Focus light

[arkstorm]

If battery life is more important to you than size I recommend the Ikelite Pro V8 LED. It works great as a focus light and lasts 10 hours at full power with 8 C-cell batteries. It is advertised as 500 lumen. I have a pair of these for shooting video but when I'm shooting stills I mount one in the center, works great.

 

[bvanant]

I'm sure this has been covered... But what is the favorite focus light out there these days?

On the trip I just got off, for night shots I zip tied my backup light to my flash arm and it was ok... Except for not staying aimed and leaving a hot spot in the image ....

Any ideas?

(rig is s95, canon housing, ys27 (1), with dual arm tray which I could put light on)

Thanks

The Sola 600/500 is probably far and away the favorite right now, but as Larry says, you need to buy 2 if you are doing a bunch of dives repetitively. They are bright and light. The use proprietary batteries. The next level down a bit in price is the new i-video light that uses 4 AA batteries, is quite a bit heavier, has red leds as well. Optical Ocean sells them. Then you go down to things like the Fantasea 44 LED lights.

The reason you don't necessarily want to use your strobes as focus lights is that in general you really don't want your strobes to be pointed directly at the subjects.

I have a barely used Fisheye 500 lumen light (8 aa batteries) for sale if you are interested, PM me.

Bill

 

[under water]

I have a sola600 and find it very easy to turn off. You don't need to have it turned on your whole dive, flick it on just when you need it. It does have 3 levels and the lowest level can be enough to get focus if using as a focus light and that will last a lot longer than 75 minutes, I think something like 6 hours in one review. I have never had mine run out of power on a dive. You probably want to use the high level for video, but that's a lot of video.

I agree that that the idea of not being able to have an immediately fully charged one can be a problem sometimes, although on a live-aboard you can plug it in within minutes of surfacing to top it off. I plug mine in immediately upon returning for a dive, regardless of how much I used it.
The red light is enough for my camera to focus on the subject and I guess doesn't freak out some critters as much as the white light. I do however wish the sola red light turned off when strobe was actuated as I have seen some small residue of red in some strobe pictures with wide apertures. My sola600 only has one setting for red, bright, but equiv in power use to the lowest of the white leds. The newer ones have three red levels, which if all you used was the lowest, might last a whole dive trip without recharging.

I agree with what has been said above about aiming/target lights. Aiming/target lights on strobes are there to see where your strobes are aimed.
You generally don't want to aim your strobe at your subject and so aiming lights that are fixed to the axis of the strobe can be iffy as focus lights. They work best as a focus light when not using your strobe.. if that makes sense.
They usually are too weak to use as a video light. They work fine as a backup dive light.

If you want to get a focus light with very little expense, get the nano.

 

[Craig Hoover]

If price is an issue check out the Fantasea LED 44. It is slightly larger than the Solas. Burn time is 4 hours. It provides even lighting but its angle of coverage and brightness are significantly less than a Sola 600 or 1200.

If you are interested in a light that is only a focus light the LED 44 will do. If you can afford it, get the Sola for its capabilities as both a dive light and a focus light.

 

[Ardy]

Do you not use your focus light because of battery burn or because you don't shoot in conditions that require you to use a focus light?

Graham - focus lights in flashes are not too useful. Where you centre the flash is often not the object of the photo, you often want to use the 'edge' of the flash to illuminate the object and that means that the focus light is off with the pixies.

I only use a focus light at night and try to get away with it during the day. Often what you want to photograph is not hanging around and if you have to ensure the focus light is aimed at it, then set your camera, it is often a photo too far away.

I find the focus lights in my SnS110a is handy for macro shots in dark areas of a reef where you have the time to turn it on before taking the shot.

 

[Fota]

I disagree! ;-)

Except from shooting wide angle from a distance (when you position your strobes far from the camera), the strobe's pointing _can_ be very useful as focus light. But, it depends on the strobe, and maybe on the number of strobes.

Ikelite's DS161 has a 500 lumens LED, very wide and very smooth pointing light. Even on full power, it barely affects the strobes battery life, and it will be auto turned off (actually strongly dimmed down) when the strobe fires.

