Why I love my Focus Light!

Underwater Photography - Why I love my Focus Light!

By Brad Brown

"I first fell in love with my focus light on a clear star(fish) filled night in Indonesia. Earlier that day, with the assistance of my light, I’d managed to photograph orange pygmy seahorses, ornamental ghost pipefish and a myriad other macro critters I'd anticipated seeing on this first trip to Lembeh Strait. It wasn’t until that night though that I came to the realization that my focus light and I were going to become inseparable. Several minutes into the dive I spotted my subject: a flamboyant cuttlefish. I subdued my excitement and focused (literally) on the task.

After getting down low, made a few camera adjustments and fired away. The brilliant flash of the strobe, normally especially apparent at night, was absent. All thoughts of the perfect cuttlefish shot were thrown out as I began to consider the possibilities. Did I flood my housing? The moisture sensor was not blinking. On a hunch I decided to raise the ISO setting on my digital SLR from 100 to 400 and shoot again. A very dim review image appeared on the LCD. It became apparent that the camera was functioning fine. The strobes were simply not firing. That night my focus light was doing double duty as my primary dive light. I subsequently found that if I adjusted my ISO to 800 and moved very close the subject I could capture marginally passable images by focus light illumination alone.

Imagine the frustration I would have had to endure had I not been able to photograph the second Flamboyant Cuttlefish I encountered later that evening. Post-dive I discovered I had not properly seated the strobe connector to the camera hot shoe. The strobes had not been receiving the signal to fire."

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