Salvo dual 24W HID/9.6A Li-Ion feedback

[Anders Jelvéus]

Does anyone use the Salvo dual 24W Li-Ion HID videolights?

I am looking for a light system for my Bluefin HD housing and wish I could afford new, or find a good used set of Halcyon Apollo dual 50W HID.

I have instead started to look at the Salvo light (no politics please) and wonder if anyone have any feedback and or knowledge about the quality/intensity of these lights. They apparently have an output of 1800 lumen each and a color temperature of 6000 Kelvin. Burntime/battery charge is 2,5 hours.

With the dual 50W HID I would get 60 minutes of burntime on a 13.5A NMH battery, but more light...

How do the Salvo video lights compare to the dual 50w and rest of the market?

Anders

[Richard Lundgren]

How do the Salvo video lights compare to the dual 50w and rest of the market?

Anders

Hi Anders!

Have never seen dual 21w Salvo Hids underwater. The dual Halcyon 50w HIDs are impressive in the water only to be dwarfed by the HMIs. Even the 50w HIDs doesnt even come close to the HMIs. If I had to chose I would save for the Halcyon dual 50ies.

I havnt seen any dual 50ies on the used market. Maybe a wild card would be Halcyon itself. JJ might have some older versions at hand.

Take care
Richard Lundgren

[Anders Jelvéus]

No luck with Halcyon reagarding used Apollo dual 50W HID...
I have posted a "want to buy" on different dive forums so we will see.

Thanks for the advice though.

Anders

[fsiljelof]

Hi there, these lights are a wildcard worth looking in too, not very DIR in their making but then again the HMI is not the smallest of lights either, have a look at www.divetools.de the 50W HID lights retails for 549 € per head + batteries, that will still give you a decent deal at about 1.700 € for a set of dual 50W HID including a 13 Ah NiMh batterypack, can´t really speak for the quality or light output but the price is a bargin ... the videoheads comes with a videoreflector and a diffuser ...

The manucfactorer site is www.treble-light.de but they do not sell them directly, if you try them, let me know how they work =)

//Fredrik

[Anders Jelvéus]

Thanks for the info Fredrik,

It looks like the battery pack in in the light heaad, which would make the video setup heavy without extra boyancy equipment. I have tried that before with a Gates PD-170 housing, and it worked, but was not ideal.

I think the Halcyon Apollo 50w system or similar construction is a bit better suited for my needs, and I just hope that the WA light bulbs are not too fragile.

Anders

[fsiljelof]

Hi, the battery back is NOT within the Lighthead for the K-VID-D50 “Videolampenkopf 50 W HID” The handle has to be removed offcourse, but that should not be a problem. The size of the head is not the smallest of versions (diameter 82mm and length 170mm) but small compared to an HMI for example. The weight of the head is 475g under water which should be okay to handle. As for batteries you would get something like the G-930 separate battery pack at 13 Ah which is a very small battery pack that you would mount in the same way as the Halcyon battery back, the in water weight for the battery pack is 800g which also should be fine… (I would suggest you remove the handle or what ever it is on the battery pack as well and mount it in the same way as a Halycon battery pack)

Anyway, good luck!

//Fredrik

[Anders Jelvéus]

Ineresting. Do you know if the light beam/angle is adjustable "on the fly" on these lights?


Anders

[fsiljelof]

Hi, I’m afraid the light angle is not adjustable on the fly, however the reflectors are interchangeable on land and the video light-heads are delivered with an extra video reflector (wide angle). I’m not really sure when you actually would change the angle under water … for wide angles you always want the angle at least as wide as your lens, for macro you want need all the light of two focused 50 W HID lights … I my self is not a great fan of the reflectors on the Halycon lights, however I will get a video reflector for my halcyon tonight and will after that be more able to comment that reflector. But apart from the reflector, adjustable angle is always a nice extra even though I don’t use it that much for “behind the camera” lightning, if you are planning to place you dual 50W HID in the hands of a buddy, adjusting the light angle can create cool effects and would there be more important than behind the camera…

//Fredrik

[Anders Jelvéus]

