Buy Cable for Nikonos strobes or upgrade?

[rockcityphoto]

I recently purchased a used Ikelite housing for my Canon 40D and just had it serviced by Ikelite to make sure everything was working well. I have two Nikonos SB-105 strobes with the standard Nikonos arms that I could potentially use with it, but I'd still need to get a dual strobe cable for them. I know that I'm likely going to want to replace them eventually which has me wondering if maybe I want to consider doing that now instead. I don't really have the money to throw at a new set of strobes and arms, but if I found a decent deal on a set I might think about. My main question is, should I really consider shopping around for a used set of newer strobes rather than trying to use the old Nikonos ones? Another option would be to get better arms since you can't really adjust the positioning on the Nikonos ones. The downside to the Nikonos strobes is that I can't use them TTL. Just looking for some input if anyone has any experience with a similar start to their underwater photography.

 

[weeksd]

The nikonos strobes are very good strobe. Your options are a dual sync cable or a single cable and run the second strobe on slave which is what i do. Works very good. Below 10 feet the slave works very well. Above 10 feet the ambient light overpowers the strobe so the slave does not fire. I have not really needed ttl as i use the strobe on 1/4 power for both strobes on shots 3 feet and closer. For shots beyond 3 foot i use full power. I don't use the plastic diffuser covers which widen the strobe angle as they take light away from the shot. I shoot with the nikon 16-85mm lens so two strobe without the diffuser covers my lens. I would look for a set of arms for the two strobes as the nikonos arms don't give you much adjustment. For samples of my work reefscenics | SmugMug