Single Strobe - Will it work?

[gstroupe]

Greetings all, I am planning a trip to Turks and Caicos and will be bringing my new rig with me to get it wet for the first time. It consists of a Nikon D70 with Ikelite housing and a single DS-125 strobe. I could not afford 2 stobes at this point so I wanted some feedback from those of you that are in the know. Will I be wasting my time with a single strobe or will I still be able to get some good shots? Should I be focused more on macro shots or will wide angle shots still be viable? Any suggestions are appreciated.

thanks in advance.

 

[dbh]

It would help to know which WA lens you are using. If you are selective as to how you compose your WA shots, you will get satisfactory results. Use your diffuser. Macro & fish portraits will be fine with one strobe.

Dave

 

[RonFrank]

Greetings all, I am planning a trip to Turks and Caicos and will be bringing my new rig with me to get it wet for the first time. It consists of a Nikon D70 with Ikelite housing and a single DS-125 strobe. I could not afford 2 stobes at this point so I wanted some feedback from those of you that are in the know. Will I be wasting my time with a single strobe or will I still be able to get some good shots? Should I be focused more on macro shots or will wide angle shots still be viable? Any suggestions are appreciated.

thanks in advance.

You will be fine. In fact if you have not been shooting with a DSLR UW, I'd say one strobe is what you want to start with. Having two strobes while definately adding some benifits, also adds complexity to the system. Learning what techniques work with one strobe, and just dealing with positioning one strobe is a good start.

What you can not do is those point one strobe at the closer subject, and one at a farther subject type of WA shots that are sometimes effective at lighting subjects on different planes. But that requires coordination and balancing the lighting and is a lot of task loading.

For WA shots, you will need to balance the strobe against the available light. Generally photographers use the aperture to control the strobe exposure, and the shutter to control the background exposure.

Have fun, and I look forward to seeing the results. RU shooting with iTTL? I've been wanting to hear people impressions of doing that as most I talk with shoot in manual mode generally as they don't have all the right parts to get iTTL working.

 

[gstroupe]

I will be using a 60mm lens for macro and a sigma 15mm for WA shots. I have a flat port for the macro and a 6" dome for the Sigma. I will be using a iTTL sync cord for the strobe, I hope that helps reduce some variables so that I can focus on selecting the correct aperture and shutter speeds.

 

[Cacia]

I only have one strobe too. (same one as you) It works.... those puppies are expensive! lots of photo help on this board....really wonderful that people will share what they know.

 

[oly5050user]

Greetings all, I am planning a trip to Turks and Caicos and will be bringing my new rig with me to get it wet for the first time. It consists of a Nikon D70 with Ikelite housing and a single DS-125 strobe. I could not afford 2 stobes at this point so I wanted some feedback from those of you that are in the know. Will I be wasting my time with a single strobe or will I still be able to get some good shots? Should I be focused more on macro shots or will wide angle shots still be viable? Any suggestions are appreciated.

thanks in advance.

one strobe,the 125 that you have, will work fine..it has a wide area of coverage,especially with the diffuser on it/you may loose 1 f stop thou/ 2 strobes add to task loading for some ..check out my gallery..all done with 1 strobe ..some are done with a oly 5050 w a wa lens ike housing and 125 strobe some are with a nikonos 5 w a 15mm lens and a ike 150 strobe..1 strobe set up also gives you the most dramatic type shots when you do a cfwa shot(close focus wide angle) .Lights up the foreground with color..

 

[RonFrank]

I only have one strobe too. (same one as you) It works.... those puppies are expensive! lots of photo help on this board....really wonderful that people will share what they know.

Hey Catherine,

RU using iTTL? Curious what peoples experience are with this setup. I've got a D200 in my near future, and am thinking of biting the bullet, and getting the Ike Housing for that camera.

 

[Diver Dennis]

I use TTL for macro Ron and usually 1/2 power for wide angle.

 

[Gilligan]

I am using only 1 strobe and it works for me in most cases. The area where it is lacking is on wide angle shots.

As for the diffuser, I found it worked best on the macro shots but took away too much of the light on other shots. Supposedly you only have to turn the F stop up by 1/2 setting to compensate for using the Inon diffuser but I found that not to be the case, especially when I was in Bali where the background sand is black. I'm no expert but the majority of my shots came out better w/o the diffuser, especially the wide angle ones.

 

[Cacia]

wow, Gilligan. I will try that (taking the diffuser off for W/A).