focus light needed

[roswin]

:huh: I really need a focus light for my gear. I use a C-5050 in Oly PT-015 case and recently I bought a Z-240. Before that I used a D-180. Both the strobes have a focus light but with the z-240, the light should be covered with a red plastic thing and so the light produced is not enought to let you see something thorugh the LCD in night dives. I use a arm and tray system (http://www.uwdigitalcamera.com/En/prod_08tar_grp.php?pathID=2_8_gid&tarGID=667965544152) so my questions are:
-which focus light would you suggest?
-how would you attach it to this kind of setup?
Thanks to all of you guys.

 

[Quero]

Have you considered not putting the red sticker over the focus light? I left it off my Inon strobe after I heard Mathieu Meur give a talk at ADEX. He said that covering the focus light with the red sticker really served no purpose and only dimmed the focus light to an extent that it became useless.

 

[roswin]

I though that the red plastic was absolutely necessary for correct s-TTL functioning

 

[gert7to3]

Digital imaging chips are generally more red sensitive. That's why many digital cameras, especially point & shoot models, have a red illuminator light, which goes on in low light situations. The red is to assist with focusing not TTL exposure.

An illumination (modeling) light which is too bright can confuse the auto exposure metering of your camera. The strobe may not even trigger if the auto setting decides there is sufficient light from the illuminator alone or it may cause overexposure on part of the image.

 

[JackConnick]

Not using the red sticker shouldn't cause any problems. However, usually you don't want the strobe pointing directly at the subject. I use the Fantasea LED44 light for even illumination of my subject. I generally shoot at around 125th or higher to avoid any light issues from a focus light, even so.
You should also consider shooting in auto exposure or manual rather than STTL for a little faster recycle and more control.
If you're interested I sell the Fantasea LED44 lights at a discount from $70, for $55. We have some mounts and arms coming soon. Email or PM me.

Jack

 

[roswin]

I just bought a LED 44. It looks nice and it doesn't have a hot spot. I will tell you soon how it works.
Thank you all and thank you Jack for your offer which is great (I bought it in Israel since Fantasea is located here and the price was good too).

 

[rwe]

I have a Suprema U-Beam 44 LED dive light which appears to be identical to the Fantasea LED44 light. I simply use electrical tape to attach it to the strobe. I use a piece of foam to make the light straight with the strobe. The light has no hot spot and is very white (6100 degrees K, which is good, I think). The major downside of the light is that the intensity drops off fairly rapidly with time. Don't expect to get the 8 hours between battery changes as advertised. One ebay website marketing this light now indicates that it drops from the initial 640 lux to 230 lux at 3 hours. I wrote Fantasea about this and they indicated that this was not consistent with their 'extensive testing before marketing'. I also asked for output vs time and/or voltage and max voltage (so that I could power with external battery pack) and they indicated that they had no technical info other than what is on the box.

 

[HowardE]

I just got a focus light... I went to reef photo, and got a ULCS arm, clamp, light holder, and an ikelite C4 flashlight, and it worked perfectly... The whole setup was only $125 US, including the flashlight. I used it last night...

The light is only for focusing, not to substitute a strobe, so this inexpensive setup was all I needed.