Thank you Fredrik,

Interesting information about these lights. From the research I have made I have still seen most positive feedback reagarding the Halcyon Apollo dual 50W system. They have been tested under "extreme" diving conditions and I have not read or heard about any major complaints. Not even regarding the bulb-life/replacement costs. This hopefully means that the bulbs do not break too often... :-)

The videoreflector Halcyon uses seems to be a standard one, but there may be better reflectors on the market that can be used with this setup. Do you by any chance know of a particular brand you favor. It kind of depends on the lens used, and I do not know yet if it will be a L&M ultrawide (100-110 degrees), or a L&M wide (80 degrees) plus a Fathom Imaging special production unit (120 degrees).

I have decided to order the Apollo lights snce I do not know that much about these particular German lights. I am however sure they are good video lights.

Have you by chance heard anything aboout the HMI lights a guy in Finland builds? They are supposedly quite a bit cheaper than the Halcyon ones, but looks about the same.

Sincerely

Anders

[fsiljelof]

Hi, don’t get me wrong I would choose the Apollo dual 50W HID system over the German lights any day, however I thought you were after a cheaper solution and as the German lights are even cheaper than a set of dual 24W Salvo HID:s they probably do okay in their price range... but I would not choose them over the Apollo dual 50W set up, if price was not an issue...

Regarding the reflectors I still can't understand why Halcyon do not put in more work in finding a better one ... I'm not really sure of a better one that you can use of the shelf with the halcyon HID:s though, I now Sartek supplies a very similar one but that might actually even be the same reflector so using them probably won't help you that much .... the far best reflectors for video lightning I have seen (we used them shooting for BBC in Aqaba last year) are the Green Force Squid 100, with a thin diffuser they will give you an awesome light picture spread over 110 degrees ... but as they won't fit the Apollo system the won't do you much good ...have a look at
http://www.green-force.com/PDF/Folder_Squid_LR.pdf (http://www.green-force.com/PDF/Folder_Squid_LR.pdf)

Another really good reflector is the one used by Kowalski, I’m always amazed as my 50W halogen Kowalski light gives me tremendous more light than my 18 W Halcyon HID ... if you can figure out the manufacturer of these reflectors the might be convertible for the Apollo system, I think the ones used by Kowalski will be to small if you drill a huge hole in them but the original manufacturer might be making bigger ones that you can use ... you’ll find Kowalski at http://www.taucherlampen.de/ (http://www.taucherlampen.de/)

(By the way, the huge hole in the halcyon reflector for the light bulb is probably a huge reason for the por light picture which is really hard to do anything about as long as they use the test tube solution)

As for the Finish HMI lights I haven’t heard of them but will definitely look in to them! (You don't have a link for them, do you?)

We used the super wide phantom lens among others to shoot for BBC and it is really an awesome lens if you can afford it, it will give you a super clear picture, but then again it’s not cheep =(

Well anyway, I hope I didn't make you even more confused =)

Good luck!

//Fredrik

[Anders Jelvéus]

Hi Fredrik,

I really appreciate all the info you give me, it is so much for me to learn. I opted for the Halcyon lights since I do not want to compromize on quality. From what I understand HD/HDV requires more light compared to my old PD-150 setup. We are also planning to get 1-2 HMI lights in the future to even better light the subjects/wrecks.

I will look into the issue with the reflectors once I get the Apollo lights (in 2-3 weeks) to determine how I best can go about it.

As an interesting side note regarding HMI lights for those that dive with SS-scooters, I spoke to Rodney today. He is making HMIs now that will start to sell in October. The 200W HMI lights are powered directly from the scooter batteries through a special nose cone with bulk head (to prevent damage to scooter if it gets gets flooded through the wire connection). Mounted on the video mounts that he makes, the light can be swiweled to the sides as well. They are switchable on the fly between 125 and 200 Watts, and have a maximum output of about 15000 lumen at 5600K.

A demo video of the lights can be seen at:

http://www.silent-submersion.com/HMI/

I think this is a very interesting solution. With the right conversion, I might even be able to run the dual 50W lights from the scooter batteries as well if desired.

Sincerely

Anders Jelvéus