I paid a visit to Aquaforum yesterday, partly to stop in and say hi, but mostly because I really need all my gear checked and double-checked before I head out on my next extended series of trips.
Whenever I visit the shop (or any other camera store for that matter), one of the first things I do is scan for new equipment.
This time, the new S-2000 strobe from Inon caught my eye (pictured below...and no, those are not my hands!).
The strobe units are tiny (106.5mm long, 83.1mm tall, 64mm across), lightweight, use standard AA batteries and use the same O-rings and fibre-optic connectors as my Inon Z-220 and Z-240 strobes. The guide number is 20.
David from Scubacam had a couple with him while we were in Lembeh, so I saw his strobes in action. The S-2000s seem to work well for him. I fiddled with one while I was Aquaforum, and eventually, I decided to get one to try out over the next few trips.
Do I need another strobe? Probably not. I lug six or more around with me as it is.
But the small size means I can stick one in my coat pocket and have a spare with me at all times. Plus, if David and Nagamatsu-san (who owns Aquaforum) both have a couple of these, I have to have at least one to play with. You know what I'm saying?
The controls on the back are a bit tightly spaced. Luckily, I don't have big hands, so it might not be a problem for me. I could see people with big fingers possibly having a difficult time fine-tuning settings underwater.
There appears to be quite a bit of S-TTL functionality built into the strobe, including the ability to shoot S-TTL wirelessly, but since I don't really use TTL, I haven't really paid too much attention to this.
There's also a funky mirror-thing that attaches to the slave sensor to redirect light to trigger the strobe when it's used as a slave unit. I'm not quite sure how this will work, or if it'll be necessary. I'll find out soon enough.