For my 32nd birthday my wife gifted me a Light and Motion SOLA 500 SCUBA light. You really can’t go wrong with having more than enough lights underwater especially when the sun sets. Well that’s one use: in my current UW photography setup I have two YS-110a strobes that also have limited use asa real underwater flashlight. However, I was advised that keeping it on for long periods (i.e. more 5 minutes) might destroy the bulb as its main purpose is really a strobe / flash.
Enter the SOLA 500 (500 lumens of power) which is used primarily as a focus light as most things I shoot underwater are really tiny, the 60mm macro lens takes forever to focus.
Here’s a video by Scott Gietler reviewing the SOLA 500..
It took me over 50 minutes to get this shot of the (one-claw) harlequin shrimp (Anilao, Philippines). Had I used a focus light in this shoot, I would probably have 2 or 3 more decent photos as the lens wouldn’t focus on the subject when it was between two rocks. The purpose of a focus light is to make the lens focus faster on the subject.
Same story with this pair of tiger shrimp (Anilao, Philippines) — over 20 minutes and 60++ shots and this was the most decent of the lot due to the shrimp being “malikot” so the lens had a hard time catching up. This tiger shrimp is about 2cm long.
I can’t wait to test this in the water, hopefully soon. Above water, it makes a handy flashlight!
