Sola 1200 photo as primary dive light

[E-diver]

I tried this in the photo section but no joy, so figured I'd try here.

I'm seriosuly considering buying a Sola 1200 photo (with the red LED focus light option) for my camera rig. It's primary purpose in life will be focus/video light. If possible I'd like to use it as a primary light for night dives, most of which will be tropical locations. That being said I do a fair amount of local lake/quarry/river diving with visibility that is...less than stellar (5-15ft).

Since the photo option doesn't offer the spot light setting that the dive light does, I'm curious if anyone has tried using on of these set on the flood setting for a primary light. If so, can you comment on how well it penetrates the murk?

Thanks,
-E

 

[RIdiverMike]

I tried this in the photo section but no joy, so figured I'd try here.

I'm seriosuly considering buying a Sola 1200 photo (with the red LED focus light option) for my camera rig. It's primary purpose in life will be focus/video light. If possible I'd like to use it as a primary light for night dives, most of which will be tropical locations. That being said I do a fair amount of local lake/quarry/river diving with visibility that is...less than stellar (5-15ft).

Since the photo option doesn't offer the spot light setting that the dive light does, I'm curious if anyone has tried using on of these set on the flood setting for a primary light. If so, can you comment on how well it penetrates the murk?

Thanks,
-E

Was diving a submarine in RI (U853) recently and another diver had both the Sola, which he used on his hand in flood as a video light and a Greenforce as his primary, which was much stronger. He said the Greenforce was too strong for video and resulted in too much glare in the video. The Sola provided reasonable punch through the murk (maybe 15ft viz that day), but better, less washed out video than when he turned on the Greenforce. I think the Sola would be a great primary night light in tropical locations, in fact probably too strong for many. But we have a lot of 5-15ft viz in RI diving too and if you really need the punch, I think you need 1700 lumens and higher, the heptastar Greenforce LED, or a 35W HID for instance. But of course, that's just my 2 cents!

 

[E-diver]

Thanks RIdiverMike, that pretty much validates what I ended up doing. I picked up the Sola 1200 photo as a video/focus light which will also pull double duty as a primary light for night dives in clear water. For the local lakes/quarry I went ahead an picked up a 1000L light from DRIS. For lake Travis 15ft is an extremely good day.

-E