Hello,

I built myself a trim system for my Nautical Nikon Z8 housing. It consists out of two aluminum profiles and a few amazon aluminum cheese plates. The goal is to have neutral rig with adjustable trim (with small weights on a sled), so I can do some tilted shots against the sun and so on. The profiles are that long on the rear end, because of the 6inch monitor, so I have enough space to mount ist perfectly for alle my needs. An additional benefit is that I can put my camera down, without the hazard of scratching the housing. There is a rubber boot at the bottom of the profile. The products you can buy are too expensive and sometimes too small. I tried to keep everything as close to the housing as possible to mimic a bigger cine housing. What do you think?

Daniel

Edited Monday at 10:27 AM1 day by danka94

Wow, that looks very nice! I'm really curious as to how it will handle, especially with the photo-style flexitray handles close to port.

Do you mind linking to the material you've used, and the weight system that plan on using for trim?

cheers

Beautiful work. I am looking forward to hearing how it works once you get it in the water.

I am toying with ideas on how to mount my monitor. I looked at the Nauticam PN 17951 but they don't seem to have a version for the SmallHD monitor that I have, so I think that I will have to come up with my own. Right now, I am using a ball mount in the threaded hole at the right front, but it tends to loosen up, and isn't in a great spot.

Terrific project.

Ho do you add the weights?

Is it possible to add some legs for macro work without removing everything?

Ho do you plan to mount the monitor, behind the housing?

Thanks

Your solution looks quite a bit more elegant compared to a simple rectangular piece of aluminum which is what I have been doing recently. In my case I am seeking to reduce negativity due to the EMWL system so use float arms. https://www.salmonography.com/Salmonid-Topic/Photography-techniques/i-8NTBjs5/A

Hey, thank you for your nice comments, i try to answer everyone in this posting.

@bghazzal I used this:

2x400mm https://www.innovalu.at/de/30x30mm-schwarz-eloxiertes-aluprofil.html

10x

https://www.innovalu.at/de/nutenstein-M6-nut-8.html

2x https://www.innovalu.at/de/profilgummiauflage.html

4x https://www.innovalu.at/de/endkappe-30x30.html

I think the weight system are going to be trim weights from a small camera gimbal. They have like 20g each and a thread on one side, so I can directly screw it into the T-nuts.

@SwiftFF5 Yeah that‘s the next thing I have to consider. The monitor mount. I am thinking about a small profile, the same I used as the sleds and then a ball mount into the T-nut.

@Davide DB Thabk you :) The monitor mount is still a thing I have to think about. I bought a 6inch Fotocore monitor, which has a thread in the back. Maybe I find a sleek solution, as i mentioned a few sentences above.

The weights are going to be trim weights from a small camera gimbal. Something like this: https://www.smallrig.com/de/smallrig-counterweight-kit-for-dji-rs-2-rsc-2-selected-zhiyun-gimbals-3125.html?skuId=1517092352715550721&gad_source=1&gad_campaignid=21452025728&gbraid=0AAAAA9ksdxnnV3mUnnX4AgHUGDQ4xJUHd&gclid=Cj0KCQjw64jDBhDXARIsABkk8J7JMMawtmDLSQLNOzEJmcCwaDykZwWx--88QyH6l9RYFRgWSh2jWeYaAvEdEALw_wcB

Yes tripod legs, like I saw here in the DIY forum with ball mounts and carbon arms are possible on the inside of the profiles. If i use spacers on one side, I can flip them and store them perfectly below the housing.

@Tom Kline It may looks more elegant, but I still have to test it ;) But I love your pole cam setup!! It is really great. What do you use as a pole?

Looks like a great project, presumably the idea is to get the rig neutral and move the weights to change from horizontal trim to pointing up/down. It's an interesting 3-dimensional balance problem, the weights/housing want to stay at the bottom and the floats want to stay at the top so it takes increasingly more torque to twist the whole rig to point upwards. I discovered how much using about 1.4kg of floats on my strobe arms with my rig - it was close to neutral but did not want to point up. The point is if your angles are small then it won't take much to change the trim but pointing something like 30-45° up will be more of a challenge. If you increase the weight of the balance weights to assist you need more buoyancy up top which makes things worse.

I faced a similar issue balancing a fork-mount astronomical telescope - they work best if well balanced and you can point them anywhere in the sky and they will stay with only slight friction on the clutches when done properly. I had a smaller guide scope piggy-backed on top and to achieve balance I needed weights equivalent to the weight of the guide scope on the opposite side of the main scope and a much smaller sliding trim weight.

Thinking about how to achieve something similar if that's your aim you would need to split your flotation 50/50 between above and below the housing. An additional complication is if you have lights on arms, the balance will change every time you move them. The solution might then be to make the lights neural with a float collar on each of them. You could for example make your lights neutral, then balance the housing with buoyancy split between the arms for the lights and the other 50% strapped to in the inside of your rails. you could move the bottom floats back and forward to help with front/back trim. Just some thoughts on how to make it balanced in most positions.

4 hours ago, Chris Ross said:

It's an interesting 3-dimensional balance problem, the weights/housing want to stay at the bottom and the floats want to stay at the top so it takes increasingly more torque to twist the whole rig to point upwards. I discovered how much using about 1.4kg of floats on my strobe arms with my rig - it was close to neutral but did not want to point up.

When I set up my GH5 many years ago, that's exactly what happened.

