Constant light v strobes?

Nigel Motyer · Issue 149, Mar/Apr 2026 · pp. 34–40

Products mentioned: Panasonic GH5, Nauticam housing, Keldan 15000 lumen video lights, Keldan Video 8x CR195, Nauticam WWL-1 wet lens, Nauticam WWL-B wet lens, Olympus 14-42mm F3.5-5.6 II R, Nikon D850, Olympus TG6

A few years ago I was watching a guy shooting pictures with his TG6 while usung a torch for lighting, no strobe. I asked him afterwards how he managed his exposures and he came back with the obvious but simple reply of, he didn’t, he just let the camera do it. That was a light bulb moment for me and as I’d recently set up a housing for Video, it didn’t even have a way of triggering strobes, I thought I’d dedicate some time looking at constant lighting instead of strobes to light my images. I get asked for still images from time to time but I was increasingly being asked for video footage and I liked the idea of a new challenge so I had toyed with the idea of seriously trying to shoot underwater video footage in a more focused way. At the same time I had been asked by a film production company for useable underwater video footage as they were producing a natural history series for an Amer…