Any way to get Gopro or its likes to work with strobes?

[Barmaglot]

I will probably use the dual strobes for my point and shoot to take stills. Then attach the video lights to the elbow of the strobe arms so I will get some lighting on video shots of pelagic close encounters.

That can work - I just spent a week diving off a liveaboard with a guy who was running a similar setup, albeit with a Nikon Z8 and much more powerful lights - but I'm somewhat dubious about the ability of 3000lm lights to light up a whale shark.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

That can work - I just spent a week diving off a liveaboard with a guy who was running a similar setup, albeit with a Nikon Z8 and much more powerful lights - but I'm somewhat dubious about the ability of 3000lm lights to light up a whale shark.

I usually just use strobes, and maybe have a not so good video here and there, usually unlit with my panny point and shoot that I bring along because its macro is 100x than my main setup. It also has underwater mode which offers better WB. I use to split the video lights, one for the main camera and the other for the panny for macro videos.

If I went with an action cam, its either all shots with video light or none, as the camera I am looking at, I can't turn on/off the digital red filter when its in its UW housing. But as you said, 6000 lumens spread over 170 deg is not going to light up anything. It might just give a reflective sheen on the fish that comes close by.

The pelagic that needs lighting seems to be overhead shots of manta rays. I see photos being lit properly with strobes, but the few videos with action cams like gopros that I've seen just seem to be sihoulette shot as their HDR capability is unable to keep the underside of the manta at roughly the same brightness as the water behind it, which could be the sky or sunburst. I haven't seen any manta flyover clips with video lights, so I don't even know what brightness is needed.

 

[Seaweed Doc]

That would be one of my backup plan, but with 2x3000 lumen wide beam torches, I don't know if that will light up pelagic subjects like the strobes. Or do I use the red filter and shoot everything in natural light?

Strobes will give you better distance, but all lights fail at longer distances. (Note sports photographers never use flashes....)

I know a lot of people love red filters, but I'm not a huge fan. I'd rather add red back in after the fact. If there is zero red light (I've seen it), a red filter does nothing but cut what light is present. Again, a lot of folks love them, I'm just not one of those folks....

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

Strobes will give you better distance, but all lights fail at longer distances. (Note sports photographers never use flashes....)

I know a lot of people love red filters, but I'm not a huge fan. I'd rather add red back in after the fact. If there is zero red light (I've seen it), a red filter does nothing but cut what light is present. Again, a lot of folks love them, I'm just not one of those folks....

I use to correct white balances in post, but it just took so long that I end up doing only a few (that's before they had the white balance eyedropper, and had to convert the non-raw image to CMYK, because red was non-existent, and ). They are now like vacation pix, you forget them once you get back.

I don't know how "red" the red filter is. I am use to cameras where I can change WB on the fly, and when some of the pix with artificial lighting are mistakenly taken w/underwater WB on, they are overly warm.