What special about underwater strobes?

I'm familiar with strobes used on land but wondering if there are any major difference besides being waterproof that I need to take into account for shooting underwater.

Basically I'm wondering if I took normal Nikon flashes and put them in a waterproof case and synced them to my SLR, would I still get great photo's? Thanks in advance.

My first UW strobe was a Braun potato-masher style land flash, and I had Ikelite build a housing for it. (They did custom stuff back in the day...). It worked but it wasn't nearly as strong as the Ikelite 225 I replaced it with.

So apart from being waterproof, most UW strobes are extremely powerful, relative to their land cousins. More knowledgeable folks will chime in with other differences I'm sure...

TTT

I have a pair of UFL-2 strobes that sync to my E-PM1 using RC and I can get 1/2000+ shutter speed flash sync using the fiber connections.

I'm familiar with strobes used on land but wondering if there are any major difference besides being waterproof that I need to take into account for shooting underwater.

 

Basically I'm wondering if I took normal Nikon flashes and put them in a waterproof case and synced them to my SLR, would I still get great photo's? Thanks in advance.

Some purpose built underwater strobes have very wide angle coverage such as > 100 degrees. For example I have been able to use a single strobe with a fisheye lens. Many purpose built underwater strobes also have a warm color temperature. Whereas many of the wide angle underwater strobes are medium to large sized (more recent strobes though are a bit smaller than those from the film era!) those intended mainly for macro use can be quite compact. Another advantage is that adjustments are accessible under water with simplified controls.

You should be able to take "great" photos with a housed strobe but you need to be aware of limitations such as output intensity, coverage, color temperature.

Tom