I'm a new underwater photographer, mainly doing natural light and having a great time. However, I was able to get away with no lights due to shallower freediving depths. I recently became scuba certified and feel that I am not going to have as much room to capture the images I want at deeper depths, without additional light.
To be very honest, the things holding me back are that I don't want to drop a large amount of money on two strobes(probably unavoidable haha) and I also don't want to have more gear to schlep while traveling than I already have.
Does anyone have any experience using a video or dive light for that extra pop for subjects. I understand backscatter and light positioning. Is there a minimum lumens I should look for if I do splurge for continuous lighting?
I shoot with a canon SL2, 15mm 2.8 and ikelite housing with 6" dome.
Any input would be awesome!
Thanks!
-Mike
www.flickr.com/fifinator
If you are doing mostly wide angle, then natural light will be your predominant source of light since strobes are only good to a few feet away. For close focus wide angle you can use your video light but remember that a video light is likely 100x less light than even a small strobe.
Bill
The problem with lights bright enough to be useful is that when you approach with them turned on a lot of creatures leave. If you are concerned about costs you could always get two of the lower powered strobes, like the INON S-2000. I think you'd find that lights bright enough to compete with a strobe would set you back more than a pair of strobes anyway. In your case, the 15mm f2.8 (fisheye I assume?) you need quite wide coverage so you need quite a wide beam on your lights.
Thanks guys! Just the answers I was looking for. Simple physics is my limitation I guess.
Now to decide if I really want to schlep some strobes around or just continue the natural light path.
