a basic Intova P&S system i suggest to verify your needs and wishes

befor you may invest in a wrong direction. The Intova is a excellent camera for it's value,

but i find it limitated to be a small camer to do some snapshots. Investing in additional lenses

what you may can't use on your next housing may be a overkill for this camera. If you are talking of the

Intova IWAL Wide Angle lens consider that this lens uses a 46mm tread what is rather small and may be difficoult

to use on another housing as the "standart" is 67mm tread. Remember that you always can step down in diameter, but stepping up will lead to vignetting.

If it's your wish to gain image quality i suggest to invest in a better camera/housing taking care to choose a

housing with a 67mm tread. In this moment the best P&S quality you get with a Canon G11/S90 while a

Micro 4/3 system will allow you to change lenses.

Said that, to invest in a strobe to last some years i would suggest the most powerful strobe you can afford.

The most flexible but still affordable solution is a INON D-2000 or slightly more powerful Z-240 strobe. Both of them provide various automatic TTL type exposure controls providing a mostly perfect exposure. There are some S&S strobes providing the same automatic ttl type exposure controls, but i have no experience with them.

Chris

As you are using a basic Intova P&S system i suggest to verify your needs and wishes

befor you may invest in a wrong direction. The Intova is a excellent camera for it's value,

but i find it limitated to be a small camer to do some snapshots. Investing in additional lenses

what you may can't use on your next housing may be a overkill for this camera. If you are talking of the

Intova IWAL Wide Angle lens consider that this lens uses a 46mm tread what is rather small and may be difficoult

to use on another housing as the "standart" is 67mm tread. Remember that you always can step down in diameter, but stepping up will lead to vignetting.

If it's your wish to gain image quality i suggest to invest in a better camera/housing taking care to choose a

housing with a 67mm tread. In this moment the best P&S quality you get with a Canon G11/S90 while a

Micro 4/3 system will allow you to change lenses.

Said that, to invest in a strobe to last some years i would suggest the most powerful strobe you can afford.

The most flexible but still affordable solution is a INON D-2000 or slightly more powerful Z-240 strobe. Both of them provide various automatic TTL type exposure controls providing a mostly perfect exposure. There are some S&S strobes providing the same automatic ttl type exposure controls, but i have no experience with them.

 

Chris

I appreciate where you're coming from with regards to camera quality, but buying an S90 or G11 plus the housing and then also needing to buy a strobe and lenses goes well beyond what I'm prepared to spend at this point. While I do own a fair bit of gear for topside shooting, it's something I do fairly regularly. Whereas due to geographic location, I don't get out diving more than 4-5 times a year. It's not something I want to invest a heap of money in unless I'm going to be doing it a lot. I just want something to take a few decent shots underwater. I realise that the quality of my photos will be limited by the quality of the camera. I know I won't get SLR quality shots off a little p&s!

But my research suggests that the next step is for me to buy a basic strobe to improve my shots, and I just wanted some simple advice before going and buying one.

You asked for a suggestion about a strobe "that's going to last a few years without me needing to upgrade",

both of the strobe you mentioned are good enough quality to "last a few years" but may not last a few years

for picture quality reasons.

Both strobes you mentioned are good for macro and near photography, but simply don't have enough power to illuminate more far then about 3-6 ft. so don't expect them beeing very usefull with a wide angle lens, except for close up wide angle pictures.

Basically you have several ways to go:

1. the cheap way: Intova ISS2000 strobe, it's a manual strobe and may be tricky o use it with your camera

2. the middle way: Ikelite AF-35 /YS-17, are automatic exposure (TTL) strobes and it should provide good automatic exposure

3. the expensive way: Inon S/D2000 or Z240 strobe gives you all you need now and later with a more advanced camera

Chris

You asked for a suggestion about a strobe "that's going to last a few years without me needing to upgrade",

both of the strobe you mentioned are good enough quality to "last a few years" but may not last a few years

for picture quality reasons.

Both strobes you mentioned are good for macro and near photography, but simply don't have enough power to illuminate more far then about 3-6 ft. so don't expect them beeing very usefull with a wide angle lens, except for close up wide angle pictures.

Basically you have several ways to go:

1. the cheap way: Intova ISS2000 strobe, it's a manual strobe and may be tricky o use it with your camera

2. the middle way: Ikelite AF-35 /YS-17, are automatic exposure (TTL) strobes and it should provide good automatic exposure

3. the expensive way: Inon S/D2000 or Z240 strobe gives you all you need now and later with a more advanced camera

 

Chris

Hmm. If I were to buy the S90/G11 and the Canon housing for either. And the Inon strobe. Totally blowing the budget, but...

Do those cameras go ok without having the add-on wet lenses? You can get reasonably good wide-angle and macro shots without the additional lenses?

WetPup,

the Canon OEM housing may work, but some people have troubles with leaking, sticky buttons, deformation and blocking while diving deeper than 60' it and it has no treaded port to attach wet lenses. I personally would not consider this housing as a valid solution to protect a 500$ camera.

There are some solutions to use wet lenses on the WP-DC34 housing: http://www.divephotoguide.com/underwater-p..._the_canon_g11/

As your budget is limitated i suggest to have a look at the S90 what is basically the same camera in a different body. She has some features less, different controls but you can have a well priced Ikelite housing what is more sturdy as the Canon housing and provide you access to the more common 67mm treaded wetlenses. Saving some $$$ with the S90 may allow you to get the D-2000 strobe to complete your rig, otherwise the Ikelite AF35 Autoflash kit will provide you a functional solution.

Chris