nwflyboy
Contributor
I'm gearing up for a major dive trip and trying to make sense of my options for lighting, and seeking advice. The parameters....
We're warm water/recreational divers. Our dive trips involve lots of flying to tropical destinations, usually half-way around the world (multiple long flights), to places that often require flights on smaller and smaller aircraft (and then maybe a boat). This means gear that's compact, lightweight, and travel friendly is critical. I'm not interested in big, complex, delicate rigs - I know those are the professionals' choices, but I'm looking for gear that's much more modest, and travel-friendly.
I'm currently shopping for some related items: dive lights, and lights for video. The dive lights will be our primary lights for night dives. We won't be doing any cave/tech/murky stuff - we will be doing a handful of night dives in clear (I hope), tropical waters.
So I'm looking for a couple of compact, but nice 'n bright hand lights. The "CREE MC-E" light often discussed here - available from either DealExtreme or from Tactical HID/Novae (seems to be the same guy) appear to be a nearly perfect choice for this (assuming they don't flood...). Small, super-bright, not crazy expensive. I'm just about there, but....
I'm also looking for a lighting system for my (as yet unused) video setup. I currently have a Canon HF200 video cam in a Canon WP-V1 case. I do not have a tray or lights for it. I expect that it would probably do OK in the first 20 feet of water (assuming it's sunny and clear) but shooting at any real depth will require some real lighting.
I could just do the obvious and get some off-the-shelf system to rig a light or two on a stalk to it (Ikelite or whatever), toss another 500 bucks at the lights and be done with it. But I'm looking around at all the electronic crap I will be hauling around the planet, and a few things quickly become obvious:
We currently live in a crazy world where every dang thing you own uses a different size/type of battery - and its own charger (well, I do anyway). I've resigned myself to having to lug around a lot of different batteries/chargers, but would it be too much to ask for find just a couple items that could use the same batteries? It seems that every device almost tries to use a different setup intentionally!
Since I'm currently on the verge of buying a couple of compact primary lights (one each for me and the Mrs), and then another 1 or 2 lights for the video camera, I've also been thinking about just how much I'm going to be using each of the different lights. The primary lights will probably be used mostly on a few night dives. Otherwise, they'll mostly be stashed in a BC pocket or clipped to a D-ring on the BC. The video light(s) will be used when I'm shooting video/stills. I expect to do that on most dives, but I will certainly skip the camera on some dives - and those could easily be the night dives. So a couple of things come to mind...
First, maybe I can find a light that would work as both the hand-held light for the occasional night dive and also would work as a video light. I would be happy to bring along less stuff and just have a couple of double-duty lights.
I have seen one or two do-it-yourself video rigs that others have assembled for the CREE MC-E lights - they seem to work but I'm not crazy about the collection of PVC pipes, metal brackets, and other bits that have been utilized (nothing wrong with that - it's great to save money at Home Depot - but it's not for me, at least for long distance travel). I'm wondering if there might be some stock tray/arm combination that would accept the CREE MC-E lights at the end. How hard would it be to find a rig that had clamps at the ends of the arms sized right for these lights?
I'm not necessarily married to the CREE MC-E lights. They seem great for a handheld light, though. If I could find another decent light (bright, compact, not stunningly expensive) that would work for both applications, that would be great, too.
What I don't want to end up with, though, is two handheld lights, with a bag of batteries and a charger, and one or two video lights, with a different bag of batteries and dedicated charger. I've already got too many already.
I'm sure I'm not the first traveling diver to face this conundrum. There's a market here for some manufacturer who offers lights that do double-duty, or at very least least a full line of electronic gizmos that all use the same &*#! batteries.
Yes, I know that batteries are optimzied for each application (and so are lights). I understand that making something work for more than one purpose will result in it being somewhat less efficient for each purpose (the "swiss army knife" syndrome). But I still think there's enough room for overlap that well-designed components could still work well enough, and the benefits of less crap to haul around (and less redundant stuff to buy) could make up for that. OK, rant over for now.
So to my specific questions....
I know my gear is not going to produce National Geographic-quality footage or stills. That's OK. I'd like decent quality and I'd like to not spend a fortune to get it. And most of all I'd like to be able to bring it all with me to faraway places.
Thanks for any recommendations.
We're warm water/recreational divers. Our dive trips involve lots of flying to tropical destinations, usually half-way around the world (multiple long flights), to places that often require flights on smaller and smaller aircraft (and then maybe a boat). This means gear that's compact, lightweight, and travel friendly is critical. I'm not interested in big, complex, delicate rigs - I know those are the professionals' choices, but I'm looking for gear that's much more modest, and travel-friendly.
