smallest cheapest useful strobe?

What would be the smallest and cheapest strobe that would actually be worth having? In other words it provides a significant improvement over the on camera flash?

This would be used with a small digital camera like a canon S330 or olympus C3040

Would this be the seaandsea YS-25DX

Is there a reason not to get that strobe?

Thanks

Roobeast, I can't help but fee that you're setting your sights too low in the name of size.

U/W photography is addictive so you shouldn't limit yourself with your first rig. You will be upgrading soon enough anyway, so start with something that will serve you well for a while...

Richard

I agree absolute with Tio Loco. Also don't forget the TTL / preflash on an automatic camera like the 330. As far as I know only Ikelite DS-50 / DS-125 can handle that. All other strobes will ignore the preflash and then fire full flash.

Mike.

I realize that I will undoubtably upgrade later but for now I will most likely be carting my scuba gear in a backpack for a few months so size and weight are important. Also it seems that there isn't a huge selection of slave flashes for digital cameras so I am wary of buying a more expensive one only to need a better one next year. What I'm wanting is to spend enough to get good closeup shots of underwater critters and hopefully have a flash that doesn't weigh a ton.

Any more thoughts on selection?

The small Canon, Olympus and Sony cameras all have a builtin flash that is OK for macro and closeup pictures. (Have a look at my dive site, all pictures of the Pindito trip were taken with the builtin flash only, sometimes my buddy helped a bit with his dive light)

Sure, a real and powerful strobe is always the better choice, but you don't really need one to shoot macros and closeups. And if your main interest is to travel light, forget about the strobe (+tray +arm) for now and spend that extra money for a better camera and housing that offers manual control and a macro mode.

I was thinking about buying the YS25DX myself, but my own experiences with a YS40 (which is a bit more powerful) and the good advice of James, Jeff and Allan convinced me to order a YS90DX instead (-> The "Need Advice" thread)

Sabine