Buoyancy to aim for

What is a comfortable amount of buoyancy to aim for ?

I have a 50D in Ikelite housing and two DS125's. With an 8" dome, it weighs 1.7kg (3lb 11oz) in water.

I can't say that I've found the weight to bothersome in the half dozen dives I've done with it, but we've got a couple of weeks of diving (GBR & Truk) coming up, so that may change my mind. I need to add some length to my arms, so I may as well add some buoyancy. I assume that's a good plan. Is it ?

Since overall weight is also an issue with traveling, I do have a couple of DS51's which would also make the rig much lighter in the water. How significant are the differences between the DS51 and DS125 in clear water situations ? Would it be a crime to leave them at home and use the 51's ?

Steve.

Holding the weight of a housing for a couple of dives isn't to bad. However, if I do several weeks of diving times 4 dives a day it really starts to be a problem. I have a bunch of Stix floats on my strobe arms and wouldn't even consider a dive trip without them. My camera is slightly negative, but not more than I can let it go, do a quick fix of something and grab it before it has gone to far.

I haven't used the 51s. I am pretty sure, though, that they will be fine for a macro trip. For wa you would most likely want to go for then125's. or at least I would.

Cheers Bent

When i added the right floats to get my rig completely neutral a new way of diving with a camera opendto me.

No hassle, no micro blurred pictures, 2 hands free to do something else while the camera float by my side,

cool self videos with the camera floating in front of me, slower, not jerky movements while recording video, and so on ...

Never again diving with a positive or negative buoyant camera rig!

Chris

I have our Subal housings set with floats to be just very slightly negative.

Just enough to not float away when set on the bottom, but will sway a little in surge/current

Fortunately, changing from a 60 mm flat port to 8" glass dome makes very little difference.

Fourteen days of multi day dives does not cause any arm/wrist fatigue!

This has worked very well for wife and myself for 8years.

When i added the right floats to get my rig completely neutral a new way of diving with a camera opendto me.

No hassle, no micro blurred pictures, 2 hands free to do something else while the camera float by my side,

cool self videos with the camera floating in front of me, slower, not jerky movements while recording video, and so on ...

 

Never again diving with a positive or negative buoyant camera rig!

How do you manage to make the housing stay horizontal? I also have a Hugyfot housing, and with the right amount of floats I can make the housing perfectly neutral, but I'm still having trouble with the horizontal balance. The port (macro or dome) at the front is relative light (plastic) and has a large volume, while the back is heavier (metal and a 45 degree viewfinder attached). The net result is that the port will always try to flip up. So I wonder how you fixed that, because in your video, the housings stays perfectly horizontal.

I hope someone can help me to get a good buoyancy. We have a canon g12 in an ikelite housing with one ds51 strobe. The setup is negative and we want to try to get it neutral. I have seen many photo's of neutral setup's but almost all are with 2 strobes.

Is there anyone who useses a good neutral setup with one strobe?

@SteveB I hope you don't mind I ask this in your thread.

@ChrigelKarrer that's an amazing video!!

If you're entering the wrecks, long arms will be problem in Truk lagoon: you can go a long way with two short arm segments and an outward angle on your strobes. I do that with Stix floats on Ultralight short arms. With a reasonably large dome a Nauticam housing is pretty comforatble, even after several dives.

How do you manage to make the housing stay horizontal? I also have a Hugyfot housing, and with the right amount of floats I can make the housing perfectly neutral, but I'm still having trouble with the horizontal balance. The port (macro or dome) at the front is relative light (plastic) and has a large volume, while the back is heavier (metal and a 45 degree viewfinder attached). The net result is that the port will always try to flip up. So I wonder how you fixed that, because in your video, the housings stays perfectly horizontal.

Hey all you underwater photographers out there I could use your help. I have a new Aquatica housing for my 5D Mark II that I will be taking to Grand Cayman this weekend. I am having problems with the ports on the front of the housing (both Macro and Wide Angle) causing the housing to rotate upwards. In addition, I have a new viewfinder that I have installed on the back of the housing that is a bit heavy. This further exacerbates the problem by tending to rotate the back of the housing downwards.

I can see that this will cause undo strain on my wrists while fighting this rotation and was wondering if anyone has had a way to correct this problem.

I am using STIX floats on UCLS arms with two 110 alpha Sea and Sea strobes on the ends.

If I draw the strobes back far enough towards me then this tends to offset the rotation problem. However, it becomes a problem again if I want to move the strobes closer to my subject in that the ports rotate the camera upwards.

Any help would be appreciated.

Stephen

Hi,

I'm using an Aquatica Housing for 5D mark II with the megadome 9.25 and the 16-35mm with one YS-D1 Strobe. Which are the best floats for this setup and how many?

Thank you

Stephen, if you want to balance out your dome then then maybe consider investing in ankle weights and securing 1 round your port extension, some DIY folks cut a bicycle inner tube and get fastex buckles and lead shot to make their own. Another option is the lead weights used by a tire shop to balance your car's wheels, stick those on the bottom side of your dome port. When I'm using my 100 macro on my housing, I find it front heavy, and I use the Stix port collar to balance out my rig.

AV, the Megadome is pretty heavy since it's glass, 2 of the large Stix floats fit on 1 8" arm, (Ultralight or TLC), 4 floats give about 1.6lbs of bouyancy. If you want more, TLC has a float that you mound on the cold shoe mount of the housing.

S.