underwater housing for Nikon SB 900?

[haring]

Does anybody use underwater housing for Nikon SB 900? Here is the link: Aqua Tech ND-900 Underwater Housing for Nikon SB-900 1083 B&H

My question:
Is it good, bad? Is it better or worse than underwater strobes specifically designed for underwater (Ikelite DS 125, 160, 161)? What is the advantage, disadvantage of getting one?

 

[Larry C]

Fantasea and Subal made housings for the SB-800. The housing that you're linking to has adequate depth rating, but they state that it can only be used with the Aquatech housing for the camera, which is not a dive housing but rather a surf housing designed for those who want to take action pictures in shallow water for surfing, kite boarding, and that sort of thing. I don't know if it will work with any other housing.
The SB-900 will work fine underwater and the ttl system works great with Nikon cameras. It won't give as broad a coverage as a strobe specific to underwater shooting, but should work great for macro and portrait work. Probably wouldn't be so good for wide-angle shooting. I used a housed Olympus strobe with my point and shoot, and tried it with a cheap slave to get more power. By the time I was done I had spent enough money to buy the quality underwater strobe I should have bought to begin with.
Patima makes a machined aluminum uw housing for the SB-900 that takes a standard 5 pin cord, but the housing is $899 and the cord will be another $89. At that rate, you could have bought a couple of YS-110's on E-Bay, or a Inon Z-240 and had some change left.

 

[JoeinLA]

That's what's great about these forums I'm looking at exactly the same thing - whether to buy a housing for my SB-900 or get a dedicated underwater strobe.

If it's not "better", then the only advantage is see for using a "land flash" vs. a dedicated underwater strobe is weight Otherwise, it seems like the housings cost more (or as much) as the dedicated underwater strobes. OTOH, if you want CLS and remote positioning of your strobe (which I can see wanting if you're REALLY serious ), it looks like you have to go with a land flash and UW - I think I saw an UW housing for the Pocket Wizard remote trigger somewhere...

Any other thoughts/comments/opinions?

 

[Larry C]

You can use a remote trigger on a UW strobe. Generally, I think people slave the remote strobe. I believe Heinrichs/Weikamp makes slave triggers for underwater use, and I read a couple of articles on backlighting with remote triggers that mentioned some specific gear, but I can't recall the source. One example I saw was a cave shot with a strobe mounted in the mouth of the cave to light a diver entering.

 

[JoeinLA]

So then, assuming your underwater strobe has TTL, it doesn't seem like there's any advantage to using your land-flash vs. a dedicated underwater strobe?