What to do/How to proceed?

I inherited a new (never seen water) Ikelite housing for an old Nikon D300,  which I own and is still functioning.

Recommendations on dual strobes (prefer optical trigger and TTL but this housing will not support optical.  How good is the Ikelite adapter?  I've used the Ikelite D160's but they are a bit pricey these days.

Recommendations on ports too as I have most of the Nikon lens that will fit the D300 housing.

OR should I go with the Sea and Sea US-01?

Not looking to spend a fortune as I use this system 1-2 weeks annually.

Thanks to all you experts in advance!

Hi pal, 

The ikelite trigger should be fine. Is it the YS-01 strobes you're looking at? I'm not aware of a US-01. If its the YS-01, then its an older model, but should be fine for macro, won't be the most powerful for wide angle stuff, but as long as you're really close you may be able to do some WA work. 

For specific lenses, check the ikelite port chart - what lenses do you currently own?

I'd strongly recommend doing a dive with no camera inside this housing first time as if its been sat a while you don't want to be risking drowning you gear if any of the seals have perished. If that housing can have a vacuum system attached then they are a huge stress reliver once you're under water!

Mike

3 hours ago, GrtDay said:

I inherited a new (never seen water) Ikelite housing for an old Nikon D300,  which I own and is still functioning.

Recommendations on dual strobes (prefer optical trigger and TTL but this housing will not support optical.  How good is the Ikelite adapter?  I've used the Ikelite D160's but they are a bit pricey these days.

Recommendations on ports too as I have most of the Nikon lens that will fit the D300 housing.

OR should I go with the Sea and Sea US-01?

Not looking to spend a fortune as I use this system 1-2 weeks annually.

Thanks to all you experts in advance!

The optical trigger on the ikelite strobes is not TTL capable and it works by screwing onto the ikelite strobes and getting an optical signal for your housing and you have just stated that your housing won't support optical.  They are designed to allow you to use ikelite strobes with a housing that supports optical triggering.  No point trying to use one with the ikelite housing really.

You could buy an LED trigger and rig up fibre optic attachment mounts working through the clear housing, but to be honest using electric sync cables is path of least resistance, unless you like fiddling and are confident in rigging something up, there's probably nothing off the shelf that is plug and play as far as installation goes to allow you to trigger your strobes optically with that housing.  If it's a manual trigger it's cheaper and easier but a TTL trigger would set you back about $495.  You would have to work out if there's enough room in the housing to mount the trigger and the LEDs need to be well aligned with the fibre optic ports you would be attaching.

If you want TTL with ikelite strobes - does your housing include the TTL electronics?  In Ikelite you need a TTL module and in the old housings this was internal.  For newer housings and all that is available now as far as I know is an external module that is screwed into the electric sync cables.  The brains for TTL are in the ikelite module and only talk to ikelite strobes.

The YS-01 would be OK for macro but not up to wide angle work - but how are you going to trigger it, it can only be triggered optically, so you would be rigging an LED trigger.  You could get a second hand set of INONs perhaps, the Z-240s can be triggered electrically but they only do manual triggering electrically.

The Ys-01 is actually much more powerful than it’s reputation. There was a comparison s few years ago and in terms of power it performed only slightly worse than the Inon Z240. Obviously more power is better and sometimes even needed, but for most wide angle scenes the ys-01 is fine.