Camcorders, Housings and Lights.

[ronscuba]

OK, basic decisions for video lights at that price point are:

halogen vs. HID
self contained battery vs. separate
battery mount location
light and battery buoyancy
flexible locline arms vs. fixed ball joint arms

Halogen vs HID is well documented with pluses and minuses on each side.

The area I see many overlooking is buoyancy and how it affects housing handling. Lamps more than .5 lb negative will be tough to handle. Negative batteries mounted on your BC or waist will need a wet connect cable. Negative batteries mounted on the housing need to be carefully evaluated to see how it affects housing buoyancy. An overly negative housing/battery system will be a nightmare to shoot with.

Do you know the buoyancy of your housing ? Does it use an easily removable buoyancy weight ? If you know how much that weight is, compare it to the buoyancy of the light batteries.

RobinT just got the Ikelite lights mated to her Ikelite housing. Might want to wait until she returns from Roatan to ask her opinion. I don't know anyone with the Niteriders you mention. Scubatoys sells the Darkbuster HID lights with self contained battery and near neutral buoyancy. Folks over on wetpixel seem to like them using a homemade diffuser. I like my halogen Sartek lights with wet connect cables. My BC is perfect for mounting the battery on the waist, your BC might not.

Sorry, I know I probably made you more confused, but video lighting can be confusing and expensive to boot. Best to thoroughly explore your options.

 

[Rich_95492]

All:

Well I was going to wait and hear how the Ikelite Pro Video lights worked for RobinT, but I'll be leaving for Coz on Dec 6 and wasn't sur eif I could get them delivered and set-up in time if I waited for RobinT's thoughts.

I bit the bullet and bought 2 of the Ikelite Pro Video 3 with the 55w bulbs. I figure I'll have a pretty decent set-up running various lighting scenarios (20w, 40w, 55w, 75w, 110w).

I'll give you all my impressions when I return mid Dec.

-Rich

 

[ronscuba]

Good luck, post a review when you get back.

Just a few thoughts, during the daytime, I only use lights for macro shots or under ledges, swimthroughs, etc.. For all other day shooting, my red filter works better for me.

For both day and night, I only turn on the lights when recording. I like to conserve battery time and carry a flashlight at night as my main light. One of the advantages of halogen over HID, you can instantly turn them on/off.

 

[mobula]

First housing:

Sealux HX7 with external monitor and Hartenberger video light

--> I like it very much, to keep it short: see my review on wetpixel


Second (and third) housing:

Bruder/Mediasub (now Fradotec)

I would strongly remommend not to buy a housing from Fradotec. I had quality problems with the second housing from them (more than 10 times water in it) and they simply ignored it. It went to the court and they ignored this again because I am located in Germany they are now in France. There is a criminal complaint running against one of them. I know more people having the same problems. And there is at least one more criminal complaint. They owe me 2000 Euros and have the housing for over 2 years now. German forums are full of this. Take care.