Water, Lights, Safety?

[Olli]

I would ensure you have a positive means of keeping the strobes out of the water and the cables dry. Heavy duty weighted stands, an assistant holding the stand, or a cable from the strobe to a high attachment point.

If you are going to do a lot of shooting around or partially in the water you might consider an underwater strobe. I have one that's 225 w/s. Convenience and cycle times are slower than studio strobes, but they are much safer around water.

Another method is to keep the strobes in another room and shoot through windows. Check out Howard Schatz work. His underwater pool work was lit with studio strobes in ajoining rooms. http://www.howardschatz.com/

I found out about trigger voltages one fine day in the Florida Keys about 60 feet underwater. The small Vivitar strobe (in a housing) I was using misfired. Checking the connections I got a terrific jolt. Almost bit through my regulator mouthpiece. Later I checked the trigger voltage. It was 300 volts!

[wgiles]

I agree. I will use a radio slave to fire the strobe, if there is water around. AC is only grounded if it is connected to a grounded source, like the household 120 volts. Generators and inverters are not grounded unless you ground them. I put my outlet tester on one of my inverters last night and it showed an open ground. I had mentioned that I carry a portable GFCI with my inverter, I also carry an outlet tester with a GFCI test button.

Bill