It is so strong, wide and smooth so that, unless you are pointing in a complete different direction, you will get a nice light on the subject even if you are using edge strobe ligthning techniques.

Is it cheap? No...
Is it good? Yes!

If you use two strobes, it's even better.
And, you don't have to bring video lights for shooting video (i.e. if you think that 2 x 500 lumens is enough), so you can go from video to pictures without changing the lightening system.

You can also use it as great night dive light/s. Unless conditions are really bad (and you instead need a narrow beam), having two (or one) 500 lumens wide smooth light is really nice. Yes, when shooting wide angle, you would theoritically see particles lit up by the pointing light, but as it will be auto dimmed down, that is taken care of.

Some may argue that 2 x 500 lumens is too little for video. Well, I wont disagree, but it's sooo much better than no video light, and really with a modern low noise D-SLR, 2 x 500 lumens works great for macro to normal (unless you are shooting from a far distance). Wide angle could of course benefit from more power, how much more depends on the lens, camera, condition and distance to the object.

My plan is to use it in combination with a FIXLED1000. But I guess I should write more about that in a thread dedicated to video light.

Perhaps there are other strobes on the market with as good (or better!) poiting lights as the Ikelite DS-161?

 

[herbdb]

I am using this one, inexpensive, good battery life and it turns off so you get no hotspot.

Fisheye Mini LED Focus Light [fix.mini.light] - $49.00 : Reef Photo & Video!, The Underwater Photo Pros

 

[Fota]

I am using this one, inexpensive, good battery life and it turns off so you get no hotspot.

Fisheye Mini LED Focus Light [fix.mini.light] - $49.00 : Reef Photo & Video!, The Underwater Photo Pros

Personally I find such focus lights to be too weak and have a way too narrow beam. I used to use similar focus lights but spent too much time and effort making them point exactly where I wanted them.

FIXLED 500/1000, Sola, DS-161 etc are all very wide so you don't have to bother about positioning. As they are so wide (and strong), they simply always lighten up the area where you want to focus.

I use a FIXLED1000, but it's overkill for focus. 500 lumens is more than enough for that, but I double it as a night dive ligth and video light.
Very happy with the FIXLED1000. Never given me any trouble at all. Always delivered.

I have just ordered its red & yellow filter combo and holder for it. In Sweden I have never experienced that the FIXLED1000 scares any fish, crabs, lobster, cray fish etc, not even on night dives. I did a night dive on the red sea recently though and that was a different story. Either it was me who scared the fish, or the light did. Anyway, I will give the new red filter a try but I mainly wanted the yellow filter so that the color temperature will get closer to the color temperature of the DS-161.

 

[Larry C]

After using the Sola 600 several more times since my last post, I'd like to update that the battery seems to get stronger with use and recharging (which seems to be common with lithium ion batteries). Yesterday, I did two dives, of 45 minutes and 55 minutes. When I put the light on the charger this morning, the recharge indicator was still showing green. I've been waiting to turn the light on till I'm underwater, not while I'm gearing up as I usually do, and turning it off during ascent. This saves probably 10 minutes of light time per dive, but additionally, the light seems to be holding its charge longer during full power use.

 

[Ardy]

Ikelite's DS161 has a 500 lumens LED, very wide and very smooth pointing light. Even on full power, it barely affects the strobes battery life, and it will be auto turned off (actually strongly dimmed down) when the strobe fires.

It is so strong, wide and smooth so that, unless you are pointing in a complete different direction, you will get a nice light on the subject even if you are using edge strobe ligthning techniques.

Is it cheap? No...
Is it good? Yes!

If you use two strobes, it's even better.
And, you don't have to bring video lights for shooting video (i.e. if you think that 2 x 500 lumens is enough), so you can go from video to pictures without changing the lightening system.


Perhaps there are other strobes on the market with as good (or better!) pointing lights as the Ikelite DS-161?

Very interesting Fota. Last time I looked the Ikelite strobes needed a converter to use on a non ikelite housing. Is this still true? They are certainly excellent strobes but I did not know about the quality of their inbuilt focus lights.

Don't understand why Ikelite does not sell their strobes on the general market they have a great reputation and if what Fota says is true, they would be ideal for new DSLR's with decent video.