The housing, with a 6" acrylic dome port, was almost neutral, but it kept turning dome-up, and I had to apply a fair amount of force to keep it horizontal. I ended up adding a good 700 grams to the dome's neck, and at that point, I had to start adding flotation arms. It was a never-ending spiral. Unfortunately, a camera's shape is the worst for this.

It's the most important detail for a video setup, and that's why video housings are shaped horizontally (more angle to work with) and usually have a lot of air inside.

1 hour ago, Davide DB said:

When I set up my GH5 many years ago, that's exactly what happened.

The housing, with a 6" acrylic dome port, was almost neutral, but it kept turning dome-up, and I had to apply a fair amount of force to keep it horizontal. I ended up adding a good 700 grams to the dome's neck, and at that point, I had to start adding flotation arms. It was a never-ending spiral. Unfortunately, a camera's shape is the worst for this.

It's the most important detail for a video setup, and that's why video housings are shaped horizontally (more angle to work with) and usually have a lot of air inside.

I think if you add half the required buoyancy at the rails at the bottom and the other half in float arms it should be a lot closer to balanced.

The other thing with rails is if place your dome balance weights at the end of the rails they have more leverage to pull the dome down than if the weight is around the neck of the port.

The other consideration is having some small excess of the buoyancy above which means this is the natural floating position, if the excess is below then it will want to be on top.

@Chris Ross Your input is very interesting. When I started with this project a few months back I thought about the difference in putting floats on the strobe arms or bowl the camera. I think there are a few kilos negative I have to balance. The space below the housing and between the rails is perfect for a custom flat foam block, to generate lift from below and not pulling from above.

Fortunately I have a glass dome, so it is a little front heavy and the monitor in the back is going to pull the whole rig back. Unfortunately I still don't have my lights yet and no time to really test is before the next trip to the Azores end of August.

But I am definitely going to follow your ideas. Balance the lights to neutral, the buoyancy still needed will be split between a bottom foam block and some buoyancy arms. With a little bit more on the top. Do you think it is better to leave it slightly positive and then add the trim weights or balance it with the weights and then the trim is easier to archive?

3 hours ago, danka94 said:

Fortunately I have a glass dome, so it is a little front heavy and the monitor in the back is going to pull the whole rig back.

Do you know the exact weight of the Fotocore MR6 monitor? I wasn't able to get this info. Their previous model was over 700 gr negative

4 hours ago, danka94 said:

@Chris Ross Your input is very interesting. When I started with this project a few months back I thought about the difference in putting floats on the strobe arms or bowl the camera. I think there are a few kilos negative I have to balance. The space below the housing and between the rails is perfect for a custom flat foam block, to generate lift from below and not pulling from above.

Fortunately I have a glass dome, so it is a little front heavy and the monitor in the back is going to pull the whole rig back. Unfortunately I still don't have my lights yet and no time to really test is before the next trip to the Azores end of August.

But I am definitely going to follow your ideas. Balance the lights to neutral, the buoyancy still needed will be split between a bottom foam block and some buoyancy arms. With a little bit more on the top. Do you think it is better to leave it slightly positive and then add the trim weights or balance it with the weights and then the trim is easier to archive?

Good questions, It's hard to say till you try, the basics are relatively simple - the floats want to be on top and the housing/weights below and generally speaking keeping it symmetrical.

In principle when trying to keep the whole thing neutral, I expect adding weight is probably easier than subtracting buoyancy. and ideally that weight could become your trim as well.

The issue you may run into could be that float arms are more or less vertical while the float between the rail is horizontal so the distribution of buoyancy shifts when you tilt the rig. Same thing with your monitor - if it's behind the housing it's like an extension of the housing and can be balanced with sliding weights. If it's above as you tilt it over it's going to start pulling down. Perhaps you could mount a buoyancy block behind the monitor with the other block directly below it? In principle making the monitor also neutral would free up where you position it.

Once you decide how to mount your monitor then you can think about where to place the buoyancy I think.

On 6/30/2025 at 1:32 PM, danka94 said:

@Tom Kline It may looks more elegant, but I still have to test it ;) But I love your pole cam setup!! It is really great. What do you use as a pole?

I used a vintage monopod in the example (just under 2 meters long). I have also used other long pieces of aluminum (e.g. ~2 1/2 meter long antenna support - gold colored - in several of the technique photos) as well as vintage metal tripods. Keep in mind I am using them in freshwater. I have used the monopod pole in the harbor (seawater). Even freshwater is not so good for tripods and monopods so whatever you use it will be a sacrifice.

15 hours ago, danka94 said:

Fortunately I have a glass dome, so it is a little front heavy and the monitor in the back is going to pull the whole rig back. Unfortunately I still don't have my lights yet and no time to really test is before the next trip to the Azores end of August.

I should add that I would think it would be worth at least trying it out in a pool or lake before travelling, what seems perfectly practical can end up causing unanticipated issues which may be difficult to fix in the field.

For example I set my rig before I travelled to be near neutral and I had a 690 gr and a 210 gr float arm on each side. I found it took lots of torque to twist up and the solution was swapping out the 210 gr arms for standard arms and diving with it about 450gr negative. I'm going to try out a bottom float of about 400 grams on my next trip. Stills of course is a lot less demanding than video when it comes to trimming and I'm just trying for near neutrality without a lot of torque to aim up.