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Underwater Flash for Compact Cameras
Underwater flash units or strobes are an essential part of any underwater photographers equipment locker. Unfortunately many beginning underwater photographers end up with underwater strobes that through a combination of factors end up disappointing them. Underwater strobe photography can really lift your photographs providing rich colours, illumination for night photography and creative lighting choices - but only if you understand underwater strobes and how to use them.
INON S-2000, D-2000 and Z-240 underwater flashes combine five all- important benefits: High power, wide- angle coverage, TTL automation, manual overides and fast recycling.
All flash guns carry a Guide Number (GN) which is a measure of how powerful the strobe is. A low power strobe might have a GN of 14m, a high power strobe a GN of 20m and a professional strobe a GN of 24m. Although Guide Numbers have a number in metres ascribed to them, this is not the distance at which they can light a subject. Instead the GN is used to calculate the F stop or aperture needed to photograph something at a given distance. In reality, because of the variability of water clarity strobes have much less range under the water than they do in air. This range is reduced even further if you want to see strong colours in your underwater photographs. For good colour reproduction underwater, the maximum range of a high power underwater strobe tops out at about 1.5 to 2 metres. One reason there's so much emphasis on using wide - angle lenses underwater is to enable an underwater photographer to get close enough to a large subject for his flash unit to be effective. INON underwater flashes have high Guide Numbers of either 20m or 24m.
Most underwater photographers won't want to restrict themselves to only photographing small to medium sized fish and close up subjects. These subjects can be handled by a compact cameras built in lens. Most underwater flashes can easily cover the angle of built in camera lenses. But to photograph other divers, larger subjects like mantas and sections of coral reef and shipwrecks, you'll have to invest in a wide -angle lens. There's a lot of misleading sales pitches about what are only dome ports and what are genuine wide - angle lenses. Some dome ports are marketed in such a way as to imply they are wide - angle lenses or suited to wide - angle photography. So check with us before making a lens purchase. We've been shocked at how many people have fallen for this trick. We regard a moderate wide- angle lens as one that covers 100 degrees, such as the INON UWL105AD, INON UWL H100 , UWL100 - 28AD or UWL100M67. To avoid hot spots, your underwater flash unit also needs to cover this angle. Many budget strobes can provide a high GN for distance shooting, but can't also provide coverage for wide - angle lenses. Some get over this by adding a diffuser - this spreads the beam of your underwater flash, but can reduce its range by half. INON strobes all cover 100 degrees without using a diffuser. In tests, by adding a very weak diffuser that absorbs very little light, we've found a single INON strobe can acceptably light the INON UFL165AD fisheye lens from corner to corner - quite an achievement.
Many beginning underwater photographers struggle to get the flash exposure right. Pictures are often under exposed, with muted colours, or over exposed causing divers flesh tones to burn out. It can take several goes to get the adjustments right using manual camera and manual flash settings and this takes time. Many underwater strobes offer an "auto" feature, which is meant to do the hard work for you. These rely on a light meter built into the underwater flash. Because this light meter isn't linked to your cameras own light meter, it doesn't automatically know which exposure settings your camera has chosen. This can lead to getting the flash exposure badly wrong, especially with compact cameras used on automatic settings. The light meter built into the flash also needs to be aimed directly at the subject. This may seem logical, but it can badly compromise how you aim your strobe, causing backscatter and creating unwanted shadows. INON S-2000, D-2000 and Z-240 underwater flashes use INON's Optical S-TTL metering system. This uses your cameras light meter to fully control the flash exposure. This is highly accurate, fast and easy to use and does not place any restrictions on strobe aiming. This allows you to edge light, as taught on our underwater photography courses, which helps avoid backscatter and creates even lighting that is pleasing to the eye. Auto strobes had largely been dropped by land camera users by the end of the seventies because TTL was so much more user friendly and reliable.
Automation that actually works does make underwater flash photography much easier when you are starting out. As you get more experience though, you may want to take more control. Sometimes this is to deal with difficult subjects that fool even the best light meters. Other times it will be to more subtly light your subjects as automatic flash systems can be harsh. INON underwater flashes have TTL adjustments that let you handle these situations very easily as well as either 12 or 13 manual power settings. These manual power settings give you very fine control of your flash exposure. INON use a click stopped power dial that provides a different power setting with each click. We prefer these to a continually adjustable power dial. Click stops make it very easy to quickly set the precise output that you want time after time
Fast recycling allows you to shoot quickly using your underwater strobe. Some underwater strobes can take as long as seven or more seconds to recycle. You can miss a lot of once in a lifetime shots while waiting for your underwater flash to be ready to fire again. INON strobes recycle in under two seconds, even when fired on full power.
It's important that your underwater flash can be properly aimed at your subject. Proper aiming requires three qualities from an underwater flash arm. Height to prevent backscatter at medium to long distances, easy adjustment so you aren't fighting the arm to aim your gun properly and rigidity so that once positioned, the gun doesn't drift out of that position. INON's articulated arm system meets all these requirements exceptionally well and also provides a mounting point for storing your INON underwater lenses. INON also offer float sections to greatly improve handling of your camera underwater. Most underwater cameras become surprisingly heavy under the water once fitted with strobes and lenses. Some can weigh more than two kilograms. It's the equivalent of swimming around holding a heavy diving weight in front of you and it's easy to imagine how uncomfortable that would be. INON float arms solve this very common problem.
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