Strobe Dilemna

[Hotpuppy]

It sounds like you have trouble with O-rings, not strobes. OK, don't beat yourself up any more. Switch to an optically coupled system using a fiber optic cable to the strobe. You'll need a new strobe probably (I'm not sure what model of Sea&Sea, some allow optical cords). The benefit of using optical is you don't expose electronics to water.

I have a YS-120DUO / TTL. Big flash. 105 x 105 coverage (which is essentialy raise your arms in a V or 30% of a circle) GN 22 on land. 8 AA batteries which in theory yield several hundred flashes.

I opted to buy a Ikelite cable to link the strobe to the housing. This will eliminate the pre-flash nonsense and trigger the flash as a manual mode.

I also bought a Ikelite color correction filter which should help with the color.

I'm hedging my bets by bringing the diffuser card for the housing. I don't have the diffuser for the strobe, although honestly one could be made with a plastic bag and some electrical tape if it comes down to where I think I need one. And yes, I carry a roll of 3m electrical tape in my dive kit. Never know what you need to tape or secure.

I also ordered some extra o-rings for both ends of the cable and ikelite grease.

This gives me a primary light solution, a color correction solution and two fallback positions. The two fallback solutions would be built-in flash with color correcting filter, and no flash with color correcting filter.

I will eventually upgrade my strobe to a TTL version and keep the YS-120 as a slave for fill use or sell the YS-120.

I'm hoping by next year to make the leap to dSLR for my dive photography. I'll get there when I'm ready. For now the G9 is what I'm willing to risk. I want to get a few trips under my belt and be where I feel like the obstacle to better photos is the camera. Right now the obstacles are user, experience, and lighting. I'm still a relatively new diver even though I've got a good start and a good training base.