Lift Bag for Aquatica Housing

I recently received a prototype Kodak Pro 14nx housing from Aquatica that I use with 2 Ikelite DS-125 substrobes. Aquatica makes a great housing, well made and well configured. The problem that I encountered in using this setup, however, was the weight of the system. At 61 years of age I don't have the physical strength that I once did and I was having trouble keeping the housing off the bottom. I designed a simple lift bag out of a small inner tube that provides neutral buoyancy for the system and does not interfere with my shooting. I have attached a photo of the rig for your information.

Nice! You should sell these on eBay!

James might be interested in one of these

Karl

I have used something similar .. infact i mentioned it on a post about bouyant arms.

It really isn't ideal to have something coming off like that .. the air can come out .. it makes changing from landscape to portrait layout difficult. And it just makes the rig clumsy and much larger which in my mind isn't a great benefit just for obtaining more bouyancy.

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Arounds: Welcome to Wetpixel!

I too should be receiving my Aquatica housing this week for the Kodak. I held it at DEMA, and it is indeed a pretty heavy housing. This depends a lot though on which port/lens you are using.

With the 17-35 extension and the 8" dome, it's not too bad. With the 70-180 macro it's not too bad, but with the 60mm and just the flat port, it weighs a bit too much.

I like your idea - but I too see some problems with the air dumpint out of the tube. I suggest perhaps closing one end? If you could put a dump valve on one end and a fill valve on the other then you could inflate it off of your BC at depth.

In either case, as a quick and dirty fix, I think your idea is super-cool.

Cheers

James

I agree that a lift bag will cause more drag and certainly needs to be considered. When I am shooting I tend to do mostly macro work and stay in a realitively small area free from strong currents. The visibility off the New England coast is very limited.

The air stays in the tube very well. You will note the open end faces down. When the camera is rotated for verticals, the upper strap relaxes so that the tube stays open side down. The downside clip can also be disconnected for better balance during vertical shooting. The great advantage of an open air container is that the air will escape during ascents and more air can be added as necessary as the contained air is compressed (thus reducing buoyancy) as depth increases. When the tube that I use is completely filled with air (at any depth), the system is neutrally buoyant.

heheh, silly me. I thought this was a joke! :oops:

Wow, I have a tough enough time navigating through the kelp with just the Aquatica. Cool idea for non-kelpy locales, though.

How much does that thing weight underwater anyway?

I would think a "great" housing would not necessitate such a contraption

It's about the same as the AD100 housing, which you owned.

Cheers

James

Surely if they're designing a housing from scratch they could make sure that it's pretty much neutral U/W.

Mind you I remember the Aquatica A80 F801 housing I used to own. It came with a huge lump of aluminium bolted to it to offset the buoyancy of the 8"fisheye port. Yuk.

Hi Andrew,

I don't think Aquatica made this housing from scratch. Since the Kodak uses the same body as the S2 and the D100, the housing is mostly the same.

Cheers

James