Hello everyone

I've been experimenting with filming with my Sony RX100 VII and the Nikon D500. I use Ikelite housing and have yet to get any floats for either set-up. Is that the reason that I find it hard to stay still and create steady recordings? When I'm snorkelling, it's particularly difficult!

I'd appreciate any tips!

With thanks

Tess

Snorkelling is indeed especially difficult, as you are close to the surface and affected by waves and surge. For snorkelling / surface work, most people find that it helps to have the housing negative.

For diving, close to neutral or slightly negative is usually the sweet spot, as it avoids having to compensate buoyancy with muscle power. You can customise this by experimenting with floats in a bathtub, keeping in mind that salt water will be a little more buoyant.

But there are 2 really important aspects: trim/balance and bulk.

You want your housing to be balanced/in trim so you don't have to fight against it when filming, it shouldn't tilt one way or the other, up or down.
And bulk helps a lot, a bulkier, yet compact rig will be more stable than a smaller or less concentrated one. Look at cinema camera housings for inspiration.

The rest depends on your own personal buoyancy control in the water.

Hope this helps

So I assume the trick is to have the housing in trim and close to neutral and just loosely hold to avoid transferring your movement to the housing.

For trim a large acrylic dome for example will make the housing want to twist upwards and make life particularly difficult pointing anywhere other than it's natural position with the dome pointing up.