Absolute newbie on UW Photo/Video

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Ash176

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Hi all,
Been reading a lot of threads but can't seems to find the answer I'm looking for.
I'm a photographer on land and I'm now trying out UW photography. But I also want to do video occasionally. Therefore, I want to find out if there's such a strobe that serves both purpose? I mean, a video light that can function as strobe during photography and vise-versa. Any suggestions is really appreciated. Thank you.
 
You have three basic options:
  1. Mount a LED light and a strobe on the end of each arm using a triple clamp. Heavy, bulky, cumbersome.
  2. Use a LED light that can flash like a strobe. Example. However, these are nowhere near as powerful as gas discharge lamp strobes. One exception would be close-in macro work - you can use a ring light, and at extreme close range, you don't need as much power.
  3. i-Torch Symbiosis combines a strobe and an LED light in a single unit; unfortunately it's neither a very good strobe nor a very good light.
That said, shooting stills and video generally requires having a different mindset for the dive. For best results, it's advantageous to decide ahead of time what is it that you want to accomplish with the dive, and focus on that one thing.
 
Ikelite DS-61 strobes have some LEDs built-in described as 600 lumen video lights; I have two of them, and I did use them for mostly still photography and occasionally video for several years. You can leave the video LEDs on all the time and only reduce the overall battery use for firing the strobes by a small percentage. Two big downsides: they are big and expensive, and 600 lumens, even with two, isn't really much light for video underwater.
 
I am a happy snapper rather than a photographer.

From what I know (I don't do video), A video light won't freeze the action like a strobe can.
As a general rule I set the exposure to get the background I want, and the strobe to freeze the action and light the subject. Thats not what a video light does.

I am also aware, that very powerful video lights are not always critter friendly. They are not used to the intense light.
When using the strobe, I don't keep blasting it at one subject, I don't think its good for the critters.
Take nothing but photos (or video) is a great punch line, but don't leave fried fish behind :).


Editted
Spelling correction - thanks DavidFL
 
+Gareth J you might want to add "critter" to the dictionary of whatever you are using to post on SB.
 
So that is to say, there isn't really a good steobe cum video light available on the market?
 
Kraken Hydra 5000? Thanx. Will check it out.
 
Consider this - the 'strobe' mode on that light flashes to 7000LM (from a normal output of 5000LM), and it costs $700. Scubalamp V6K puts out 12000LM of constant light, and costs $550. For the reference, see this old thread - two 19000LM lights are estimated to be roughly on par with a GN20 strobe like the little Inon S-2000, which retails for $365.
Having the ability to produce a brief flash rather than a constant light is useful for not scaring away critters, but it takes some truly gigantic (and expensive) LED arrays to match the output of a even a small xenon strobe - see Gates GT14, or Scubalamp V12K for examples.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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