Advice on strobes - newcomer to underwater photography

Thanks for reading.

I've recently purchased a Canon G1X and housing to get me going in underwater photography. I have a little experience in photography and have recently completed my open water accreditation - in the fullness of time I hope to become a rescue diver and maybe go on to dive master.

From being a child fish have fascinated me, I've been angling since I was six but now I want to catch fish digitally. Predators are my thing and I can't wait to swim with anything toothy, Pike to Sharks.

I will never be a pro, but I would like a system that works for me, my general interest will be predators in their home environment.

Questions

1) I have some video lights at the moment (2x Fuji X-Dive 700 lumen) will these provide enough light for focus and possibly subject illumination? I plan (big phrase that) most of my diving in the UK but to dive abroad whilst on holiday.

2) Without breaking the bank, what would be a good general purpose strobe? My system has a Sea & Sea connector on it, the housing is a Canon WP-DC 53, I am unsure if this is a bulkhead fitting or fibre-optic affair, excuse my ignorance.

I have an Adobe CC subscription and am comfortable with RAW images and editing, my images will be for my own memories and pleasure.

Any advice really welcomed.

Suggestions:

Buy The Underwater Photographer by Martin Edge, 4th ed. Then read it. As you practice/learn more, read more or read again.

Get in 20-30 dives with no photo gear before considering taking it. Then start using it on dives with easy dive conditions and reasonable visibility.

Consider practicing diving with photo taking in a pool. You can learn quite a bit about your system this way and it usually costs little. You can learn about your lights and how much light they offer you in perfect conditions in the pool.

I like fiber optic triggered strobes and those work with your housing.

People in the UK can likely provide better insight for lighting local diving.

Hope this gives you ideas for getting started.

Some good advice above...

I can only really advise that if you are looking at one strobe then buy a good one, Inon or Sea & Sea would be my choice. But one thing I will say is if you are looking to take pictures as you describe above, two will always be better.

Suggestions:

Buy The Underwater Photographer by Martin Edge, 4th ed. Then read it. As you practice/learn more, read more or read again.

Get in 20-30 dives with no photo gear before considering taking it. Then start using it on dives with easy dive conditions and reasonable visibility.

Consider practicing diving with photo taking in a pool. You can learn quite a bit about your system this way and it usually costs little. You can learn about your lights and how much light they offer you in perfect conditions in the pool.

 

I like fiber optic triggered strobes and those work with your housing.

People in the UK can likely provide better insight for lighting local diving.

 

Hope this gives you ideas for getting started.

Dave and Wolf Eel, thanks for taking the time to write, your advice is welcomed and taken onboard.

Hi Terrierist

Welcome aboard!

A couple of thoughts I'd like to offer.

Dave makes a fair point about getting a few dives under your belt first. I'd suggest this is especially the case if it's photos of "predators" you are after. Generally they are in deep water, "in the blue", where the bottom is way below. This requires very good buoyancy skills and, I'd suggest, instinctive awareness of what you are doing in terms of the dive and your equipment. Otherwise the risk is that, whilst tinkering with your camera, without realising it, you drift down and down.... and, errr, down. I'm sure you know how good your dive skills are, but I'd just point out that taking a camera adds significant task-loading. It is all too easy in the early stages of diving not to notice a problem is developing because you are concentrating on the camera. Not much fun suddenly finding you are at 50m when you thought you were at 15m - and you still can't see the bottom.

On lights, if you are using the Canon G1X for stills, I think you would be better with a strobe than video lights. You can certainly start with one strobe, see how you get on and then, if you feel the need, get a second. Strobes are one of the few items of u/w photo gear that can grow with most systems if, as bear35 suggests, you get a good one. You may well change your camera, your housing, your lenses - but the strobe(s) can generally migrate from one set-up to another. I can recommend Inon too - check out the Z240 which is one of the main go-to strobes that folks use for still photography. If you decide u/w photog is not for you, a Z240 can be sold reasonably easily.

Dave's idea of trying the camera out in a pool is a good one - although if you are not a member of a dive club in the UK that can be slightly tricky. If you are comfortable in the pool with the dive gear and the camera, I'd suggest you then do a bit of diving where there is a clear and easily reachable seabed. So not hanging in the blue - but being near a reef so that you can fine tune your buoyancy whilst using the camera. Maybe you won't get the predator pics you're after, but you will learn a great deal about the camera and lighting in a slightly easier setting. And build-up to the hanging in the blue with a camera.

And, yep, Martin Edge's book is worth a read.

Hope this helps a bit.

Good luck with it all. It's exciting stuff.......

HI Tim and thanks for the reply.

I've just received Mr Edge's book and am starting going through it page by page, it is a very well written and absorbing book as mentioned previously. Most of my diving for the moment will be in UK quarries with (in the main) no more than 20 metre depths - I'm aiming for 20-25 dives before going AOW and then looking to complete rescue and DM in the future - I want to get the experience in first as others have mentioned. My local dive club uses a pool, so I'm looking to get in there as much as possible and practice with the camera and.... The YS-02 I've just bought!

It's going to be a chilly winter, water temps are dropping now - down to single figures in my local spot and I'm in there soon hopefully!

Kev

Welcome to the addition!

HI Tim and thanks for the reply.

 

I've just received Mr Edge's book and am starting going through it page by page, it is a very well written and absorbing book as mentioned previously. Most of my diving for the moment will be in UK quarries with (in the main) no more than 20 metre depths - I'm aiming for 20-25 dives before going AOW and then looking to complete rescue and DM in the future - I want to get the experience in first as others have mentioned. My local dive club uses a pool, so I'm looking to get in there as much as possible and practice with the camera and.... The YS-02 I've just bought!

 

It's going to be a chilly winter, water temps are dropping now - down to single figures in my local spot and I'm in there soon hopefully!

 

Kev

Good plan, though I don't know about the quarry part!

The strobe you bought is excellent. I have a pair of YS-D1, and I'm jealous of the little changes they made. Putting separators between the batteries, for instance. It's a pain to load the batteries in correctly in the YS-D1 in a rocking dive boat.

As was mentioned above, there can be significant task loading when adding a camera. And I would add that adding an external strobe to the camera also changes the way you dive. With a point-n-shoot on a wrist strap, you can simply let it dangle should you need to pay attention to something else, And when diving, you can tuck the camera into your side (arms crossed on your chest) and dive normally. With a camera with strobe, you pretty much can't let it dangle, and you generally are always having one hand busy holding the camera gear. And it tends to get caught up in your air hose too.

With a beginning diver, and one unfamiliar with both camera and dive gear, there is certainly risk that you focus on some part of your equipment and don't realize you're drifting up or down. Put in some equipment problem with your dive gear, and you can get frustrated and overwhelmed quickly. It will help a lot if you can instinctively control your camera and know where all your settings are.

Bouyancy - it's really necessary to have good buoyancy with a camera. You could do what my wife did in Fiji, drifting down while shooting a lionfish until she burst an eardrum. A more typical problems is fins hitting all over a reef. Having a camera underwater will quickly show you your buoyancy skills - and it will also force you to improve them. But trying to do it all in the first 20 dives will just be an exercise in frustration. At least I'd try a few dives with the camera, but no external flash.