Which light? Lake/murky water?

[Bigeclipse]

All,
I am making a dive in Lake George, NY on the Radeau (oldest military intact boat wreck in the U.S.). It is about 100ft deep. Very dark at that depth in Lake George and visibility on a bad day is around 10ft and on a good day 25-30ft. We were told Late Spring (which is when we are diving) is best so hoping for 20-30ft for visibility. Anyways, I did this same dive last year and used a Princeton tec 550 which was fine for my own View, but pictures came out pretty bad even using the camera light with the flashlight pointed in the same direction. Pictures were dark and grainy. I want to get a better light to aid in better quality pictures. I have been looking at two lights for sale on leisurepro. The first is the UK eLED light cannon, which got good reviews but I noticed it is only 825 lumens which may not make much more of a difference compared to the Princeton tec that im already using (550 lumens). The other im looking at is Blue Reef Orca Torch D800 also known as simply Blue Reef 2000 lumen light. This light states it is 2000 lumens. Only lasts 2.5 hrs which id never dive that long anyways. It also states it is a tec diving light. It states it has hot spot beam angle of 6° degrees with a 65° degree periphery angle (whatever that means). there are only 2 reviews I was able to find for this light (both were good). I could not find the beam angle specs on the UK eLED light cannon to compare. Thoughts? The top of my budget is really about 175$. Maybe in this budget range a new light wont make a difference. I really cannot afford the cave diving 500+ dollar lights that would make a difference. Thanks everyone!

 

[dmaziuk]

Can't help with the lights, but all out night photos come out with every tiny speck of silt lit up like xmas. It's amazing how the brain filters this stuff out so you don't see it; unfortunately the camera does. So chances are a brighter light will only create more backwash and the pix still won't come out good.

 

[Bigeclipse]

Can't help with the lights, but all out night photos come out with every tiny speck of silt lit up like xmas. It's amazing how the brain filters this stuff out so you don't see it; unfortunately the camera does. So chances are a brighter light will only create more backwash and the pix still won't come out good.

yeah I was guessing this BUT I should have added that the pics were mainly too DARK with just a touch of grainyness which could also be due to the darkness. This dive was not at night. It was actually a pretty nice day BUT again, this was a 100 foot lake dive with about 20ft of visibility. I mean if you think about it how many regular surface pics look crappy/grainy because they were too dark, so the silt might not have played much of a roll of why my pictures look like crap to be honest. I don't know. The only thing I do know is the pictures are DEFINITELY way too dark.

 

[Spg01]

Are you taking pictures or videos? I know a little about video. In a perfect world you would want 2 lights that are wide angle with arms to position the lights. If you do that properly you can eliminate a lot of the back scatter. You basically light more from the sides while you take video down the middle. You can get by with 1 light, but then you usually get some light on the subject and get a dark ring where the light falls off. Either way you are only good for a few feet or so, maybe 5 depending on the lights.

I imagine it is similar with pictures, except you would want strobes instead of lights. Lights with tight beams will just give you a hot spot and does not work well with video and I imagine the same goes with pictures.

I started out with one of these Fantasea Blue-Ray Sport Video LED 700 Lumens Light 6031 from somewhere else for about $100 each. But I ended up getting a 2nd one for video using my gopro. I also made my own tray and arms out of the Loc-Line stuff. They only help a 1-2 feet during the day, but work pretty well at night. I was not looking to spend thousands of dollars before I even tried taking video.

 

[dmaziuk]

Well, this: Lerway 800lm Lumen CREE XML T6 LED Waterproof Underwater Diving High light Lamp 18650 Flashlight Torch - Basic Handheld Flashlights - Amazon.com is twist to flood but at that price who cares. You need the 18650 batteries and charger, though. I'm going to get one of these (or better): Amazon.com : FREETOO® Waterproof 1800 Lumens XM-L T6 LED 8 Switch Mode Diving Light Adjustable Focus Range : Sports & Outdoors for our next trip, it should be brighter than the yellow one being a generation or two newer. Another one from cheap cree department is ultrafire uf450: Official UltraFire-Shop - UltraFIre UF450 Dive FlashLight T6 XML LED x 3 -- that has 3 of the same leds as the previous one. These both seem to have magnetic push switches, that's better than the twist version as long as they work (it is chinese quality at these prices of course).

