Epoque Flashes

[NevadaM]

All,

Very interesting reading here. I too have been looking at the Epoque strobes, also for the wrong reasons (the lower price). Unfortunately, I also have a limited budget after the costs of getting to the place where you want to use the strobe. Thanks to all who are trying to steer us beginners straight. You are very right, "you get what you pay for" as a rule, not very often that rule is broken. Now I need to start shopping for either an Inon or Ikelite or something that works with the Oly C-750.

Nevada

 

[Gazzer]

You may be interested in the following test reports which compares the most popular strobes and gives real world values
http://www.scubacam.com.sg/pages/Strobe Test.pdf

Also a detailed description of the strobe with photographs
http://www.scubacam.com.sg/pages/strobes/epoque150.htm

The strobe puts out a large amount of light for it's size. This is however over a relatively small area as you cam imagine. It is perefectly good enough for most potrait and all macro shots which is 90% of what most entry level photographers will use it for. the strobe DOES work no question. The down side is that the construction is not up to the standard of some of the more well known names. The battery compartment does feel flimsy but actually we have had no units returned due to flooding nor have we flooded our own test unit which has ben used quite a bit.

My advice would be:

If you are only an occasional diver and have no ambition to get your photographs on the front page of your local dive magazine then it would be a reasonable choice (I mean this in the sense that you would be using much higher end camera equipment, the strobe itself is capable of prize winning results). Or indeed when limited budgets mean no choice

If you think that you will be diving on a regular basis or indeed think that the strobe will be hard used then common sense suggest it worth saving the pennies and buying something else.

Hope this helps!

 

[Gilligan]

I had an Epoque strobe about two years ago. I found it to be inadequate and about as equally powerful as the Oly built in strobe. I sold it on eBay and bought the Inon D-180. Sunpak also markets a small strobe almost identical to the Epoque.

 

[Gazzer]

I had an Epoque strobe about two years ago. I found it to be inadequate and about as equally powerful as the Oly built in strobe. I sold it on eBay and bought the Inon D-180. Sunpak also markets a small strobe almost identical to the Epoque.

Did you read the test report? Flash meter does not lie!! Strobe is more than adequate, no question. Construction quality questionable yes! You can't compare the Epoque external strobe with a cameras built in flash. Would suggest camera settings were your problem?

 

[Gilligan]

That is quite possible as I had the Epoque when I first started in digital underwater photography and had little experience with the camera.