Anyone diving the new ONE UW 160X strobe?

Did anybody get a chance to test the new Ikelite DS230? The official website says that they will start shipping in limited quantities in May 2022 (since May is nearly at the end, so I guess they already shipped) and you can already find some reviews on the internet already. How do you think they will compare to ONEUW 160X and Seacam? 213Ws seems huge in comparison to 160Ws but it could as well be just a marketing trick I guess.

I'm thinking of buying a couple of big strobes. I need them for cave photography to use them as slaves, but I would use them in the sea as well (instead of Inon Z-330s which I currently use). So I don't know if it makes sense to wait for Ikelites to start shipping or to just buy ONEUWs which seems to be in stock everywhere already.

On 5/28/2022 at 10:00 AM, Andrej Oblak said:

Did anybody get a chance to test the new Ikelite DS230? The official website says that they will start shipping in limited quantities in May 2022 (since May is nearly at the end, so I guess they already shipped) and you can already find some reviews on the internet already. How do you think they will compare to ONEUW 160X and Seacam? 213Ws seems huge in comparison to 160Ws but it could as well be just a marketing trick I guess.

I'm thinking of buying a couple of big strobes. I need them for cave photography to use them as slaves, but I would use them in the sea as well (instead of Inon Z-330s which I currently use). So I don't know if it makes sense to wait for Ikelites to start shipping or to just buy ONEUWs which seems to be in stock everywhere already.

Resurrecting this thread to ask essentially the same question. How do the Ikelite DS230s compare to the OneUW 160x in terms of power output and beam coverage? Any new tests out there? Same use case as Andrej for me -- big animal photography (on camera) and remote trigger slaves for caves.

ive been shooting the DS230s for about a month for an upcoming DPG review. I can't compare them to the oneuw but they blow away my YS250s imo in terms of power, light quality, etc. I've used them for sharks and some freshwater subjects and theyre the best wide angle strobes ive used. *ive not shot either of the big seacams (150/160).

Thanks Matt, useful data point. Hopeing someone has seen them side by side, or at least compared the DS230 to a known quantity like the Retra Pros.

Andrei