5050Z Price

[Jules]

700 quid is way beyond me! i will stick with my torch for now. Let me know when someone is selling one second hand!

[John Gulliver]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Julia C @ Mar. 11 2004,16:13)]700 quid is way beyond me! i will stick with my torch for now. Let me know when someone is selling one second hand!

Wouldn't one of these do?
http://www.camerasunderwater.co.uk/d...h/es150ds.html

[Jules]

That's more the price i wouldnt object to paying! has anyone got one of these? any reviews?

[John Gulliver]

Lots of people use it with the Oly mju 400 and are satisfied, according to postings on the Digitaldiver.net forum, so I don't see why it shouldn't work fine with the C5050Z as well. Don't take my word for it though.

[Tim Ingmire]

C'mon John it doesn't look anything like sexy enough.

A flash like this just isn't, well, flash.

Actually its a good price, and if you know you're only going to do macro or close W/A then I'd say go for it.  For WA shots it wouldn't have the coverage (although only lacking by about 5 degrees) or the power output of the strobes I mentioned above (it does quote a Guide number of 15 cf the 10 of the DS-125, but the Ike specifies this as UW whereas the Epoque does not, potentially misleading? - difficult to say). It also doesn't have the same degree of precise control of the flash strength in manual - but I most for most uses this may not be an issue.  The recycle time, however, is also a painful 6/7 secs - it may not seem like long but when you're waiting U/W for that it'll seem like ages, esp compared to the 1 sec achievable with the Ike 125.

As you say it should also work well with the 5050 in a PT-015 or Ike housing.  It's not terribly big or heavy either so would be easy to travel with.

It does look like a nice little strobe.


Now my Caveat (applicable to me only):
I can feel UW photography starting to suck me in like top-side photography did years ago - but then I had far less funds so couldn't indulge myself.  Now its a different matter and I don't want to be in the same position with this as I have been with all my other diving equipment - ie having to upgrade because I end up wanting to achieve more than when I started out.  I know that I will upgrade to a housed D-SLR in the next year or so (in fact I'd have one now if I hadn't felt compelled to return my shiny Canon300d)  and I want to be sure that the strobe I buy will go with it  - the 5050 will be kept as a back-up and I would be able to use the strobe interchangably on both cameras.

I sometimes wish now that I had never been tempted to take my darn camera underwater.

Jules, I don't recall seeing any reviews for this but jsut go ask for peoples experiences over on DD.

EDIT:  Ok just done a search over on Dd and here is a thread on the here is a thread on this flash.

If your style of photography isn't demanding now and you know it won't be in the future then this does look a good buy.  No comments on build quality though.

here is another thread.

[John Gulliver]

Actually, a friend of mine has just bought one to go with his new Olympus mju 40. It is very neat and compact and seems well enough made.
Tim knows a lot more about this than I do but, regarding the recycle time, the recycle time for the Sea & Sea YS60TTL, which is a later version of the YS50TTL that I use with my MotorMarine IIEX, is 6.5 sec, i.e. almost exactly the same. It does seem like a long time at times but I suppose that is something you have to put up with, as is the limited power, unless you are willing to spend BIG money.