Iluminating the Water: Fstoppers Reviews the Lume Cube

Lighting on land can be daunting when a photographer is first starting out in their business. Understanding the angles, the intensity, and the direction comes from education and experience. So when I started working with illuminating subjects beneath the water's surface, it felt like a whole new game.

Keeping in mind all I knew about light, I had to revert back to my previous days working as a scientist to remember the properties of the water bodies I was working with. Water absorbs most of the red spectrum almost immediately within the depth of the water column (depending on the type of water body you are working with). A light source's distance on land will be greatly shortened once under the surface. Use of special underwater flashlights, strobes, and even utilizing surface modifiers will be your greatest sources to bring back all the colors lost in your image. (I highly recommend using water-specific strobes for the land work or taking extreme safety precautions when using portable power. Never use strobes connected to outlets in the pool area.)

If you are working in a pool instead of the ocean or a fresh spring, you will run into different light absorption rates. Educating yourself about the water body you will be working in can be a timesaver later on in the post-production phase when bringing back the colors.

I have been using an Ikelite housing for my Nikon D810 along with a side-mounted Ikelite DS 51 strobe. While I love the distance and intensity I can customize on my strobe, I also wanted a constant fill light for certain areas. My main work was shooting portraits, but the need for more retail-sellable art was on my list as well. I shot the two below flower images with just the strobe. While I love the outcome, the recycling time can be a hindrance as things are moving underwater. The strobes also proved to be difficult to work with in close proximity to the flowers as they created water movement as an extension of the underwater rig itself.

The need for something smaller for this kind of work was clear. I was looking for something that could add to it and found my answer when I was recently speaking at the PPA Orlando chapter on underwater photography. A photographer named Ed Medici from the group told me about a light source called the Lume Cube. Well, I must have been in the dark since I had not heard of it until that day. This is a small but powerful light source that fits in the palm of my hand. I was thinking there had to be more — a housing of some sort, but no. The entire cube is compact and waterproof.

He graciously offered to drive two hours north to visit me to let me test this equipment out. We attached it to the end of a light stand and submerged it in various positions around the flowers to test out the intensity and distance. Since I was shooting during the day, I knew the intensity would be fairly overpowered by the sun, so I created a black backdrop and top to block most of the light to see the true power of the cube.

It has 10 intensity settings along with a flashing strobe. Above land, the Lume Cube can be operated via Bluetooth from your own phone; however the signal is lost once it is submerged. On a full charge and full power, it can last up to 20 minutes or 2 hours at 50% brightness on land. However, after speaking with the creators of the Cube, I found that it can last up to one full hour underwater as the heat is better dissipated.

The image below shows the Cube in comparison to the head of the Curcuma flower. It was held just a few inches below the surface. With the cube attached to the light stand mount, one person on the edge of the pool held it upside down in order to move around the subject without being in the water and causing movement or air bubbles.

The attenuation is the distance the light will travel before the intensity drops below approximately 37% of the source. The cube has 1500 lumen and 150 lux at 3 meters on land. Underwater, the intensity drops significantly but still produces enough light with a great fall off for the dramatic look I was searching for. Although I mainly shoot in pools at a max depth of 8 feet, the Cube is rated to be waterproof down to 100 feet.

When working with some of my underwater art, we allow it to float from the bottom to the surface to not only gain movement, but also some air bubbles to add to the look. Flowers float slowly, which is perfectly fine for my strobe. However, with the herbs and vegetables, they quickly sprang to the surface and I had to make sure I could shoot continuously as they ascended. The Lume Cube provided enough constant light to get the shot.

Adding a few more of these at various points and depths in the water should prove to provide an intensely dramatic result. While I do work a great deal with my strobe, the cube will provide a great deal of control for illuminating my subjects. In the future, they will be tested on other subjects: human and perhaps in situ plant life in the springs and rivers. I am curious to see how they react in tannic water body systems, as well as the rapid movement of spring waters. The Lume Cube has a 6000K color temperature, so along with the tannic waters, it will prove to be a different setting compared to the pool waters.

What I Liked

• Small size.
• Price: You can purchase a quad pack for almost the same as one similar flashlight. Having the ability to use four points will add to the backdrop separation.

What I Didn't

• While the optical slave can be triggered underwater with speeds of 1/250, during day light underwater it did not always find my strobe flash. However future work will be to test it at night to see the full power of the slave. 

A few more from this test. And why an artichoke? Because it looked cool in the store, and I wondered how it would look underwater. Sometimes, you just have to find new things to test out to keep things fun.

Interested in getting your own Lume Cube? Pick them up here.