Sea & Sea YS-D2 review

Dan Bolt · Issue 87, Nov/Dec 2015 · pp. 36–39

Products mentioned: Sea & Sea YS-D2, Sea & Sea YS-D1, Inon strobes, Olympus E-M1, Aquatica AE-M1, Panasonic 8mm fisheye, Panasonic 45mm, Onderwaterhuis.NL flip snoot, Subsee +10

For the past couple of months I have been putting the new Sea & Sea YS-D2 (apparently no relation to R2- D2) strobe through its paces around the UK coastline. Since its launch it is already proving to be a popular choice amongst my underwater photographer buddies; with some upgrading to the new model from older Sea & Sea strobes and others switching over from Inon units. I’m going to have a look at what’s on offer from the YS- D2 and explore why my friends are parting with their hard earned cash. The YS-D2’s headlines are pretty impressive; although it has the same maximum Guide Number as its predecessor of 32, the recycle time between full-power flashes has been trimmed down to 1.5 seconds from 1.9 previously. We’ll see what this this means for you later. At the other end of the power scale the DS- TTLII mode is now able to turn all the way down to a Guide Number of 1, where the previou…