I received my pair of HF-1 strobes a couple of weeks ago and have now used my new HF-1 strobes on three dives. I can make a few observations but it's still early days in evaluating them from a full range of subjects.
The strobes look great. They are very well built and seem to exude high quality product vibes out of the box. Each strobe includes a ball mount, flat diffuser, and remote light pipe. I purchased a pair of the recommends batteries for each strobe with my order.
These a large and powerful strobes. Smaller than an Ikelite but bigger than my existing Inon 330's, Retras, or S&S YS-DS3 strobes. They are also more negative than my Inon 330s, so it's likely that you might need more buoyancy if you are replacing one of the smaller models above with the HF-1.
The controls seem intuitive and are essentially the same as the Backscatter MF-2 strobe/snoot that I have had for a while. The power level knob might not be as easy to set if you are wearing heavy gloves or dry gloves. Better than Ikelite, but not as simple as the Inons. The knob requires a good amount of effort to turn and it is difficult to tell what its orientation is because it rather uniform. It does have a bit of a bump where the key is, but it's too subtle with thick gloves.
I had a chance to try the Video Lights on my first dive as my camera sort of rolled over in my car on the way to the dive, and I could not get my camera to trigger the flash. Some setting got bumped and I couldn't resolve it in the water. So, I shoot video with my Nikon Z8 for the first time. It came out great the HF-1's powerful video lights did a great job. I never could have done this with my Inon 330's and their weak on-board lights.
This weekend I went out for another pair of Puget Sound dives. Visibility in the summer is traditionally pretty poor due to algae blooms, but it was good enough to get some acceptable Wide-Angle shots with the new strobes. The strobes did a great job, working reliably and recycling quickly between Singe frame shots. I mostly left them set at 1/4 power. This was a good balance in particulate heavy waters to avoid the worse backscatter and flare while getting good exposures at f11 or so.
One of the features that I hoped to exploit with these strobes is the Rapid Recycle time enabling up the 20 frames per second at 1/4 power. Unfortunately, I could not get this to work at all as the subsequent shots were not in sync with my camera. I shot the Z8 set to 3fps in a Nauticam housing with the basic Nauticam manual led trigger. The strobe fired for each frame, but on the first shot of a burst got any exposure, I suspect that shot #2 and #3 were not in sync. In the image below you can see three shots taken in the same 1-second interval and only the first is exposed by the strobe.
I'll need feedback from Backscatter (?? @Backscatter::Jim ) about what to expect. Should this work with the Nauticam trigger, or do I need a more capable model? The HF-1 product page explicitly describes this scenario working with a Sony Alpha camera in a Nauticam housing, but there are no details of the flash trigger used.
Battery life is still an open question, but it seems solid so far. I only did two dives across Saturday and Sunday but made a point of not recharging the strobe batteries. I took about 275 shots mostly at 1/4 power. When I did charge the cells, they seemed to be at least 1/2 full or more. A good sign, but I'll need more time to really access their efficiency.
To sum it up, I think the strobes are very nice but heavier than my existing Inon 330s. The utility of being functional for both Stills and Video is great. The LiOn batteries would allow me to retire all my NiMH chargers and simplify my charging accessories. I hope to figure out the multiple FPS issue, as this is probably the one feature that would make these more useful to me than the Inon 330s. Without that feature I am not sure they are worth the extra weight for the bulk of my underwater photography needs.
A few more shots from this weekend's dive. Nothing amazing, but a good sample of the HF-1 in use.
[Nikon Z8 w/24-50mm, WWL-C, Pair of Backscatter HF-1 strobes]
The strobes look great. They are very well built and seem to exude high quality product vibes out of the box. Each strobe includes a ball mount, flat diffuser, and remote light pipe. I purchased a pair of the recommends batteries for each strobe with my order.
These a large and powerful strobes. Smaller than an Ikelite but bigger than my existing Inon 330's, Retras, or S&S YS-DS3 strobes. They are also more negative than my Inon 330s, so it's likely that you might need more buoyancy if you are replacing one of the smaller models above with the HF-1.
The controls seem intuitive and are essentially the same as the Backscatter MF-2 strobe/snoot that I have had for a while. The power level knob might not be as easy to set if you are wearing heavy gloves or dry gloves. Better than Ikelite, but not as simple as the Inons. The knob requires a good amount of effort to turn and it is difficult to tell what its orientation is because it rather uniform. It does have a bit of a bump where the key is, but it's too subtle with thick gloves.
I had a chance to try the Video Lights on my first dive as my camera sort of rolled over in my car on the way to the dive, and I could not get my camera to trigger the flash. Some setting got bumped and I couldn't resolve it in the water. So, I shoot video with my Nikon Z8 for the first time. It came out great the HF-1's powerful video lights did a great job. I never could have done this with my Inon 330's and their weak on-board lights.
This weekend I went out for another pair of Puget Sound dives. Visibility in the summer is traditionally pretty poor due to algae blooms, but it was good enough to get some acceptable Wide-Angle shots with the new strobes. The strobes did a great job, working reliably and recycling quickly between Singe frame shots. I mostly left them set at 1/4 power. This was a good balance in particulate heavy waters to avoid the worse backscatter and flare while getting good exposures at f11 or so.
One of the features that I hoped to exploit with these strobes is the Rapid Recycle time enabling up the 20 frames per second at 1/4 power. Unfortunately, I could not get this to work at all as the subsequent shots were not in sync with my camera. I shot the Z8 set to 3fps in a Nauticam housing with the basic Nauticam manual led trigger. The strobe fired for each frame, but on the first shot of a burst got any exposure, I suspect that shot #2 and #3 were not in sync. In the image below you can see three shots taken in the same 1-second interval and only the first is exposed by the strobe.
I'll need feedback from Backscatter (?? @Backscatter::Jim ) about what to expect. Should this work with the Nauticam trigger, or do I need a more capable model? The HF-1 product page explicitly describes this scenario working with a Sony Alpha camera in a Nauticam housing, but there are no details of the flash trigger used.
Battery life is still an open question, but it seems solid so far. I only did two dives across Saturday and Sunday but made a point of not recharging the strobe batteries. I took about 275 shots mostly at 1/4 power. When I did charge the cells, they seemed to be at least 1/2 full or more. A good sign, but I'll need more time to really access their efficiency.
To sum it up, I think the strobes are very nice but heavier than my existing Inon 330s. The utility of being functional for both Stills and Video is great. The LiOn batteries would allow me to retire all my NiMH chargers and simplify my charging accessories. I hope to figure out the multiple FPS issue, as this is probably the one feature that would make these more useful to me than the Inon 330s. Without that feature I am not sure they are worth the extra weight for the bulk of my underwater photography needs.
A few more shots from this weekend's dive. Nothing amazing, but a good sample of the HF-1 in use.
[Nikon Z8 w/24-50mm, WWL-C, Pair of Backscatter HF-1 strobes]
for a response on the rapid cycling. 3fps seems FAR less than what we're supposed to expect from these strobes (at the power level you were using).
