Guide number 22 or 32 and so many other things....

Looking for some perhaps noob advice please :-)


Time to add 2 strobes to my Olympus EPL-3 m4/3 setup. With the amount of detail and options out there it can be a tad overwhelming for selecting a strobe for someone that has never shot with strobes.

Let me give you a bit of a background. For the longest time I have been shooting several decent, mid to high end Canon P&S cameras with no external light, just constant WB adjustments with decent results. Non of my shot would be considered pro quality but pretty good enough for me as a memento. Sadly my trusty G12 has moved on to camera heaven so I snagged an Olympus EPL-3 with the Olympus housing. I ended up buying 2 iTorch Pro6+ lights and had some decent success with them in the PNW in October, but I could see that the video lights did leave a soft fuzzy edge to the subject due to their nature. And since I shot a mere 5 seconds of video, and only accidentally as well, I decided that if I want crisp clear shots, I need to ditch the video light and add strobes.

So this is where the question(s) come into play. Olympus has a re-branded Sea&Sea YS-01 they call the UFL-3, pretty much a clone except they advertise it as a guide number 22 (instead of 20) and added the proprietary RC mode, which is supposed to work together with the camera to get better exposure and to save the battery on the camera as it reduces the power/recycle time required to power on the on-board flash.

Sea&Sea of course also has the YS-D1 and D2 strobes, that are rated at GN 32, offer some pretty neat features, but being a generic strobe, lack the RC function.

So the dilemma now is, do I go with the RC specific, GN 22 Olympus or get the generic D1/D2 at GN32? How much brighter is GN32? Is it even needed/required for mostly up close/macro shooting? Is this a case of get as much as you can get now since you'll be upgrading in 6 months anyway?

Any Olympus users out there that can chime in that have used the RC group of strobes, is the technology worth it? Or should I upgrade to the higher GN strobe?

Sorry if it is a noob question, but it's hard to make sense of every detail out there.

For macro, I would definitely go with the lower powered strobes. I have the EPL-5 which I use with Inon strobes (similar guide #) and to some extent, those strobes are already too powerful. I find it very difficult to use open apertures (f/4 say) with closeup subjects to get that narrow depth of field. The EPL-5 makes this even more challenging with a base ISO of 200. I assume your EPL-3 shares this.

Also, a physically smaller strobe is easier to use for macro.

Just my two cents.

Thank you Moray

Anyone else?

To the best of my knowledge the olympus strobes are not just "rebranded". They obviously feature a S&S shell, but the guts is all olympus. At least this was the case for the UFL 1 & 2.

So you have an apples and elephants decision to make. You can not simply compare the GN. I have no olympus experience so do not have an opinion.

From a power perspective, buy as much as you can afford. In TTL mode strobes only put out as much power as is needed. There is no issue with having extra power. It is held in reserve. In manual mode you can turn them down as low as you want. Over exposure is operator error.

Spare power generally means a faster recycle time as the strobe does not need to perform a full recharge since it did not perform a full dump. My ancient YS110s can fire continuously at 4 frames per second on low power setting.

You can't turn strobes down "as low as you want" in manual. My Inons have about 6 stops worth of settings. Considering that with the strobe set on f/4 and the camera on ISO 200 with f/22, the exposure is perfect for close focus macro, that means that reducing the strobes the further 2.5 stops that they allow (down to f/1.7), the camera comes in at about f/9 to maintain that exposure. After that, I have to start playing with edge light to further reduce the power. Or I need to get the partially opaque -1.5 diffuser.

You can't turn strobes down "as low as you want" in manual. My Inons have about 6 stops worth of settings. Considering that with the strobe set on f/4 and the camera on ISO 200 with f/22, the exposure is perfect for close focus macro, that means that reducing the strobes the further 2.5 stops that they allow (down to f/1.7), the camera comes in at about f/9 to maintain that exposure. After that, I have to start playing with edge light to further reduce the power. Or I need to get the partially opaque -1.5 diffuser.

My strobes (ys110) have 12 steps - they go from a GN of 22 down to a GN of 2. I never use them at the lowest power setting. I also tend to shoot at ISO 80.

Thanks guys, worth the try I guess. I still do like the UFL-3, for some reason I am more drawn to it then the others, well the price also helps ;-)

Definitely something to consider. Different cameras & strobes have different capabilities.

 

My strobes (ys110) have 12 steps - they go from a GN of 22 down to a GN of 2. I never use them at the lowest power setting. I also tend to shoot at ISO 80.

The Inon-s also have 11 or 12 steps, but each step is 1/2 stop. I see that the YS-110 appears to have 1/2 stops on the low end and full stops on the bright end. But if I'm reading it right, probably does go 1-2 stops further down.

I would love to shoot at ISO 80 or 100, but the Olympus mirrorless (at least the one I have) cannot go below ISO 200.

If your strobes have too much power (hard to imagine) then just move them a bit further away from the subject or point them outwards a bit. I would get either an Inon or S&S strobe since they will outlast your current system and will be useful far into the future.

Bill

 

So the dilemma now is, do I go with the RC specific, GN 22 Olympus or get the generic D1/D2 at GN32? How much brighter is GN32? Is it even needed/required for mostly up close/macro shooting? Is this a case of get as much as you can get now since you'll be upgrading in 6 months anyway?

GN is one thing, beam angle is another. In case you have any intentions for WA, you'll need the strongest & widest available. The YS-D2 has an 80x80° beam at GN32 (land), this further decreases in water to maybe 70x70, GN12. With diffuser, it gives a reasonable coverage of 100x100 but the power is significantly decreased (GN24, 20).

I am also on the hunt for a strobe - more for WA than macro - to replace my weak s2000's. They were perfectly fine for macro and close portrait but for anything further than 1m you have to go over iso800, which is definitely counterproductive with small-sensor cameras (I am between the E-PL5 and the RX100 mIV). Haven't found the perfect solution yet, I might end up with a 2nd hand subtronic unit (uw GN14 AND 120°coverage).

 

GN is one thing, beam angle is another. In case you have any intentions for WA, you'll need the strongest & widest available. The YS-D2 has an 80x80° beam at GN32 (land), this further decreases in water to maybe 70x70, GN14. With diffuser, it gives a reasonable coverage of 100x100 but the power is significantly decreased (GN24, 20).

 

I am also on the hunt for a strobe - more for WA than macro - to replace my weak s2000's. They were perfectly fine for macro and close portrait but for anything further than 1m you have to go over iso800, which is definitely counterproductive with small-sensor cameras (I am between the E-PL5 and the RX100 mIV). Haven't found the perfect solution yet, I might end up with a 2nd hand subtronic unit (uw GN14 AND 120°coverage).

The z240 is in the pot, but I am afraid it will be on the weak side. At 100°beam, it produces gn24 on land and gn12 underwater, which seems at least 2 stops weaker than the subtronic PRO160, meaning I can use iso200 where the z240 needs iso800 - this is a strong argument if someone has an rx100

More to it, I am mostly shooting in blue water, where the 4600k temperature of the subtronics fits much better. True, direct optical TTL connection and price speaks for the inon...