Strobe for a C7070?

[dj793]

I am looking into buying a strobe to go with my C7070. Any ideas? I have an Olympus housing and do most of my diving in the great lakes. What is everyone else using? thanks....

 

[RAWalker]

Here is a very inexpensive suggestion for ya... Pixtreme has a slavestrobe that can be found for $100 w/ housing, flex arm, diffusers, extra O-ring, lube, O-ring tool and tray you'll need the sync cable which is another $15 or so. It uses 2 AAA batteries and I've cycled over 100 shots at full power on a set.
I know it will sync with my C4040 with it's sync setting set at 2.
I have 2 of then and now use them with my Fuji F-700 which requires a sync setting of 1
This is the same strobe as Fantasea markets under the model name Nano but as the Pixtreme can be found for significantly less money.

 

[gary-ramey]

I'll probably open my mouth and insert my foot but you just went from "I just want photos" to "how can I make them look better". In the process you'll probably end up opening up your wallet. I'm going to take a wild guess here and say visibility on a good day is about 25ft? Usually some turbid water or kicked up sediment? Are you wanting fish pics? If you're doing wrecks, any strobe will be useless. Fellow diver pics? I would start here. Kelpfish.net and look at his strobe positioning lesson for turbid water. I would then go to this site Underwater Strobe Comparison Guide - Digital Diver Network Then I would answer this series of questions.
1. Am I ever going to upgrade to a DSLR
2. How much money do I have to spend
3. Have I figured in the cost of an arm and cable

Does the 7070 have a hotshoe? If so, do you already own an FL20 or FL36 Olympus Flash? They make housings for them. The advantage to these strobes is using the Olympus TTL from your camera.

take it slow and have fun with the learning process. Don't pull the trigger too quickly.

 

[jlyle]

Don't go cheap on your strobe(s) - you'll wind up replacing it with the strobe you should have bought in the first place. While cameras & housings go out of production and get replaced with newer toys, the strobes are upwardly mobile. A very nice (and unfortunately expensive) strobe is the Ikelite DS-125 with an EV controller (slave strobe, 10 setttings). You will also need a tray and arms... There are some used ones for sale over on wetpixel.com

Underwater photography is a hole into which we throw money...

 

[Daz]

Does the 7070 have a hotshoe? If so, do you already own an FL20 or FL36 Olympus Flash? They make housings for them. The advantage to these strobes is using the Olympus TTL from your camera.

I wouldn't go that route (again). I have an FL-20 and had a PFL-01 for it - the FL-20 works great in air, but I found it to be inadequate underwater. I'm in the process of upgrading to an Inon Z240, but there are other strobes out there for less that will easily outperform the FL-20/PFL-020 combo.

Daz

 

[gary-ramey]

I had the FL20 as well and found it great for macro and fish pics. It was certainly underpowered for anything WA. I just purchased my 2nd Inon Z240 and love it. BTW Daz, you might want to look at Yuzo's prices on the Z240....around $500.

 

[AndyT]

I have been using 2 x S&S YS 90 Autos with my 7070 and Oly housing for around 3 years now. I also added a Heinrichsweikamp TTL converter which works fine with the strobes. I had some issues recently and went back to fibre optic cables. The problem is that the strobes have an "auto" sensor which plays havoc with my strobe settings - the strobe adjusts it's light output according to the ambient light and rarely get's it right.

I am now about to spring for 2 x Inon Z240's .

Why? Because they are compact, light (for travelling) you can get TTL either with a fibre optic or hard wired solution and they will work with most DSLR's for when you upgrade like I am doing at the moment.

Like jlyle says, don't go cheap - you will end up spending money twice.

 

[gary-ramey]

Just got my 2nd Inon Z240 last week