Camera bouyancy considerations

[AlClarence]

I'm just about to upgrade my camera and housing whilst keeping the same strobes.  I was wondering if anyone had any opinions on the best way to get the bouyancy of the rig to where I want it.  Is it better to get the strobes and arms to neutral and then also get the housing/camera to neutral as a seperate unit as such? I'm not sure that I'm articulating this very well but is it preferential to have the camera and housing neutral so that a change of arms/strobes/video lights is easier to balance or does everyone just control the bouyancy for the entire rig as one?

[humu9679]

22 minutes ago, AlClarence said:

I'm just about to upgrade my camera and housing whilst keeping the same strobes.  I was wondering if anyone had any opinions on the best way to get the bouyancy of the rig to where I want it.  Is it better to get the strobes and arms to neutral and then also get the housing/camera to neutral as a seperate unit as such? I'm not sure that I'm articulating this very well but is it preferential to have the camera and housing neutral so that a change of arms/strobes/video lights is easier to balance or does everyone just control the bouyancy for the entire rig as one?

 

I think weighing the whole rig in with a luggage scale in a tub or pool is the way to go. My preference is to be slightly negative, and not tipping upwards or down. Then, I add buoyancy offsets, say with Stix floats (jumbo are +181g each; large are +96g), or buoyancy arms.

[Floris Bennema]

It's more pragmatic to just use the strobearms to improve the buoyancy. If that not enough, you could add buoyancy arms. If you often dive without strobes, check first how your set feels without floats. And don't be too concerened about small changes in uw-weight.

[Chris Ross]

On 11/20/2024 at 12:31 PM, AlClarence said:

I'm just about to upgrade my camera and housing whilst keeping the same strobes.  I was wondering if anyone had any opinions on the best way to get the bouyancy of the rig to where I want it.  Is it better to get the strobes and arms to neutral and then also get the housing/camera to neutral as a seperate unit as such? I'm not sure that I'm articulating this very well but is it preferential to have the camera and housing neutral so that a change of arms/strobes/video lights is easier to balance or does everyone just control the bouyancy for the entire rig as one?

It depends on how much buoyancy you'll be adding.  In general you want the buoyancy components up high as they will want to turn to be there anyway even if the rig is overall neutral and the classic way to do this is buoyancy on the strobe arms.   But if the buoyancy you add is too high you'll have a significant torque trying to prevent you from rotating the camera to point up. I think something 500-600 gr of buoyancy on the arms is fine, i have this on my regular rig and I don't notice the torque.

 

On my newer setup using the Canon 8-15 on the OM-1 to get neutral I needed 2.2 kg of buoyancy and tried it with two 670 gr arms and two 210 gr arms and twisting it was quite difficult and I ended up removing the two 210 gr arms and dived it about 450gr negative.   The reason for the torque is twofold - the amount of buoyancy and the arms being quite long it was placed a long way from the centre of mass so a strong lever.  I am thinking of adding about 400 gr of buoyancy to the base plate.

 

So just weigh your rig on a luggage scale in water and come back for more specific suggestions.   What to do will depend on how much buoyancy you need to get close to neutral