Sea & Sea YS-110 Strobe Review
Official YS-110 specifications:
Guide number in air: 22
Color temp: 5400K, 5100K with diffuser
Coverage: 105 degrees (with diffuser)
Recycle time: 3 seconds
Depth rating: 196ft (60 meters)
13 Manual settings
Fired by sync cable or fiber optic cable
Weight in water: slightly negative
The YS-110 is a solid, popular mid-range strobe used by high-end compact camera underwater photographers, and dSLR underwater photographers. I’ve used it extensively for macro and wide-angle and it works well and is reliable. It’s fairly small, light, and slightly negative underwater which is very nice.
You should also consider reading our YS-D1 strobe review, which is a much more recent strobe.
YS-110 Pros
- Reliable, readily available, good size and weight, good price point. Easily serviced or replaced around the world.
- Good build quality, good angle of coverage
- Uses 4 AA batteries. Batteries usually will last for 3 dives of heavy shooting.
- Works great with my Sea & Sea TTL-converter III for nikon, for macro & close focus wide angle.
- Good range of manual settings.
- It has a high-intensity focus light
YS-110 Cons
- The strobe could be a little stronger, and have a warmer color temp for wide-angle, but couldn’t most strobes be stronger?
- Diffusers are a little too strong and easy to lose
YS-110 settings and configuration
Set the main dial to TTL when using a TTL converter
Manual 1 – used with fiber-optic cable and cameras with a pre-flash
Manual 2 – used with fiber-optic cable and cameras without a pre-flash
Manual 1 or Manual 2 can be used when using a camera with a sync cord connection.
The slave button should be “off”, unless you are using a fiber optic cable and slaving the strobe off a camera pre-flash.
The power setting dial should be fairly obvious how to use, “full” is full power and “min” is the minimum power setting.
Comparison between other strobes:
The Ikelite DS160 is more expensive, heavier, recycles faster, and is a warmer strobe.
Here I compare it with the Inon Z240 strobe.
Price
This strobe was replaced by the YS-110a, which recycles faster and has better support for compact cameras and optical TTL. Used YS-110’s can go for $275-$430.
