I'm trying to smash my diving kit down into a small footprint for travel purposes, and I'd love to combine the photo light and strobe into one unit.
I can see that the Weefine WS07 might do the job but it's delayed, and still an unproven device. I can see that the Kraken lights have a burst mode and optical trigger. Has anybody used the lights as a substitute for a strobe? Presently I use Inon Z330's (of course) they work great. I mostly shoot them on manual between 5and 8, so I'm not tending to need full power.
If someone has had luck with the Krakens, I might want to give it a go. The Weefines have the functionality I am wishing for, but I'm just not sure.
Gary
I have a pair of Kraken Hydra 8000s and love them, but I was unable to get burst mode working with a Nauticam flash trigger. I am sure there is a solution to this but I was unable to figure it out, and there is very little information on how to configure it online. From test firing burst mode it seems they are plenty powerful for macro to mid-distance shots. I may stop into Reef Photo next month when I am back in Florida and see if the experts there can show me how to configure the burst mode on these lights (they sell both the flash trigger and the lights). The new Hydra 15,000 lumen lights are even brighter and I bet they could easily replace strobes. One final note, the Kraken Hydras are much heavier than my Inon Z-330s although I can easily travel with both (with the batteries in my backpack).
There have been plenty of tests showing that even entry level strobes provide way more power than video lights. You also need to factor in that a lot of these video lights have a huge angle of coverage (kraken hydra 15000 is 120°) so all those lumens get spread out pretty far. I'm sure for macro the strobe function of those lights will be good enough, but for wideangle I think they will not be anywhere near powerful enough.
The Olympus TG6 camera in a housing takes very nice macro photos using an underwater light, no strobe. It
is about as compact as you can get, other than a GoPro.
Even the brightest video lights are easily outshone by strobes. A test here sometime back compared Gates 14,000 lumen lights with a YS-D2 and found the YS-D2 was about 6 stops brighter. The strobe needs to be able to outshine the ambient light to work effectively so ISO is not an answer as it boosts both ambient a artificial light.
The other problem with video lights is that pointing 14,000 lumens at a critter that can leave is likely to cause it to do so.
The Weefine light you mention is only 3000 lumens which is a little low to be used for video.
