Hello everybody,

As the original housing for this camera comes with a support for an external strobe, would like to know about possible choices for my TZ5. Any advice?

Thank you !

After thinking in the issue of an external strobe for my Lumix TZ5, and having tested the built-in flash of the camera, I suppose is always better to have an external and non-direct flash. I mean a strobe attached to an arm lighting laterally the scene, and not pointing directly right from the camera.

I know that there are plenty of options: Sea & Sea, Inon, Ikelite, etc.. and always is better a TTL slave strobe, whenever my camera can work in this mode (I assume this option is valid for my Lumix).

Then I address my question to a different solution: what TTL-slave strobe is recommendable for such a compact camera like the Lumix TZ5?

Hope to find a good choice quickly as I’m leaving for Red Sea in 10 days.

Thank you all again.

I’m not familiar with the housing or camera you have, so I don’t know how the ‘support for external strobe’ is achieved.  If there is a bulkhead (socket) on the outside of the housing to connect a sync cable to a strobe, then you will need to determine what type of bulkhead it is (e.g. Nikonos, Ikelite, etc).  It may be special way of attaching a fibre optic cable.  Whatever type of connector it is, this may eliminate some strobe choices, or at least require you to get a special adapter cable to hook up a particular make of strobe.

Otherwise, pretty much all the strobes out there have some way of working with a point and shoot camera, and so long as the method (fibre optic cable / manual controller / whatever) works ok for you, it doesn’t make any difference what camera is being used, i.e. your particular camera does not really generate any particular choice of strobe.

Sea and Sea and Inon both use fibre optic cables to transmit the camera’s flash to the strobe to trigger the strobe in tandem with your camera’s flash.  Ikelite strobes will require the manual controller which has a photosensor that points at the camera’s flash.

In all cases, you will need to attach the strobe to the housing in some way.  All the makes you list generally use a tray and handle arrangement:  the camera housing bolts on to the tray (the housing must have a tripod mount on the bottom for this to work, and the tray has a handle (or two handles), to which the strobe arms attach.  The strobe (obviously) is on the end of the strobe arms.

With the fibre optic cables, you need to figure out a way of attaching the end of the cable to the outside of the housing so that it receives light from your camera’s flash.  With the Ikelite manual controller the manual controller itself usually is arranged so that it points towards the camera flash from beside and above the housing, so you don’t need to attach anything to the housing.

You need to also figure out a way of blocking the light from the camera’s flash from going forward to your subject.  This needs to be achieved whilst still allowing the fibre optic cable or manual controller to receive light from the flash.  This isn’t as hard as it sounds, and lots of people have done this - search the forums here or at http://www.wetpixel.com for more info.

Other factors to consider are:
- Strobe size:  The most popular Ike strobe (the DS125) is quite a bit bigger than most Inon or Sea and Sea strobes, which can be an issue if you travel alot. 
- Batteries:  You might prefer to get a strobe that runs on AA batteries rather than having its own dedicated battery (then if you have battery problems when you are in some remote location, you only need to buy some AA’s and you are back up and running).
- TTL vs manual:  Inon’s system offers a sort of TTL (automatic control of the strobe power), whereas Ikelite’s manual controller, as you might have guessed from the name, does not.  I’m not sure what Sea and Sea offer.
- local dealer support:  You may well be better off buying a strobe from a dealer local to you, so that they can give you some hands on help to get you started, as well as easier support in the future.  This may mean you need to choose the strobes the dealer offers.

10 days doesn’t leave you very much time, especially if you need to order equipment from a foreign country.  I suspect there will be underwater camera dealers in Spain though.  Good luck.