Best Big Bang Strobes?

[WS007]

The guide numbers (GN's) are misleading and say almost nothing, as they are not taking into account how big the angle of the light cone is (the more narrow, the higher the GN at constant light output). GN's of Inon and Sea&Sea are even "measured" above the surface and do not take the absorption/scattering of light UW into account. In the table below, that I have compiled some time ago, one can see that the strobes with highest GNs are the weakest (the Retras in the table are still the old model and the 150W,s are from a third party source, probably it is less)...

Also with W.s (Joule) one must bear in the mind that this is just the energy consumed by a full discharge and the efficiency, i.e. the amount of energy that is emitted as light is not given (the rest is emitted as heat)...

Currently I own four Z330's and one (remaining) YS-D2, no need to acquire new strobes at present. In case I had to buy some it would be Retra, although they are expensive (approx 2000 Euro/strobe in Europe)...


Wolfgang

 

[AggressorBLUE]

Very informative, thank you Wolfgang!

Would you be able to expand a bit on what would push you towards Retra and away from Inon at this stage?

-Matt

 

[WS007]

Hi Matt,

My experience with Inon is good (other than Sea&Sea which I clearly do not recommend (I and many others have posted the issues here)), but I do not know what will happen in case I have to send one back for repair. Also at the moment the Z-330 is discontinued and hardly available...
The Retra factory is about 150 km away from me and I could easily bring my strobes personally there for repair and talk to them instead of sending somewhere. The light quality, thanks to the circular flash tube, is excellent (Color temperature and homogeneity). Also HSS and the rich choice of accessoires is on the positive side...

I believe the Z-330 (or the next model that will probably come out in autumn) is almost as good in practice. The Retra is relatively expensive, but I think one should not be stingy when it comes to the light in photography...


Wolfgang

 

[bvanant]

It is not clear to me what is meant by "weakest", since what is mostly important for taking pictures is how much light hits the subject and how much light gets bounced back to the sensor. For shooting something say 6 inches across a beam that is 24 inches in diameter doesn't help much. For shooting the reef of course then more photons are better. In the studio there are a ton of strobes where GN and Ws don't correlate in any way. More to the point in the table, comparing GN above (Inon, S&S) with below numbers make no sense in terms of power. Converting Ws to GN, is not terribly simple (it depends on all types of things like reflector design, and flash tube efficiency as Wolfgang points out).
Bill

 

[RedSeaDiver2]

The guide numbers (GN's) are misleading and say almost nothing, as they are not taking into account how big the angle of the light cone is (the more narrow, the higher the GN at constant light output). GN's of Inon and Sea&Sea are even "measured" above the surface and do not take the absorption/scattering of light UW into account. In the table below, that I have compiled some time ago, one can see that the strobes with highest GNs are the weakest (the Retras in the table are still the old model and the 150W,s are from a third party source, probably it is less)...

View attachment 786019

Also with W.s (Joule) one must bear in the mind that this is just the energy consumed by a full discharge and the efficiency, i.e. the amount of energy that is emitted as light is not given (the rest is emitted as heat)...

Currently I own four Z330's and one (remaining) YS-D2, no need to acquire new strobes at present. In case I had to buy some it would be Retra, although they are expensive (approx 2000 Euro/strobe in Europe)...


Wolfgang

Many thanks for providing that table Wolfgang - much appreciated - and very interesting!

 

[AggressorBLUE]

It is not clear to me what is meant by "weakest", since what is mostly important for taking pictures is how much light hits the subject and how much light gets bounced back to the sensor. For shooting something say 6 inches across a beam that is 24 inches in diameter doesn't help much. For shooting the reef of course then more photons are better. In the studio there are a ton of strobes where GN and Ws don't correlate in any way. More to the point in the table, comparing GN above (Inon, S&S) with below numbers make no sense in terms of power. Converting Ws to GN, is not terribly simple (it depends on all types of things like reflector design, and flash tube efficiency as Wolfgang points out).
Bill

Yes. This has been my biggest frustration in doing research on what stobes to upgrade to down the line. There’s no real effective measure of ‘horsepower’ in underwater strobe land. It’s hard to really understand in practical, comparable terms what separates, for example, the $1500 Retra Pro Max from the $500 Inon D200. I’m not saying the Retras price isn’t justified, but more it’s not clear what paying 3x more actually gets me.

 

[bvanant]

The reason that GN are useful (on land at least) is that you have a pretty good idea of your settings before you start, particularly in the studio. Underwater it is a mess, some companies give GN above water, some give GN underwater (typically in a pool), some give no GN but only a measure of capacitor discharge power. For macro and fish you pretty much can use any strobe. For wide angle particularly if you are trying to overpower the sun then the biggest ones you can afford is going to be necessary. Price is a very rough guide to power, but not always.
BVA

 

[rmorgan]

OneUW 160X strobes are brilliant, in both senses. And expensive. But the wide-angle results in reviews (Alex Mustard, Don Silcock) are very positive.

 

[Barmaglot]

For shooting something say 6 inches across a beam that is 24 inches in diameter doesn't help much. For shooting the reef of course then more photons are better.

You could make a case that for shooting something six inches across, strobe power doesn't really matter to begin with; anything above a camera's built-in flash will do. When assessing a strobe's total light output, W/s is a better measurement than GN, as you can widen a narrow beam with diffusers, or concentrate a wide beam with reflectors, but you can't make it more powerful overall. It's not foolproof, as total radiant flux is dependent on circuit efficiency and reflector design, but it's a good first approximation - provided, of course, that the manufacturer is honest with their numbers. Here, for example, an ostensibly 250 W/s Scubalamp D-Max is shown to be noticeably less bright overall than 150 W/s Retra Pro. On the other hand, Retra claims that their upcoming model refresh has similar or slightly higher light output compared to previous models due to more efficient circuit and reflector design, despite a slightly lower W/s rating (140 vs 150, 90 vs 100).

 

[bvanant]

My point exactly. GN if tested under uniform conditions tells you about light intensity under those conditions, Output in power tells you only about how much current is generated. We could bring some UW flash meters down and do the measurements (a la Bacscatter) but it doesn't matter much. Most of the strobes we are discussing are within a stop of each other, easy to compensate in other ways.
BVA