Intova ISS 2000 vs Sea and Sea YS-25

[GingaNinga]

Hi everyone. Ive been a longtime reader of these forums, despite the fact that this is my first post. I have found everyones input invaluable...

I am in search of a budget strobe and ive narrowed it down to a used Sea and Sea YS-25 for $200 or a new Intova ISS-2000 for roughly the same after shipping costs. I believe the Sea and Sea was priced a fair bit higher in its time, but not sure if that meant it was better. Both prices include tray, arm and fibre optic cable.

I have looked at the specs for both, but I guess Im looking for some real life opinions. Unfortunatley at this time my budget is limited to roughly the amounts noted above.

Of note also is that Im just a newbie underwater photographer who has managed some suprisingly good photos without the strobe...just the ratio of good to bad is very poor.

Thanks for any input.

 

[M2]

I almost bought the intova strobe because I love the dive light I have from them. But I was kind of wondering the exact same thing...does anyone have it and how's it work?

 

[Ardy]

I'm struggling to remember as I bought a new SnS 100a about 2 months ago and looked at the options of a cheapie early in the evaluation which quickly came down to Inon v SnS. The YS-25 did not have enough go in it or width (????) of coverage and I struggled to find a happy user recommendation. The Intova has a stronger output but was manual only. That is not a big problem and I guess if I only had $200 to spend I would buy the Intova on the grounds that the more light the better. I seem to remember that the Intova was made by a small group who were photographers themselves.

Please dont take my statements as gospel, check it out yourself. As I said I didnt spend a lot of time looking at them.

There is a small torch size fill flash that can be used as a second flash or you might be able to trigger it with an optical cable and that has some great reviews. About $100 ???.

 

[jhayes75]

I have the Intova and love it. I only got to use it once on a night dive with about 10ft viz and was able to get a couple of nice shots of a moray eel. I had to use it on the lowest setting. At the high setting my pictures were white. I dont know why they are selling the fiber optic with this strobe, there is no connection point that I am aware of. I just use the internal sensors.

 

[GingaNinga]

Thanks for everyones input.

I ended up getting the UltraMax UltraPower UXDS-1 Strobe from John at OpticalOceanSales.com. I found him to be very helpful. He frequents these boards quite often.

 

[Shayne]

I have a intova ic-800 with that strobe iss 2000 and it takes great photos have just got a diffuser for the strobe to try and back the power off a bit, but all in all it is a good investment price is good compared to others, i do use the fibre optic sync cable the sensors are under the red rubber rim there are two holes there for the cable.

 

[jhayes75]

I do not see these on my strobe and it does not point these out in the instructions. I have the two sensors on the bottom, but no holes to plug in the fiber.

i do use the fibre optic sync cable the sensors are under the red rubber rim there are two holes there for the cable.

 

[Shayne]

the intova sync cable i have has a little plastic piece attached at the end which you insert under the red rubber rim and velcros to the front of the camera in front on the flash, need to have the pre-flash setting on the second LED for it to work properly, hope this helps.