Strobes vs Video Lights for Underwater Photography [VIDEO]

Featuring Steve Miller

It’s essential to bring light with you underwater to add color and clarity to your underwater imaging. Can you get away with just a constant on light for both stills and video??? Ikelite Photo Guru Steve Miller shares how he shoots and breaks down the pros and cons of strobes vs video lights. 

A really popular subject today is shooting with strobes versus shooting with video lights for your still photography. For me personally, the strobe is always gonna be the way to go. But let's talk a little bit about the advantages and disadvantages of each.

Freezing Action

So why do I prefer strobes for my still photography? One big thing is that the strobe freezes the action. So things like camera shake or motion blur or blurred fish tails basically doesn't happen. These strobes are going to stop the action at a microsecond, a thousandth of a second, a five thousandth of a second.

Clownfish are known for the sporadic and fast-paced movement, but using a strobe will help you freeze their movement and capture that perfect shot. © Logan Wood

Animal Behavior

The other thing that strobes will do since they are so brief is your subject is not going to feel them. The strobe goes off, even multiple flashes, it's a very brief duration and you can see the behavior in your animals. They immediately return to what they were doing right before you flash them.

Some of the video lights that we're using these days are incredibly powerful, 10,000 and 15,000 lumen lights are available on today’s market. The thing is when you start using lights like this, they produce a lot of heat. And if you're trying to shoot very close to your subject, which is one of the rules of underwater photography, whether it's wide angle or macro, the animal can actually feel that heat. This just isn't good because now you're going to change the behaviors of this animal. In fact, they'll probably turn away from you and try to move out of the frame because the heat feels so unnatural to them. Whereas with the strobe, it's over in a millisecond.

"Get close, then get closer" is something you'll hear underwater photographers say, but this just isn't feasible with video lights because of the heat they emit. Strobes allow you to get incredibly close to your subject without disturbing their behavior. © Logan Wood

Battery Life

The next advantage that makes me lean towards strobes for my photos is that the power usage per flash is very, very little to put it in broad terms. I can shoot my strobes all day, 500, 600, 800 images, and probably into the next day if I need to, although I do prefer to charge overnight.

With video lights, this just simply can't be done depending on how soon you turn the video light on before you approach your subject. You're going to be changing batteries on the boat and you'll see this on dive boats where the video people are forever switching batteries, getting their batteries back on charge. It's basically a non-issue for still photographers because we're using, even though we're throwing more power in each frame onto the subject, we're actually using a lot less power in our product all day long. So you're not going to have to charge as much or carry as many extra batteries with you.

Creative Lighting

It's a little easier to be creative with your lighting when we use strobes. If you pull your strobe off of your camera tray and say, try to backlight or side light a subject, what's going to happen a lot of times is you're blocking out so much of the light that that flash is going to go off at almost full power, maybe full power. And it takes a lot of energy to do this creative lighting. Well, it's there for you. It's available with the strobes. You can shoot them at full power all day long and still have plenty of power left. 

Whereas with the video lights, since they're not as intense, you might find the manipulations that you do with side lighting, backlighting, or just creative lighting in general, they don't have quite the same effect. And that's a function of their power. Particularly if I'm blocking a lot of that power by say, putting it behind a coral head or a sponge. At that point, the amount of light that's spilling over the edge is for a creative effect. There's just not as much to work with, with a video light as there is with a strobe.

Image Preview

One of the key differences for shooting with constant on light or strobes is that the strobe photographer really isn't going to see his scene in its true glory until after he's made the capture. In other words, your reds and your yellows and the whole exposure of the scene isn't going to be displayed until after the capture, your flashes have gone off and you see all the color and your shadows and what you've done with your lighting.

When we use constant on lights, as I come into the scene with the camera, it's going to be lit up to the same exposure as when I pull the shutter release. So this can be an advantage because I'm going to see true colors. I'm going to see where my shadows are and where my highlights are, and I'll just get a better feel for the frame. So constant on lights do offer a bit of advantage, especially if you're struggling in the beginning to visualize what your image is going to look like after the capture. When you light up the frame with all these lumens, your camera's going to be very happy and your auto focus will be lightning fast because it's a big, bright frame. Not so much so with the strobes until after you pull the trigger.

Constant on lights provide the advantage of seeing your scene lit to the same exposure as when you pull the shutter, this can be helpful in the beginning of your photography journey if you're struggling to visualize what your final shot will look like. Image © Logan Wood

Certainly either type of light will work and produce good images for you. It's just a question of what is your shooting situation and what are the advantages that are most important to you for that particular dive. 

Why Choose Just One?

The DS232 Underwater TTL Strobe with Video Light # 40232US combines a professional grade strobe with a powerful video light. Get the best of both worlds in one incredible product. 

 

Additional Viewing

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Manual Camera Exposure VS Manual Strobe Exposure for Underwater Photography [VIDEO]

The Myth of TTL Strobe Exposure Underwater

Just Add Light: Enhancing Underwater Photography with Colored Lighting

Get Creative: Unconventional Handle and Strobe Setups

Burst Shooting DS230 Strobes & Canon R7

 

 

Ambassador Steve Miller has been a passionate teacher of underwater photography since 1980. In addition to creating aspirational photos as an ambassador, he leads the Ikelite Photo School, conducts equipment testing, contributes content and photography, represents us at dive shows and events, provides one-on-one photo advice to customers, and participates in product research and development. Steve also works as a Guest Experience Manager for the Wakatobi Dive Resort in Indonesia. In his "free" time he busies himself tweaking his very own Backyard Underwater Photo Studio which he's built for testing equipment and techniques. Read more...