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Any reasonably priced UW flash recommendations?

Started Jul 9, 2018 | Discussions thread
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dougjgreen1 Veteran Member • Posts: 4,068
Any reasonably priced UW flash recommendations?

I've recently decided to get serious again about underwater photography, after a lengthy hiatus.

The gear I used to used is all long obsolete (Nikonos IVA and V cameras, with a Nikonos SB103 strobe).

Currently, I shoot both M43 and Nikon 1 Mirrorless gear, and I have got a couple of rigs that I can use:

I have an Olympus E-P5 with a Meikon UW housing, and a Nikon J4 with a WP-N3 housing.

The Olympus is a very fine camera, but the housing seems clunky and non-intuitive to use. The housing will work with my 14mm f2.5 prime lens (28mm equivalent).

The Nikon 1 rig based upon the J4 is clearly a less sophisticated camera, but the UW housing seems to be beautifully designed and elegant to use, with functionality that completely preserves all of the camera's (somewhat limited) controls. This housing will work with my 10-30mm f3.5~5.6 zoom (27-80mm) or my 18.5mm f1.8 prime lens (50mm equivalent).  It vignettes - cuts off the corners of the frame, with my 10mm prime

Anyways, which rig to use is not my main concern - I can work through that over time. Really, my issue is how to I get beyond shooting in available light into a proper UW flash setup for the best quality.

Both housings have optical ports that use the camera's built in strobe as a master, so I am looking for a reasonable flash setup that will operate as a slave through an optical connection.

1st of all, My Nikonos SB-103 still works, and I have all the mounting brackets for it,. so it would be awesome if I could still use this UW flash unit. I was wondering if there are any cable/adapter setups that can connect with a Nikonos 5-pin connector at the strobe, and to an optical slave trigger at the housing.

If that won't work, Is there a good reasonably priced optically triggered slave strobe I could use? Nikon makes one for the N1 system, but it's exhorbitantly priced, at around $750 for the strobe itself, and another $200 or so for the brackets and the cabling.

I'm looking for some sort of setup for lighting that I could cobble together for a few hundred bucks. I'm not concerned about TTL flash, I can deal with manually setting the exposure.

 dougjgreen1's gear list:dougjgreen1's gear list
Olympus Stylus XZ-10 Nikon 1 V2 Olympus PEN E-P5 Olympus E-M1 Olympus E-PL7 +17 more
Nikon 1 J4 Olympus PEN E-P5
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