Pavel Kolpakov

SB-N10 has another electronics. Some plastic parts are made in Sea&Sea style.

Hello Chris, The charge time is well known problem for pop-up flash. Also flash overheat inside the housing takes place in some cases. I use Optical TTL Converter for my Nikon cameras. It has no charge time, no overheat. Serial shooting 15 fps works perfect. TTL is also very accurate. I think, the future of synchronization will be for such LED devices.

SB-N10 is not the same as YS-D2. Electronics is different. Plastic parts of SB-N10 are partially made in Sea&Sea style. Perhaps the difference in lighting will be acceptable for you personally. Underwater photographers sometimes use different strobes in a pair. But i would better buy the second SB-N10.

UW Technics company produces optical and wire TTL Converters, as serial product for Nauticam housings. But also available to order a custom made TTL system for other brand housings. All types bulkheads are available. No problem to make TTL system for Nexus D300 by optics or by wire.

I repair underwater strobes from time to time. I can tell that capacity of main capacitor is usually reduced after few years, but not significantly (5-10%). Strobe lifetime mainly depends on xenon flash tube (tube shape, and energy of each discharge). Linear shape tubes can make 4k-5k number of flashes at full allowed energy (according concrete tube passport). Round shape tubes can make 10k flashes. This is truth. But if you shoot usually at small powers, the lifetime will be significantly longer. All this information refers to appropriate tube applications for uw strobes. In case of wrong developed uw strobe (tube is overloaded), it can work normally at small and medium power, but has fatal cracks after 500-800 full power flashes.

There is a video on Youtube about TTL-Converter mentioned in previous post. Test for Nikon camera in Nauticam housing with Z-240 strobes. https://youtu.be/qmzp64Hivn4

Sorry, i misprinted. For 250ws Nova and Z-240 the GN ratio approximately is 32/24=1.3 So, if we shoot at 1m distance with Z-240, we can shoot at 1.3m with the Nova.

For 250ws Nova approximately GN=32 is expected. I think, it is close to real value. For the same light intensity the working distance for Nova approximately 2 times more than Z-240. Because GN difference is about 1 stop. Another words, if you shoot with Z-240 at 1m from object, possible to light the same at 2m using Nova. Also, you can change an aperture for 1 stop to get the same result.

Certainly the S2000 strobe's power and angle are purposed for macro, not for wide angle photo. Nova strobe has GN=32 on air. (By the way, the the YS-D1 has the same GN=32). Inon Z-240 has GN=24. The difference between Z-240 and Nova is less than 1 stop aperture. I very often use Z-240 strobes (with -0.5stop diffuser), by many technical reasons. And they are very universal strobes, - for large and small cameras, for wide-angle and for macro. Regarding GN for wide angle photo, - the GN of Z-240 is more then enough for all purposes. Usually i set for wide angle: ISO 200, aperture f8-f16, 1/60-1/200 shutter speed. Subtronics are also very nice strobes. But their advantage is not just a GN. The main thing is round shape xenon tube, which performs a very uniform and high quality light. Such strobes are required by experienced photographers for serious level cameras. Yes, they can sense some difference comparing with linear shape tubes. But round tubes require large size capacitor and transformer, that is why such strobes are large and heavy.

My opinion that the best variant for RX100 is YS-D1, and set "minus" correction for TTL. Yes, the Z240 also has such correction. But Z-240 correction system is a fine tuning, sometimes is not enough for RX100. Usually i advice Z240 for all rigs, but for RX100 i recommend YS-D1. According my experience with RX100 and optical TTL from built-in flash, - we always have some overlight (if no any +/- correction), independently of strobe type. This is well known problem with RX100. It easy solves by "minus" correction setting on the strobe. Subtronics ... are huge and heavy for RX100. I would not advice.

I think, Subtronic can answer about land GN by e-mail. This is not a secret. Also possible to rate GN approximately, if we know the strobe's power and tube shape. For example, if you mean a 160ws strobe with round tube, the GN=24 is expected.

Hello Tamas, Few years ago i worked with measuring GN on the land and underwater. I used 3 different optical instruments: 2 professional flash meters for land foto/video (packed in specially made uw housings) and Ikelite underwater flashmeter. Before submerging i measured strobes on the land. All those flashmeters confirmed GN at the centre of light beam for Z 240, D 2000, S 2000 strobes, according their specifications. But i got few absolutely different results with GN underwater (factor was 1.8…3). Some later one optical factory confirmed me that very difficult to make true underwater housing+optics for a land flash meter for precise measuring. It would be a real mastery to make such housing, and they don't know about such cases. Flashmeter is rather complicated optical instrument. Optics engineer looked carefully all my 3 flashmeters and confirmed, that they currently show underwater just digits, but not a real GN. So, you understand, why manufacturers of strobes sometimes give different GN for underwater. Almost impossible to measure underwater GN by standard optical instruments. Results will be very different. Some manufacturers just calculate approximate underwater GN for strobe specification, don't measure it. In reality underwater GN is not so important for photographers, most of manufacturers specify it as a reference value. Usually for uw strobes we rate only GN measured on land, this is a main digit.