The next (brightness) level
About 5 years ago I started developing the first trigger to use with the Inon Z230 strobes. I needed to find out what kind of light source should I use instead of the pop-up flash to control the external underwater strobe. The task may seem "simple": it must be reliable, small, bright and it shouldn't consume too much energy.
The easy choice was the LED (Light-Emitting Diode). Back in the day, there were only simple, cone-shaped LED's in the market, their diameter was 5mm or 3mm. Those were affordable but weren't too bright and they needed high voltage so I couldn't use them with a battery.
Instead those we chose the SMD technology. For an SMD LED they usually list the lumen (which gives the total luminous flux of a light source), but we prefer candela which measures the amount of light emitted in the range of an angular span.
Here is a tool for conversion between lumen and candela:
https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/light/candela-to-lumen-calculator.html
We added the LEDs to the TURTLE triggers from the beginning. The first SMD LEDs' light output was about 70-80 candela. It was enough to control the majority of the underwater strobes if we used multi-core cable. Later we found more powerful LEDs with 100 candela light output and those solved nearly all problems.
Certainly, we know, in the underwater photography is the more reliable is the better. If we wanted to control all the strobes, even the ones with older, or not too sensible sensors, we needed to find a way to develop our products. We are proud to announce the next (brightness) level: we found a new LED that has a light output of 150 candela. From now on we will add them to all the new TURTLE SMART orders. You can order these as spare items from the webshop too. You can simply replace the old ones to the new LED panels without any modification. The older LEDs still work flawlessly, you don't need to replace them if there isn't any problem with the strobe control. The new LEDs will let using TTL control of some specific strobes which we didn't list as compatible models.
We really hope these new LEDs will work perfectly with all kinds of underwater strobes. If you have any questions, feel free to contact us!
