Eric reported in his DEMA coverage that Fantasea had a new focus light in the works that automatically senses a pre-flash and shuts off so as to eliminate hot spots in your shots.

This sounds perfect! If its at a reasonable cost and sufficient power (<$100) I think this would be a great seller. I'd love to have one of these particularly for the 105mm.

Any info on when these will be out and what the pricing is?

Also, what is the best way to attach these to an ULCS system? Now that I have the ball joint neck adapter I have a sweet focus light position for my Ikelite housing. I'm currently using a Princeton tech light with their velcro adapter. It works great but the milk carton diffuser I created is hoky and cuts the light output.

I am not sure what was shown at Fantasea at the DEMA show; but at the Fisheye booth there was a little light that did just that, detected the flash from the camera and shut itself off briefly; but dont know at what distance it works or how well. I bought one because it was small and would fit nicely in a BC pocket for a back up. Uses the SEa and SEa adapter of ULCS to attach to the clamp. It is a LED and appeared quite bright. Have not had any time to do any testing on it. They were for sale at the show for about $20.00 I think Ryan will be selling them at REEF PHOTO, not sure when he will get any.

The Fantasea light also uses a Sea and Sea adapter.

Terry
ulcs

Just back from Rocky Point where I tried the new focus light Nano Focus Light. Thanks to Richard at Reef Photo Video they had the item on their website (Nano Focus Light)just in time to overnight it to me before the trip. I used it while shooting sea lions at Bird Island.

While this was not the ideal application for which I bought the light it functioned perfectly. It shuts off without fail on the first pre-flash and does not show up as a hot spot in the photos. The light is very small, using only 4 AAA batteries and 8 white LEDs. It mounts perfectly on my ikelite housing with a ULCS sea and sea adapter, one clamp and the ULCS ball neck clamp. The light is fairly bright, white and even, although not as bright as my 4 AA concentrated beam of the Princeton Tech flashlight I used to use. In that case I had yellowish hot spots in my shots even at 1/250 s exposures.

My only complaint is that the light could be a bit brighter. I'd like to see the switch integrated into one of their 48 LED lights or even in a AA model. I suppose its a delicate balance between enough power to assist with focus and throwing off the exposure. The light did not interfere with exposure. However since most photographers shoot manual with manual strobe control this should not be an issue. In order to fully capitalize on the shutoff feature the light should be very bright achieving the best focus control with no affect on the final shot.

When the lamp arrived it had a minor problem with the switch. The contact that is released when you unscrew the cap to turn off the lamp was not making contact so it wouldn't turn on. I unscrewed the electronics cover plate and bent the contact a bit to more firmly contact the circuit board and it worked. I'm happy that this quick-fix worked as I had a bit of a panic thinking the light was defective and I would have to send it back.

Due to difficulties getting dive boats this time of year and running out of strobe power in the sea lion frenzy on my first dive, I didn't get a chance to try it with the 105mm which is the main reason for the lamp. I'll do more testing on my next trip in May and report back then.