Today, we'll talk accessories.

Because we bought the Elite bundle with our DC1200, we got two key accessories - a Digital Pro Flash and a 24mm Wide Angle Lens.

First, let's look at the flash strobe. I used this model of strobe last year on our trip and honestly had nothing but bad luck with it.

I believe the issue I was having was that a "pre-flash" setting got turned on somehow. After reading my manual that came with the new one, I found that the pre-flash setting works for other brands of cameras that use a burst of the flash to assist with the auto-focus system. The pre-flash setting tells the flash to ignore the first X flashes before firing. Since the SeaLife flash does not use an electrical signal to fire, but rather uses a sync-cord which is a fiber-optic cable that passes the built in flash along to signal the external flash ti fire, this pre-flash setting is necessary.

The other item I needed to learn about this flash is that it still only has an effective distance of 2 to 8 feet underwater. This is not a problem of the flash not being powerful enough, but a side-effect of light not traveling through water as easily as through air. To be specific, light travels 25% slower through water than air, thus making the light fall-off from the flash that much more drastic.

This is definitely something I'll have to work on while in Wakatobi if I plan on bringing back good photos.

The second accessory, I have not worked with before. It is a wide angle lens adapter that attaches to the front of the housing and works with a couple optical elements to allow for a wider view than the built in lens.

The lens is very heavy and from looking at it and reading reviews, it sounds like the optical glass is of decent quality, so hopefully it won't matter to have those extra elements in the mix. The extra weight will probably end up making the entire setup negatively buoyant, which is somewhat unfortunate since a positive buoyancy would cause the camera to float should it slip from my grasp during a dive (making it more likely to relocate).

Additionally, it comes with a soft neoprene case to keep the optics from getting scratches in the carrying case, and also has a dock that attaches to the bottom of the flash bracket to store the lens during dives when not in use.