Strobe arms, tray and handles for a digicam

When I purchased my first underwater camera a little over a year ago the handles and strobe arms were not even in my mind at the time. However, after a year of fussing with my DIY tray and strobe arms (which I was so proud of at the time I could of popped ) I decided to take some gift certficates I received for Christmas and upgrade. The trick was staying on budget <_< But after some hunting around I found some TLC arms which are, well...perfect. My next purchase was to upgrade the tray. I wanted handles on each side to make the system easier to work with underwater. I went through this exercise without any ability see what I was actually buying. I started looking at ULCS because they had some ergo looking handles that were really great. However, the price blew my budget away. TLC really didn't have any ergo handles. That left two vendors with handles. Ike and Bonica. The Bonica obviously made for a digicam. Either system had a 1" ball so it looked like it just a matter of which one I preferred. After doing a little research I decided on the Bonica. Its ergo style handle looked as though it would fit the bill perfectly. Well, the handles arrived this week just in time for my excursion next weekend. But after opening the box I had some immediate concerns and surprises.

1. Everything on the handle and base was made of a polycarbonate plastic...even the 1" ball!!

2. The screws to secure the handles, the 1" balls and the housing screw were not stainless steel. Furthermore, they looked as though they will rot within a year! Now I can replace the screws going to the handles with real SS scews. The 1" balls have a built in screw that at least has an oring around it to keep it dry however the housing screw looks as though its made of some kind of nickle coated tin and without removing the base matt that glued in place, I won't be able to replace it because it is captive in the tray.

3. The TLC arms are beautiful and cinch up just fine to the 1" aluminum balls they came with. However, on the first joint with the Bonica I have to really crank on the ball joint connector to keep a grip on it. The Bonica's plastic ball joint has an oring around it to help ... but the weight of the strobe and arms makes it slip on the plastic joint. This was overcome by tightening the ball joint connector down much tighter than the others.

4. Once I got the rig together the above water weight of the strobe and arms cause the balls on the Bonica Housing to unscrew (loosen). I'm afraid to really crank down on these as they're imbedded in plastic. However, I think I can fix this by just letting them "rust" together or by putting locktite on the threads.

In short, the above rig flexes quite a bit under the weight of a couple of small strobes mounted on two 8" aquatica extensions. So much so I'm a little nervous that if I were to do an entry with the rig it might crack one of the ball heads under the stress and send my much more expensive strobe and arms to the abyss. I'll follow this up with a dive report in a couple of weeks to see how things work underwater; however, even if it goes perfect I can see now that I will have to replace this tray and handles in the near future. This is sad because the handles really are comfortable and the unit is very light weight. The only good news is that a dual handled Ike tray is only about $100 bucks after I purchase the TLC adapters for it. For what its worth the Bonica and Ike are about the same price. I went with the Bonica based on looks and weight (not realizing it was plastic!)

Cheers,

Well I got back from my first dive trip and as I expected it was a mixed bag of results with the new stay and arms. The arms performed as flawlessly below the surface as they do above. Very easy to position and, just as important, staying in position once you get them there. The plastic Bonica base has upside and downsides. I'll stick with the positives first.

1. Very light - this made the camera a whole lot easier to lug around and hold in position.

2. Ergonomic handles - They fit my hands great and give me an easy grip whether holding with one hand or two.

3. 1" ball joints adapt them to the TLC arms.

4. Even though the ball joints are plastic I wasn't gentle with them and they held up fine.

Now for the negatives:

1. The ball joints are plastic with an oring. What this means is that I have to really tighten the TLC clamp to make sure the arms don't flop around. Because I have to overtighten this joint the weight of the arm and strobe has a tendency to "unscrew" the ball adapter from the handles. This is an annoyance and a potential equipment hazard which usually occurs on the boat. Once its broken loose, it'll also come loose when you try and reposition the strobe underwater.

A. The workaround will be to permanently attach these ball joints with industrial strength loctite. My only problem will be if the ball joint then breaks I'll end up purchasing a new handle as well.

2. The entire rig flexes under the weight of a couple of small strobes. Above the surface it just made me a little nervous. Below the surface I didn't really even notice any "flexing" or movement. I can imagine though that a strong current would cause the strobe head to oscillate slightly.

3. While the ball adapter has a stainless steel screw (I was incorrect in my original post) the handle bolt which accepts the screw is not. Even though its sealed by an oring, when the rig comes unscrewed it gets wet.

4. The flexing of the rig wasn't noticeable underwater however I'm not sure how it would perform under a current. Perhaps the small strobe heads would oscillate?

In short, because I want handles (not everyone is partial to them) I can live with these for the time being as long as I can solve the unscrewing ball adapters life should be good with the smaller type strobes I have (FL20 flash with Olympus Housing supplemented by a sunpak G-flash). The arms themselves are superb and should provide me with years of enjoyment. The base would definitely have to be upgraded the minute I decided to go with larger strobes or a DSLR. Here are the pictures and I hope you can glean from my experience.