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.

Good question!

Do you dive with o without lights?

Judging by the videos I happen to see, this is an underrated topic. And it is one of those subjects where photography and video diverge. Personally, I prefer everything to be neutral or slightly negative. Right now, my configuration is 300 grams negative, and I carry a small 500-gram weight for any macro shots (I use small legs by default).

Long story short: in video, bigger is better!

Beside being neutral buoyant, the most important thing is that everything is trimmed; this means that if you let it go, it should not tilt with the port facing up or down. Because even if it is neutral, you would be forced to apply constant pressure with your wrists, which is inevitably transmitted to the footage. So, I repeat, the trim is really important.

On this topic, if you are starting from scratch, this old video by Vanessa Cara-Kerr is very well made. It is part of an entire playlist with all the basics of underwater videography. It is a pity that for some topics that deserved further study, Vanessa refers to future videos that were never made.

Hummm thank you for the video ... but I'm not really happy with the M-Setup opinion.

I have an M-Setup with perfectly beoncy I can shoot selfy. Rotate the camera 180° push the camera a little, during filming I have more or less 30sec (in salt water)... It's only an example... It's really possible to make stable video with a M-Setup
We have some times fun during the safety stop.

I imagine you have watched the film from Serge Dumont.. He is diving in my region.. I meet him more than one time underwater ;)

I don't get you. Do you like the M conf. or not?

That video simplified things a lot but it's really a good start to dive into the trimmed camera rabbit hole.

Thing is that I have a sort of M conf. but I never film with it. It's more a carry on configuration. While filming I extend the arms and light come from above. I film in that position only when I'm mid water. When you are near the bottom, lights at the same camera level creates an overexposed visible area on the sea floor.

So the perfect videoconfiguration doesn't change (or changes slightly) the trim when you move the lights.

Ciao

3 hours ago, Davide DB said:

I don't get you. Do you like the M conf. or not?

I have a M-configuration.

With a big float arm on the camera side and a thin floating arm on the strobe+light side.

I don't realy filming with the camera, BUT I start if there is something to film my Gopro placed on the top of my housing.
The result is allways very stable OK the size of the gear help for the stabilisation

But waht is important is that i'm happy with my setup... Other can be also happy with other solution... it's depend of the person, of what and how you film.