Lumen ratings on them are rubbish of course but I didn't see much difference between the yellow one and the princeton tek. The other 2 should be brighter, the 3-led one should be noticeably brighter.

PS. we use them for backups. My better half dropped hers somewhere around the salt pier on bonaire last month, I was looking around for replacement and that's why I have the urls handy.

 

[Bigeclipse]

Can't help with the lights, but all out night photos come out with every tiny speck of silt lit up like xmas. It's amazing how the brain filters this stuff out so you don't see it; unfortunately the camera does. So chances are a brighter light will only create more backwash and the pix still won't come out good.

Just checked the photos and video again and honestly I was wrong in my previous post. I really don't think it is the particles that was the issue because our pics/video at depths a bit shallower where the lighting was better came out fine. I really think it is just the fact that it was SUPER dark and our lighting/camera set-up was not good enough. So the murky water title is misleading.

Are you taking pictures or videos? I know a little about video. In a perfect world you would want 2 lights that are wide angle with arms to position the lights. If you do that properly you can eliminate a lot of the back scatter. You basically light more from the sides while you take video down the middle. You can get by with 1 light, but then you usually get some light on the subject and get a dark ring where the light falls off. Either way you are only good for a few feet or so, maybe 5 depending on the lights.

I imagine it is similar with pictures, except you would want strobes instead of lights. Lights with tight beams will just give you a hot spot and does not work well with video and I imagine the same goes with pictures.

I started out with one of these Fantasea Blue-Ray Sport Video LED 700 Lumens Light 6031 from somewhere else for about $100 each. But I ended up getting a 2nd one for video using my gopro. I also made my own tray and arms out of the Loc-Line stuff. They only help a 1-2 feet during the day, but work pretty well at night. I was not looking to spend thousands of dollars before I even tried taking video.

We are taking both video and pics. I think this time we may just take video since we can cut pics from the video stream. Please ignore my main comments about the murky water. We reviewed the pics and video last night and it really seems it was all mainly due to poor lighting and not particulates since the video and pics at shallower depths on the same dive came out fine before it got really deep and dark. I wont mind if we can only take close up video/pics just as long as you can actually make out the grain of the wood instead of a brown blob haha.

Well, this: Lerway 800lm Lumen CREE XML T6 LED Waterproof Underwater Diving High light Lamp 18650 Flashlight Torch - Basic Handheld Flashlights - Amazon.com is twist to flood but at that price who cares. You need the 18650 batteries and charger, though. I'm going to get one of these (or better): Amazon.com : FREETOO® Waterproof 1800 Lumens XM-L T6 LED 8 Switch Mode Diving Light Adjustable Focus Range : Sports & Outdoors for our next trip, it should be brighter than the yellow one being a generation or two newer. Another one from cheap cree department is ultrafire uf450: Official UltraFire-Shop - UltraFIre UF450 Dive FlashLight T6 XML LED x 3 -- that has 3 of the same leds as the previous one. These both seem to have magnetic push switches, that's better than the twist version as long as they work (it is chinese quality at these prices of course).

Lumen ratings on them are rubbish of course but I didn't see much difference between the yellow one and the princeton tek. The other 2 should be brighter, the 3-led one should be noticeably brighter.

PS. we use them for backups. My better half dropped hers somewhere around the salt pier on bonaire last month, I was looking around for replacement and that's why I have the urls handy.

ill take a look at these, thanks!

 

[TSandM]

If you really want good photographs under those conditions, you are going to need strobes. Although there are hand-holdable lights that will give you a lot of even, diffused illumination, they are unusual and extremely expensive (more than strobes!). Lights that are designed for you to carry and use to see are not going to be diffuse enough to illuminate a scene, and if diffused, will not be powerful enough to give you the light you want.

Also, be aware that your ability to get good photographs under those conditions is going to be somewhat dependent on the capabilities of the camera you are using. If you can't adjust settings manually, or can't use a high ISO without the picture going grainy, you're going to have problems capturing images in very low light. Wide angle photography is challenging in relatively low visibility and low light.