Fantasea Nano Flash

[sotgecho]

Does anyone have any experience with this flash?

Curious about how powerful it, how many shots you can get out of it, etc. Any experience with it would be appreciated.

Thanks!

[JackConnick]

It work fine as long as you shoot within it's capabilities. It has a guide number of about 12 and not a very wide angle of coverage. So it's more limited, but works quite well for macro and closer in fish portraits. It's been very popular in tropical diving, I saw lots of them in Bonaire.

You'll get a couple of dives out of the batteries, but it only uses 2x AAA.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/160/421556629_8775425f00.jpg?v=0

Shot taken with it.

You might want to see this article on my blog on strobes and lighting (http://opticalocean.blogspot.com/2008/01/choosing-underwater-strobe-for-point.html).

I sell the NanoFlash in a variety of lighting package sets (http://opticaloceansales.com/shop.php/point-shoot-lighting-packages/c_21.html).

Jack

[RAWalker]

The Nano can be purchased under the Pixtreme badge as the PX21 kit.
I have 2 of them that I purchased for $100 each. They come with the UW housing, tray, filters and flex arm. You will probably need the fiberoptic trigger cable which is sold separately for another $10-15. I use mine in a dual configuration with a small LED focus light also mounted on the tray. All total my lighting package was less than $250 and having 2 separate slave strobes and the focus light makes it a very potent kit with a compact size. The 2 heads allow me for a widened field and an increased range with decreased shadows and backscatter. All this for a price that is less than cost of a housing for other strobes.

[Fluggs]

I have been looking at getting one of these for a while now and on paper it seems to be fairly well spec'ed for an entry level strobe.

[sotgecho]

Thanks for the advice so far.

Jack I really like some of the systems that you have at your shop especially the S system. I think I maybe going that route.

[MR_Photo]

I owned dual Nano's and had a fairly positive experience. They're a dramatic improvement over a camera's internal flash, but there are some major drawbacks:

- Syncing with Camera is unreliable - Fantasea has not done a good job of perfectly matching the fiber optic cable attachment point on the flash housing with the flash's little sensor... it is about 1cm away. This can lead to pretty touchy reliability and the strobe may not always fire when you want it to.
- Strobes are not compatible with all cameras - Despite having 3 different sync settings, the strobe is not necessarily compatible with your camera, and the only way to tell is to actually get a unit and play with it. It was compatible with my Canon Sd1000, but when I upgrade to a Canon G9 I was disappointed that the camera could not trigger the strobe and was now forced to buy new strobes (S&S YS27-DX, which are great).
- Battery life is okay - I used high capacity rechargeable batteries and could only get 1 dive per set of batteries. With regular non-rechargeable batteries you may be able to get 2 - 3 dives out of it. (With my new YS27-DX's I can get 4 dives out of it, though it does use 4 AA's instead of 2 AAA's)
- Too Few Flashoutput settings forces you to use different diffusers - The strobe has only 3 output settings to determine the brightness. If you need even less light or you need it to reach farther with less intensity then you have to use the supplied diffusers, which come in 3 levels of opacity - it's just one more thing to consider and can be a pain to change underwater in a stiff current.

All those things said... the nano is a good starter strobe, especially for the reasonable price. However, if you see yourself getting remotely serious about it, do yourself a favor and invest in a little more expensive strobe.

BTW, I've dealt with Fantasea's customer service several times and they have been FANTASTIC. Good solutions and good response times.

Good luck

[JackConnick]

Your coments on the NanoFlash (http://opticaloceansales.com/shop.php/strobes-lighting/fantasea-nanoflash-underwater-strobe/p_88.html) are quite interesting.

There is a little plug that holds the sync cord on. You might try lengthening the exposed FO cable a bit to make it flash a bit better. Sometimes the exposed bit gets bent or broken, or is just not quite long enough. The cord must be positioned on the camera directly over the flash.

I am interested to hear that you couldn't trigger it with a G9, I've never heard of a camera that didn't work with it. Was it because of a double pre-flash?

The S-Tray (http://opticaloceansales.com/shop.php/trays-arms/trays-handles/optical-ocean-sales-s-tray/p_142.html) has been recently improved; it is wider and has more metal on the ends. I've insisted that they include 4 bolts and it is very stable and adjustable.

http://opticaloceansales.com/images/uploads/Arms-Trays/OOSTRAY-long.bot.jpg

Users really like it and it can be used with adapters for either B&J arms or my new Super flex arms (http://opticaloceansales.com/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=134) that are extremely easy to use and work very nicely with a lighter strobe like the Nano. I have several packages with it and the Nano (http://opticaloceansales.com/shop.php/point-shoot-lighting-packages/optical-ocean-s-tray-lighting-system/p_140.html), or can develop what ever you like.

http://opticaloceansales.com/images/uploads/Strobes-Lighting/OOSTLIGHT-01.lg.jpg

Jack

[MR_Photo]

I did follow all of the instructions for syncing the camera to the strobe, including shaving down the FO cable to remove any worn or broken ends. I still had no luck syncing with the G9 (I was never able to sync my 2 nano's to each other too). I am not the only one that has had issues with this as I have another friend that owns a single strobe and can only intermittently get it to fire with his Sony camera. There's no pre-flash on the G9 so that's not the issue.

btw, I am glad to hear you insisted on the 4-bolt approach to the tray you mentioned. I own the Fantasea XL Tray with 2 flex-arms and recently had to replace the tray because the screws that mount the arms to the tray stripped the the threading in the tray... the bolts through the entire tray should keep that from happening.