I'm currently shopping for some related items: dive lights, and lights for video. The dive lights will be our primary lights for night dives. We won't be doing any cave/tech/murky stuff - we will be doing a handful of night dives in clear (I hope), tropical waters.
So I'm looking for a couple of compact, but nice 'n bright hand lights. The "CREE MC-E" light often discussed here - available from either DealExtreme or from Tactical HID/Novae (seems to be the same guy) appear to be a nearly perfect choice for this (assuming they don't flood...). Small, super-bright, not crazy expensive. I'm just about there, but....
I'm also looking for a lighting system for my (as yet unused) video setup. I currently have a Canon HF200 video cam in a Canon WP-V1 case. I do not have a tray or lights for it. I expect that it would probably do OK in the first 20 feet of water (assuming it's sunny and clear) but shooting at any real depth will require some real lighting.
I could just do the obvious and get some off-the-shelf system to rig a light or two on a stalk to it (Ikelite or whatever), toss another 500 bucks at the lights and be done with it. But I'm looking around at all the electronic crap I will be hauling around the planet, and a few things quickly become obvious:
We currently live in a crazy world where every dang thing you own uses a different size/type of battery - and its own charger (well, I do anyway). I've resigned myself to having to lug around a lot of different batteries/chargers, but would it be too much to ask for find just a couple items that could use the same batteries? It seems that every device almost tries to use a different setup intentionally!
Since I'm currently on the verge of buying a couple of compact primary lights (one each for me and the Mrs), and then another 1 or 2 lights for the video camera, I've also been thinking about just how much I'm going to be using each of the different lights. The primary lights will probably be used mostly on a few night dives. Otherwise, they'll mostly be stashed in a BC pocket or clipped to a D-ring on the BC. The video light(s) will be used when I'm shooting video/stills. I expect to do that on most dives, but I will certainly skip the camera on some dives - and those could easily be the night dives. So a couple of things come to mind...
First, maybe I can find a light that would work as both the hand-held light for the occasional night dive and also would work as a video light. I would be happy to bring along less stuff and just have a couple of double-duty lights.
I have seen one or two do-it-yourself video rigs that others have assembled for the CREE MC-E lights - they seem to work but I'm not crazy about the collection of PVC pipes, metal brackets, and other bits that have been utilized (nothing wrong with that - it's great to save money at Home Depot - but it's not for me, at least for long distance travel). I'm wondering if there might be some stock tray/arm combination that would accept the CREE MC-E lights at the end. How hard would it be to find a rig that had clamps at the ends of the arms sized right for these lights?
I'm not necessarily married to the CREE MC-E lights. They seem great for a handheld light, though. If I could find another decent light (bright, compact, not stunningly expensive) that would work for both applications, that would be great, too.
What I don't want to end up with, though, is two handheld lights, with a bag of batteries and a charger, and one or two video lights, with a different bag of batteries and dedicated charger. I've already got too many already.
I'm sure I'm not the first traveling diver to face this conundrum. There's a market here for some manufacturer who offers lights that do double-duty, or at very least least a full line of electronic gizmos that all use the same &*#! batteries.
Yes, I know that batteries are optimzied for each application (and so are lights). I understand that making something work for more than one purpose will result in it being somewhat less efficient for each purpose (the "swiss army knife" syndrome). But I still think there's enough room for overlap that well-designed components could still work well enough, and the benefits of less crap to haul around (and less redundant stuff to buy) could make up for that. OK, rant over for now.
So to my specific questions....
- Would the CREE MC-E lights work well for a video light?
- If yes, is there any set of stock, off-the-shelf components (tray, arms, clamps) that could attach them to my camera? If so, whose has it (or where would be a good place to look)?
- Are there any better lights that could double as a primary hand-held light for easy, recreational night dives in clear water, and also work as a reasonable video light? If so, which ones, and where to look for them?
I know my gear is not going to produce National Geographic-quality footage or stills. That's OK. I'd like decent quality and I'd like to not spend a fortune to get it. And most of all I'd like to be able to bring it all with me to faraway places.
Thanks for any recommendations.
) and you can see how the spots are too bright. In the Nakaya video I cut out some discs of plastic milk jug material and that reduced the beam intensity somewhat (but it is still there). My experiments continue...
