News

Editor’s Note: This is the second of four parts of DPG’s DEMA coverage. Check out our DEMA 2019 Home Page for a comprehensive look at this year’s show.
 

It’s Day 2, and we’re just hitting our stride! Backscatter unveils their shiny new Mini Flash strobe, Bigblue showcases their new LED lights, Saga Dive reminds us about their nifty accessories, and Keldan once again proves that there’s no color cooler than pink!

Backscatter

The Monterey-based underwater photo and video supplier is the go-to for shooters all over the States and beyond for good reason: These guys live and breathe underwater imaging. So much so, in fact, that they develop their own unique products specifically aimed at underwater photographers—and that’s what they were showcasing at DEMA.
 

Media Producer Robin Dodd introduces the company’s own latest and greatest gadgets
 

The star of the show is their newly developed Mini Flash, a compact and lightweight strobe specifically designed for macro shooting. Its small form factor makes it particularly easy to position the light close to tiny subjects, and the accompanying Optical Snoot allows you to produce a much tighter beam that directs light exactly where you need it. The snoot comes with an aperture card that has different apertures to produce various different beam sizes and shapes. The best feature is that the Mini Flash has LEDs (three power levels) that function as a focus light, and with the snoot attached, you’re seeing exactly the light beam that you’ll get when the strobe fires.
 

We reckon Backscatter’s brand new Mini Flash is going to be a huge hit among macro shooters
 

With the Optical Snoot attached and inserting one of the aperture cards—circular or oval—you can get exactly the beam you want
 

Backscatter had a variety of GoPro systems kitted out with their FLIP7 system of filters and wet lenses, nicely demonstrating why the system has been such a long-standing solution for videographers using the popular action cam. We were assured that FLIP8 is on the way—ready to pimp out your brand new HERO8 Black.
 

The versatile FLIP7 system will soon be replaced by FLIP8—which will be backwards compatible with earlier GoPro generations

Bigblue

In the Bigblue booth, the spotlight was on, well, the lights—everything from 250-lumen handheld units all the way to 60,000-lumen monster video lights for the pros. On display at the show were dive lights in new eye-catching camouflage colors, new 1,800-lumen narrow beam lights, and a new blue light series for fluoro diving. The latter, which range from 2,600 lumens to 50,000 lumens, have blue LEDs in addition to white and red LEDs, and you can toggle between the different modes using a single button.
 

Bigblue’s Nick Ratcliffe takes us through the company’s extensive range of dive and video lights
 

Dive lights in new camouflage colors
 

Pink version of the new 1800-lumen narrow beam light
 

New blue light series aimed at fluoro shooters

Saga Dive

’Tis the season to be merry—very soon—and if you need some stocking fillers for your dive buddies, Saga Dive has you covered: dome ports in various different sizes, a range of macro lenses from +5 to +25 diopters, and their ingenious Trio, with its +5 and +10 lenses which can be used separately or together to produce a +15 lens.
 

Jordi Benitez Castells provides an overview of the Barcelona company’s range of accessories
 

The company’s 4", 6.5" and 9" optical glass domes, complete with protective pouches
 

It’s not new, but it’s still clever: +5, +10 or +15 diopter conversion using two external levers
 

Saga has another trick up its sleeves in the shape of its ring flash

Keldan

There’s Isotta red. There’s Sea&Sea yellow. And then there’s Keldan pink! Everyone knows those awesome big bright pink beauties that kick out some serious lumens. The company’s latest product, showcased at the last few trade shows, is their wireless remote control for their pro-grade Video 18/24X lights. We still don’t know how much it will cost or when it’s coming, but there’s no question it’s super cool to have variable control over video lights underwater from a distance. Wreck and cave divers rejoice!
 

Daniel Keller shows off his lights, filters and amazing wireless remote control, which works using acoustic sound waves
 

Pretty in pink: Keldan’s lights may be a funny color but they’re serious tools aimed at the pros
 

Keldan’s range of Ambient Light Filters—for blue water, blue-green water, and green water—do what it says on the tin: Convert your artificial beam into lovely sun-like light
 

More cool stuff in Part 3, as we take a closer look at the booths occupied by Ikelite, Aquatica, Gates, and Easydive.