Experienced shooters: Are you considering moving from strobes to video lights?

[TostitoBandito]

I take mainly stills but have dabbled in video a bit since I upgraded to the Canon R5. No desire to get dedicated video lights. The small amount of video I shoot currently is all natural light, either shooting in 8K RAW and color grading in post, or doing manual WB in-camera and shooting compressed 4K video (and doing less color grading in post).

I would consider high quality strobes which also have integrated video lights, but there aren't really any on the market that I know of with adequate power. I shoot with dual Ikelite DS230's at the moment and there is a version of that strobe with a more powerful LED light, but it's still only 2500 lumens. Double or triple the power of that and it might be something, but it would kill the battery since the 2500 lumen light only burns for an hour (with zero strobe use). I get that it's a technical challenge.

Anyways, I'm not sure video lights will ever be as good as strobes for still images. There are some big downsides like scaring off wildlife before you get your image, way more difficult to fine tune power/lighting/exposure, battery usage, driving other divers insane, etc... It only really makes sense to me for people who are sort of the opposite of me, videographers who take occasional stills. If you are someone who is primarily a photographer, I can't think of any reason you wouldn't rather have strobes.

 

[lermontov]

I do not shoot video and I do not look at other diver/people video. A photograph (can) tell a story, a video is boring and reminds me of company that stays around too long. M

you might like a movie called 'shooting the past'

 

[Backscatter::Jim]

For all the nitty gritty details of why a strobe is best in most (almost all) situations for photo we did a video and article on this as it is one of the top questions we face on an everyday basis. Hope this clears up all the details on why a strobe is better.

Strobes vs. Video Lights for Underwater Photography - Underwater Photography - Backscatter

 

[DiveDiversions]

I just recently swapped out my Sea&Sea strobes for some Kraken Hydra 8000 video lights, apart from having adjustable brightness control and the flexibility of adding some colour/UV to shots, they also have a strobe mode with fibre ports, so I have the option off dimming the light to 0% with strobe mode for strobe like operation.
I also adjust the brightness based on what I'm doing, cruising around looking for subjects I'll have them at 20-30% to not blind my buddies and conserve battery life, and when I find something I'll adjust them up, very rarely do I run them at 100%.
For the strobe you have adjustment for strobe intensity.

Having flooded a couple of strobes and having other issues with them over the years, I'm happy to have moved away from them.

The one caveat to this that needs to be acknowledged is that the strobes on the video light will never match the power of that of a real strobe, saying this for me I've rarely need that power on the majority of the diving I have done and the camera I use.