400D: Sea & Sea vs Ikelite?

The Inons do not help, being so small they add concentrated weight to the rig.

I can confirm the Ike has excelent buoyancy. With one Inon, I can easily handle the camera with one hand when taking a shot, something that was not possible with my old C-5050Z plus PT-015 and same Inon rig.

However, the size is a negative point if you do something more than static reef diving, but IMO this is inherent to a DSLR underwater rig.

The Inons do not help, being so small they add concentrated weight to the rig.

 

I can confirm the Ike has excelent buoyancy. With one Inon, I can easily handle the camera with one hand when taking a shot, something that was not possible with my old C-5050Z plus PT-015 and same Inon rig.

 

However, the size is a negative point if you do something more than static reef diving, but IMO this is inherent to a DSLR underwater rig.

Actually, Inons are pretty near neutral in water. They have a bad reputation due to their small size, however it is grossly exaggerated inmo. I'm a bit surprised that you as an Inon-user contributes to this myth? I thought that anyone who had actually held an Inon-strobe in their hand UW would write it off. Here are some cold hard facts from backscatters latest strobe comparison (merits of it has been discussed, but the weight of strobes can't be tested in that many ways):

http://www.backscatter.com/learn/article/article.php?ID=40

I can easily hold my rig (a very small, compact aluminum Hugyfot-housing, built as a tank) with dual Z240:s single handed for quite some time under water - though i haven't done a formal test of it On land, it's another story ...phew!

All the best

Christian

The Inons do not help, being so small they add concentrated weight to the rig.

Wow! I thought I had just said that they do not help... They add in-water weight (a bit), so they do not help, in fact. They don't make things much worse either, which I haven't said... B)

Anyway: if you just add the Inon buoyancy element (just for Inon and ULCS arms) you more than compensate for the strobe's in-water weight, which I do use, in fact.

Quite interesting to see that the S&S YS110 strobes are positive.

The difference per strobe between DS125 and the YS110 is basically .38 lbs. That's nearly a pound negative weight offset merely by the strobes. Question is if the S&S arms and housing are more than 0.8 lbs more negative than the Ike version?

Also, I assume a large FE dome port will add substantial positive buoyancy, helping out as well.

Again, living in Sweden it would be helpful to have fairly good local service, which I know I can get for S&S and Ikelite. Edit: managed to locate some price info on the others, especially Seatool. While the housing is indeed attractive, the price will be quite a big step up when shipping and taxes are included. Have to settle for either the Ike or the S&S...

I would not say the YS-110 are positive. They are positive without batteries but with batteries they are negative (I will test it in my tub tonight but I am quite sure they are. Anyway, I like the YS-110 a lot: they are light and they are small with lots of power. The only downside is their slave mode which does not work well unless you use a specific cable with it....

Any info on buoyancy Nunomix?

Also, what would people suggest I use with a Canon EF-S 10-22 / Sigma 10-20? Fisheye dome or the compact dome? According to the system chart both work, but I'm a bit concerned about vignetting with the smaller dome (have understood that that could be a potential problem)...

Any info on buoyancy Nunomix?

 

Also, what would people suggest I use with a Canon EF-S 10-22 / Sigma 10-20? Fisheye dome or the compact dome? According to the system chart both work, but I'm a bit concerned about vignetting with the smaller dome (have understood that that could be a potential problem)...

Hi. I did not have a chance to check the strobes in the tub yet. In terms of the Canon 10-22, I used it with the optical dome and there is a little bit of blurring in the corners but I still think pretty okay with the extension ring 40. In anyway, I immediately changed to the tokina 10-17 (with extension ring SX) and did not use the 10-22 anymore UW. I do not know with the compact dome but S&S suggests the fisheye dome for the 10-22 without any image aberration in the corners.

Regards,

Nuno