Underwater Strobe Finder

Strobe Finder

With help from Richard Perry and Ryan Canon, and support from industry professionals, I have compiled data on 35 underwater strobes that are compatible with digital cameras. My goal is to offer this information in an objective format that would be user friendly, especially to those new to underwater photography.

All specifications found in the Strobe Finder have been obtained directly from the various manufacturer's web sites, spec sheets, or users manuals.

Each strobe listing contains up to 30 specific fields of information. Fields offer links to explanations where applicable. Direct links to web sites, warranty information, contact information, and specialized compatibility are also featured. Links to online users manuals will soon follow.

Statistics are only one aspect of consideration in choosing the correct strobe. Therefore, the Strobe Finder should be considered as only one part of the total research project.

The Strobe Finder will be updated as new products are introduced.

http://www.digitaldiver.net/strobes.php

regards,

bobf

Holy cow - great information. Good job Bob and thanks for posting.

Sincerely,

James Wiseman

Beautiful work Bob!

Since this is all by manufacturers' claims, I just wish there were some way to make sure we are comparing apples to apples. Like for angle of converage, if that is the 1/2 stop down, or 2 stops down, or what...

Maybe such data could be compiled by folks that own the various strobes.

Great stuff!

Don

Don,

That's a project that Craig and I have been talking about and working about for a long time. Craig's got the black/blue bottomed pool for it and we have a large assortment of strobes. Craig has bought some testing materials, but we just haven't gotten the time together to do it.

Cheers

James

Great work, very informative.

bobf,

very nice database. difficult and painfull to collect these informations without it.

only thing I would like to add: Some people could get confused by the mixed coverage numbers and believe a Sea&Sea ys-60 is stated with the same coverage as a Subtronic Alpha.

Would be nice to see if it is a topside value (Sea&Sea, Inon, ...) or an underwater value (Subtronic, Ikelite, ....). As you have done with guide numbers (air/water).

Julian

This pinned thread should be in the current, live lighting and strobes forum, because no one sees it there, where they expect to find stuff about stobes!

Same thing with the focus light thread.

Can they be pinned in both places?

Otherwise, it is better to keep them alive, and forget the "classic" listings.

The Strobe Finder will be updated as new products are introduced.

 

http://www.digitaldiver.net/strobes.php

 

regards,

bobf

Outstanding Thank you for the effort. Just one nit - for the Inons your link goes to http://inonamerica.com/ . They are no longer representing Inon in North America.

As for air vs. u/w GN, a general rule of u/w GN ~= 50% air GN works fairly well. Obviously, the u/w GN depends on the water conditions. I hang a white sheet as a target and measure the light fall off in the strobe area of coverage (air GN vs. coverage area). It can be considerable. I prefer to use two strobes to “paint” my subjects with the edges of the strobe coverage. For even light, the strobes would be equal distance from the subject and set at the same power. Multiply the apparent GN (using water and edge factors) by the square root of 2 (~ 1.4) to get your best guess GN.

Long ago in a land far far away, I attended a workshop by Franklin Viola. He said he learned how to light his subjects by shooting things that don’t move, e.g. sponges. I think that is still good advice today and a heck of a lot more fun that shooting sheets in one’s living room.

Bob

thanks!

This link now out of service?

All, it seems like the strobe comparison has stopped working. Does anyone here have the raw data to export it to something like excel? It would be good to keep this info for the future.

Cheers

/O

seems like this was a very old post but it would be super helpful to me right now.

Here's some tests on many of the strobes now available :

https://www.backscatter.com/reviews/post/Underwater-Strobe-Testing

includes actual brightness numbers from testing, so better than manufacturer's specs. Some of the strobes are superseded and the Retras and Z330 not there but there will be test data for them coming up soon. The YS-D1 is fairly close in specs to the D2 as I recall.

I can't access this link!!!! is it down? I'd love to research these, what a fantastic idea

May 25, 2019

The list of available underwater strobes has been updated as of 24 May, 2019 and is here:

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=64076&do=findComment&comment=406545

It is in Google sheets as a spreadsheet so that members can update or correct it. It needs some

work, including added columns. If you find errors or have additions or suggestions, please feel free to do your own editing.

For some reason the web link quoted above got truncated and does not work. Here is the full link to the updated Strobe Finder spreadsheet.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1otS2RTR47KhaFdBkO6Gd7DDju3CQLEnTT2Wwetay4vE/edit#gid=0

For some reason the web link quoted above got truncated and does not work. Here is the full link to the updated Strobe Finder spreadsheet.

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1otS2RTR47KhaFdBkO6Gd7DDju3CQLEnTT2Wwetay4vE/edit#gid=0

Great work! Thanks Mr deM