Dive light for new photographer: high lumens or different light colors?

Hello all,

I will start my first u/w photography next week. Now I need to invest a new dive light. But I have a question. Should I choose a dive light with high lumens or a light with red/blue/UV light color? I don't want to spend too much money on the light, because I am not professional. I have no time to dive frequently. I found a light with max 5800 lumens and flood/spot lighting mode, and a light with max only 1600 lumens but owns red/blue/green/uv light color. Which one is better?

1 hour ago, Iris Divee said:

Hello all,

I will start my first u/w photography next week. Now I need to invest a new dive light. But I have a question. Should I choose a dive light with high lumens or a light with red/blue/UV light color? I don't want to spend too much money on the light, because I am not professional. I have no time to dive frequently. I found a light with max 5800 lumens and flood/spot lighting mode, and a light with max only 1600 lumens but owns red/blue/green/uv light color. Which one is better?

In case you will use it as night lamp and as focus light, the 1600 lumen red/blue is better. Only for video you need the high lumens (that will disturbe and scare away many animals). The red light is not seen by many marine creatures and after getting accustomed to frame and focus at night under red light it will open new possibilities. Look also for an automatic "strobe off" function, i.e. the light switches off automatically while the flash lights the scene. This will avoid that the red/blue/white light interferes with your photo (when the light has few lumens, there may not be much interference, if any, depending on aperture and shutter speed, but better to have it )...

I have this one as focus light and night dive lamp and it is perfect (but with ball adapter), see e.g. here : https://www.hydronalin.eu/weefine-smart-focus-2300_695799_8408

(In case you are in the U.S.: Weefine is called "Kraken" there)

Wolfgang

Depends on what you want to do with the light - I have a light rated at 700/2700 lumens I use as a focus light - it's bright enough for that and I have done some night dives with it.  Unless you are using it for camera lighting you don't need a lot of brightness.  Many "dive" lights have relatively narrow beams for good penetration through the water, but a focus light benefits from a moderate beam angle - my light does 60° beam and I rarely need to re-aim it, I could imagine a narrow beam requiring re-aiming a bit when distance to subject changes if it's mounted on the housing cold shoe.

Hello all, I will start my first u/w photography next week. Now I need to invest a new dive light. But I have a question. Should I choose a dive light with high lumens or a light with red/blue/UV light color? I don't want to spend too much money on the light, because I am not professional. I have no time to dive frequently. I found a light with max 5800 lumens and flood/spot lighting mode, and a light with max only 1600 lumens but owns red/blue/green/uv light color. Which one is better?

 

If for photography during the day, a dive light will not really help as it won't provide enough light to overcome ambient lighting and won't make a big difference (unless really up close like for macro). I suggest buy a strobe light instead, you'll get way better results because the flash from a strobe is millions of lumens versus thousands from a dive light. Dive lights for day time conditions are rarely ever used.

If for night diving, the 1600 lumen light is plenty bright as a photo light as there isn't ambient light to overpower. You can get decent pictures with that light (but would still recommend a strobe because more lumens). The additional colors make it more versatile and gives you more creative options. That amount of light is also good enough for general night time navigation in clear water. Also works well as a decent video light at night.

If for video during the day the 5800 lumen light would be useful. It would bring back some colors to subjects about 2 feet away. But beyond that distance, colors drops off quickly.

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

On 9/24/2020 at 1:16 AM, Iris Divee said:

Hello all,

I will start my first u/w photography next week. Now I need to invest a new dive light. But I have a question. Should I choose a dive light with high lumens or a light with red/blue/UV light color? I don't want to spend too much money on the light, because I am not professional. I have no time to dive frequently. I found a light with max 5800 lumens and flood/spot lighting mode, and a light with max only 1600 lumens but owns red/blue/green/uv light color. Which one is better?

I've had a couple.  First, a 2400 lumen Fishlite V24.   Now a 3500 lumen Kraken with the white/red/blue lights.   The Fishlite had red/white.

Neither had enough power for video, save perhaps a bit of macro.   I don't night dive, and didn't find red or blue that useful.

The newer Kraken, even though it has more power, has much more battery life.  The V24 would not last a 1-hour dive.   The Kraken does so easily, except at max power all the time.

And even though I don't night dive, I find the light extremely useful as I dive in plenty of dim conditions on wall dives, or cloudy days at depth.

I find you can never have enough light, so I'd recommend the 5800 - Except if the battery life is too short to get through a dive.