New to... Everything, just bought my first setup. Just need strobes

[Shanehugs 0]

D750, nauticam (buying tomorrow) sigma 15mm fisheye, looking to add 105mm. Have 4x 1600lm fantasea video lights for my GoPro setup, hoping to add it to my new rig. Just need strobes, havent decided what I should go for but I'm open to suggestions.

I'll be doing mostly wildlife, underwater portraits, just fancy cool stuff.

I am not a photographer, its a hobby, I don't expect to ever recoup what I've invested and

I don't know much about what I'm doing, never owned a camera so learning as I go and reading what I can.

Thanks everyone.

[Shanehugs 0]

Any strobes I should be staying away from or is there a certain profile I should be looking for? Maybe a Strobe faq sheet if there is one

[TimG 62]

Hi

 

Slightly tough question to answer. The Inon Z240s have been very popular with many WPers. But they were discontinued recently and Inon have just announced their replacement, the Inon 330 - which WP plan to review shortly.

http://wetpixel.com/articles/sneak-preview-inon-z330-strobe

 

Then the new Retras seem to be gathering interest and plaudits.

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=61040&hl=

 

It'd be worth searching around the forum for thoughts on the Sea & Sea YS series. Some real pros and cons there.

 

The Inons and Retras are relatively compact strobes, reasonably powerful and meet the needs of many underwater photographers. I find the Inons perfect for macro photography and good enough for me for wide-angle.

[Griff 23]

Good quality strobes such as Sea and Sea or Inon are most used underwater.

First I would learn land based photography especially in manual mode so you know shutter, aperture and ISO and how they relate to each other. Also know your camera inside out, how to get into the menus and navigate them before you try and find a setting underwater!

How long have you been diving? Make sure your diving skills are up to scratch as taking pictures can be very distracting.

Most of all enjoy and learn from any photographers you know as well as diving photographers.

[Shanehugs 0]

Thanks for the advice and tips. I'll do some research there. I'm a padi staff instructor, thinking of going CC if I really get into this.

I'm definitely going to do as much above photography as possible, I do have a lot of professional photographer friends that work in the industry from sport diver to Playboy and lots of amateur freelance. I don't consider myself even a novice photographer. I'll probably never consider myself to be a photographer, just a guy who likes to take pictures of cool things.

Thanks again guys