Intova Nova Wide Angle / TUSA

[Deefstes]

Anyone familiar with the Intova Nova Wide Angle light? A friend of mine has the TUSA TUL-300 and I was quite impressed with it. I can't spot the difference though (other than the price and the branding). By the looks of it they're identical. What gives?

So I can buy the TUSA light locally for something around $140 which seems a bit steep to me. On ScubaStore I can get the Intova for around $90 (excluding shipping and import taxes) so it appears that the Intova light works out a bit cheaper.

My questions:
1. Is anyone familiar with the Intova light and can you recommend or criticize it?
2. Does anyone know how it differs from the TUSA light (if indeed it does)?
3. If I'm looking at this price range, are there any other lights that you think I should rather be considering?

I'm basically just looking for a light that I can stuff into my BC pocket, which I can use to peek under ledges or overhangs and which I could possibly use on night dives.

 

[HenrikBP]

No personal experience with that particular light, but you can get it for around $55 at buy.com, amazon.com and Leisurepro.com.

I have the Intova narrow beam light and have used it on a couple of dive trips. It's held up well and has worked well as primary light for clear water night diving. It's also ok for peering under ledges and such.

A few have reported that the switch fell out of an older light. I've seen no recent reports.

Henrik

 

[joystershell]

While I love my Intova Nova lights, both wide and narrow beam, batteries can be expensive for them. They take a special size that can be diffecult to find, ours were ordered on-line. Now, the newer Intova lights take three AAA batteries, so that might be more convenient. And, they change from high intensity to low to strobe.

 

[gcbryan]

Anyone familiar with the Intova Nova Wide Angle light? A friend of mine has the TUSA TUL-300 and I was quite impressed with it. I can't spot the difference though (other than the price and the branding). By the looks of it they're identical. What gives?

So I can buy the TUSA light locally for something around $140 which seems a bit steep to me. On ScubaStore I can get the Intova for around $90 (excluding shipping and import taxes) so it appears that the Intova light works out a bit cheaper.

My questions:
1. Is anyone familiar with the Intova light and can you recommend or criticize it?
2. Does anyone know how it differs from the TUSA light (if indeed it does)?
3. If I'm looking at this price range, are there any other lights that you think I should rather be considering?

I'm basically just looking for a light that I can stuff into my BC pocket, which I can use to peek under ledges or overhangs and which I could possibly use on night dives.

Check out this one at $49.25. It's the narrow version though (which I would prefer). You can get it either with the Cr123a batteries or with the AAA version.
Diving Back-Up Lights - Dive Gear Express

 

[Deefstes]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I haven't given this "wide angle" vs "concentrated beam" much consideration yet. One part of me thinks that the concentrated beam will be more powerful but then I'm wondering if the wide angle wouldn't perhaps have some advantages for photography that I can use it to light up a subject to some extent.

Any thoughts on the pros and cons of wide wangle and narrow angle?

 

[gcbryan]

It depends in part on how good the viability is in your area. Wide angle with poor viz just means illuminating a lot of backscatter. A focused beam will be brighter as it's putting all the output in a more concentrated area.

On the other hand if the viz is good you can see a greater area with a wider angle of course (assuming the light has enough power to properly illuminate a greater area).

For photography a dive light probably makes more difference for video than still. In any event when I was taking still photos underwater I found that using my light wasn't that effective. If you use it instead of a flash your pictures will be blurry since you can't use a shutter speed great enough to stop the motion. If you use it in addition to the flash in many cases it gives an unnatural look.

Many others may have different opinions on this. In any even this isn't that big a light and only has 130 lumen.

 

[Deefstes]

That answers my question, thanks.