Any reviews on the Ikelite DS161 movie

[AussieByron]

Is there any reviews on the Ikelite DS161 movie? Sounds like a great strobe but would like to hear from someone who actually has used them and it not paid to write a report.

Regards Mark

 

[Becca_007]

http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/st...ve-hands-experience-ikelite-ds161-strobe.html

 

[ileiman]

I bought two DS161 strobes together with the Ikelite housing for a Canon 7D last May.
I used them for a 10 day liveaboard trip at the Red Sea. I used a Tokina 10-17mm fisheye during the whole trip, and mostly took pictures, about 2000 of them.
I also shot about 30 minutes of HD-videos.

For shooting stills the pair of strobes did pretty well for wide-angle photography. With diffusers on, they can cover everything (show up the reds) that you can shoot with the fisheye at 10 mm focal length to a distance of 1 meter in bright light, and about 2...3 meters at slightly darker (like 30 meters deep, early morning, or late afternoon, in caverns etc...). TTL works pretty well down to a distance of 1 meter. At closer range you start seeing overexposure and need adjusting down. At really close-up only fully manual settings would work.

For video the LED lights were a disappointment. They are not strong enough for wide angle, especially in the Red Sea environment during daylight. They work at really close-up and might be ok for macro, but I didn't have a macro lens with me. On night dives they served well as focus lights, but were not bright enough for shooting video. I had a 15 W/1000 lumen HID-light with me, and the difference between the LEDs of DS161 and the HID was huge.

The strobe batteries lasted well for two 60 min dives, with LED lights on most of the dive and taking about 100 pictures each dive, and showing 30% charge after that. Recharge time from 30% was about 2 hours.
During shooting they recycled really fast, so it was easy to shoot long sequences of moving fish.

A selection of pictures taken with
Canon 7D + 2x DS161 strobes at Red Sea can be found from here:
picasaweb.google.fi/ianleiman/2010DeepSouthSelected

I'm still processing the video material and don't have that on-line yet.

 

[Ikelite Staff]

Thanks for the feedback and for sharing your photos, they are beautiful!

Keep in mind that it is difficult for two 45 degree beams to cover a 10mm lens in most scenarios. I am quite surprised that read that you had difficulty shooting at night with only the two DS161 video lights. Is it possible you had them set at one of the lower power settings? I have posted a little bit of footage--including night dive video--that I shot with a 10-17mm and two DS161 strobes here:

YouTube - Aqua Cat / Canon Rebel T2i 550D April '10

The footage has not been cropped for this video.

Regards,
Jean / Ikelite
IKELITE Underwater Systems

 

[AussieByron]

Jean you have personally used the DS161 movie can you tell us more about them?

What are they like at night/day. In low vis. How many lumens. How long battery lasts when LED used and full power dump shots??

Information would be appreciated.

Regards Mark

 

[Ikelite Staff]

The DS161 is a 500 lumen LED light with 45 degree angle of coverage and approximately 5500K color temperature. I have found it to be a very pleasing light to shoot with. However you have to adjust your shooting style and way of thinking from standard "DSLR mode."

For instance, compare "wide angle" for a camcorder to "wide angle" for a DSLR. In our line our widest video option is 80-90 degree coverage. Wide angle for a DSLR is usually anywhere from 100-180 degrees. To fully cover that kind of frame in daylight conditions you would really need lighting way over 4000 lumens. Keep in mind that the power of a DS161 strobe flash (which isn't measured in lumens) is many times more powerful than a standard video light.

With DS161 movie lights and a super-wide lens you should be looking at spotlighting key components of the frame. In wide angle shots I recommend using manual white balance to achieve good color over the entire image. Then you can use DS161 movie light to highlight your subject or make certain areas "pop." Since it's a daylight balanced color temperature you won't see the too-red effect of a halogen video light.

At night and in close-up work I have found that the DS161 movie lights give great color balance and very even coverage.

Regarding battery we are able to get at least 190 full power flashes per charge when the LED light is left on. This is approximately 15% less than the average number of cycles when not using the light. When using a TTL system you should get many more flashes per charge.

Regards,
Jean / Ikelite
IKELITE Underwater Systems

 

[ileiman]

Indeed, the LED lights on the DS161 do not quite give wide enough coverage for the Tokina fisheye at 10mm, even if you have two of them. If you zoom the Tokina to 17mm and get really close (like fishes almost touching your dome), then they would be OK. The video lights probably would suit well for macro, which is something I will try on my next diving trip. I did use the LED lights at highest power. On nightdives I was able to get similar results as your video footage shows, the center is very bright but the edges remain dark.
OK, I had set too high expectations maybe I just need to learn how to use them better.

A pair of DS161 strobes on the other hand suit the Tokina fisheye extremely well and provide excellent wide-angle coverage, they really light up the entire reef.

Thanks for the feedback and for sharing your photos, they are beautiful!

Keep in mind that it is difficult for two 45 degree beams to cover a 10mm lens in most scenarios. I am quite surprised that read that you had difficulty shooting at night with only the two DS161 video lights. Is it possible you had them set at one of the lower power settings? I have posted a little bit of footage--including night dive video--that I shot with a 10-17mm and two DS161 strobes here:

--- - Aqua Cat / Canon Rebel T2i 550D April '10

The footage has not been cropped for this video.

Regards,
Jean / Ikelite
Underwater Systems