Dual strobes??

[Les]

what is the dealio with dual strobes? what is the pros/cons. Every dive is a new experience with my sealife DC 310 with a single 960 strobe. My pics are ok. some better than others. Our waters can be somewhat low vis and cold water. oh well. I have a friend with the same camera and she has the dual strobe setup. now she has to use the flash defuser because it is too bright. But yet many setups are a dual strobe and even Sealife offers the new 500 series with a dual setup. where do you point the dual setup as opposed to the single.
confused,
Les

 

[Diver Dennis]

I'm new to U/W photography too and shelled out the cash for dual strobes. I think with any strobe you do not point it directly at the subject. You want the edge of the flash to light the subject. Because the flash comes out in a cone shape, you want the edge of the cone to light the subject, lighting up the least amount of water in between.
This helps eliminate backscatter. There are a lot more experienced people here that can give you more help.

 

[Warren_L]

Having dual strobes isn't necessarily about having more power - at least for me, it's about having the angle of coverage, especially when shooting wide angle. For macro work, one strobe (or even the internal flash) can have great results. The 2nd strobe allows a bit more flexibility in lighting options. You can light the foreground and background differently, for example. For what I shoot locally, which are wrecks in low visibility, the angle of coverage and strobe power are key.

 

[OceanObsessed]

I am also considering dual strobes. Not for better lighting coverage but for miminizing backscatter. This backscatter minimizing technuique is discussed in Jim Church's "Essential Guide to Nikonos Systems". Double strobes seems very bulky though.

I am headed to the Stuart Cove shark dive in a couple of weeks and I am considering double strobes for the shark feeding... which I hear stirs up alot of sediment.

Can anyone here share their experiences with double strobes helping with backscatter?

Thanks
-Chris

 

[MarkH]

I find using 2 strobes with a wide angle lens in lower vis water makes it hard to "hide" the backscatter. I like using just one strobe because you can make sure the light only hits a close part of the photo that you want lit and the background stays unlit by the strobe.

 

[Capt Tom McCarthy]

Well for starters dual strobes are brighter, increase your strobe coverage and with the nice long arms allow you to cut down on back scatter a little due to the fact that you can push them out farther then a single and due to the overlapping light patterns you still get decent coverage. Those are just the technical aspects. There are alot of great artistic approaches with them you just can't get with a single strobe. Putting a second lighting direction on a subject can have a great result on the shadows and the textures of what your shooting. However they are twice as much money and a bit cumbersome at times. But they do add a whole new tool to your shots and to most serious photographers are a must have. There is one australian photographer I heard about though who delibrately uses one strobe and basically paints with the shadows.

 

[davide barzazzi]

Are two strobes better than one? Yes!

But it's not so easy!

First of all they must be used with arms long enough! Just to give you an idea I use two Inon D-2000 with ULCS arms, whose sections (4) are around 12"inches long each, so completely extended they are around 56"inches (8"inches is the lenght of the tray), and sometimes I think that they are too short!!!.

Then, the main problem is represented by the subjects of your photos and the lenses you'd like to use.
Two strobos are mainly used with wide angle lenses, sometimes with diffusers, when the area to be reproduced is very wide or the subject is very big (whale shark, for example).

Two strobos are also useful to avoid shadows produced by using just one strobo. In fact, when you use just one strobo in your photos you can easily notice the shadow of the subject (a fish) on the background, while using two strobos you can have the light well distributed on the whole picture.

With two strobos you can light the subject and the background giving "depth" to your pictures.

Than it's a matter of experience!!!!

Ciao

David

 

[swisstrav]

davide mentioned just about all the adventages. an other one is, when shooting macro using two strobs (ttl mode) you gain about one f-stop. when going 1:1 you will appreciate an f-stop as high as possible

if your pictures getting to bright, something is wrong. either adjust your f-stop or as i said, set both strobs to ttl mode. it wolrks the best with me.

swisstrav

 

[Larry C]

I've had a lot of problems with shadows using one strobe. Especially, shooting in rocks, your strobe placement has to be perfect or you get a black subject with a rock that's well lit. With two strobes, you can light top and bottom or both sides without blasting the subject and chancing a whiteout. You get well balanced light and good background detail. If you want more depth, you can get all that and depth by just upping the f-stop as was just suggested.

 

[mike_lutz]

I went to dual strobes for the first time and found the quality of my picutres are much better. It is a little tricky getting the proper placement, but once you get it set, you'll be impressed.