mounting focus light on Nauticam macro port cold shoe - i need help!

I miss when housings had cold shoes or extra ball mounts for mounting focus lights.  The port-mounted cold shoe seems too close to the port glass for easy focus light positioning.  What am I doing wrong?  Should I buy the shorter length cold shoe ball mount?  Is there a way to add another ball mount to my Nauticam A9 housing?  

Should I just give up on having any flexibility and buy the cold shoe to YS mount adapter?  Im worried that will leave my light too close to the port.

Can I add another ball mount like this?

My housing looks like this when I take off the metal bracket.  Not sure how to remove that plastic piece.  Are there M10 threads hiding in there?

ok it appears from this video that I can add the M10 mounting balls-

I had the same dilemma and for me is the M5 mounting ball to replace the screw directly

11 minutes ago, Interceptor121 said:

I had the same dilemma and for me is the M5 mounting ball to replace the screw directly

Cool thanks.  Does that style have a bolt that goes all the way through?  I don't like it when the ball mount is the same piece as the threads - it twists itself loose so easily.

 
Cool thanks.  Does that style have a bolt that goes all the way through?  I don't like it when the ball mount is the same piece as the threads - it twists itself loose so easily.

it looks like it has a thru-bolt and it has a little tab to keep from spinning.  should work perfectly.  I measured my bolt to confirm, and it is M5.

https://www.fun-in.com.tw/oc/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=2890

There are probably a number of ways to mount your focus light. I never cared much for the cold mounting shoes on ports and extensions after losing a focus light and ball mount once-upon-a-time.

I just returned from a Mexico dive trip and was taking a break from disassembling gear when noticed your post. Here's what I use.

I added a couple of ball mounts and use a strobe arm and a couple of clamps to create a crossbar that allows mounting a near-centered ball mount for my focus light. The ball mount on the crossbar is designed specifically for use on strobe arms. The crossbar system works very nicely. All of the parts are from ULCS.

The same mounting system can be done with a longer strobe arm and a couple of triple clamps to attach the bar to the handle ball mounts rather than adding ball mounts.

A crossbar makes it easy for a boat crew to handle the housing/camera system as they hand it to and take it from a diver who's in the water.

-Tinman

There are probably a number of ways to mount your focus light. I never cared much for the cold mounting shoes on ports and extensions after losing a focus light and ball mount once-upon-a-time.
I just returned from a Mexico dive trip and was taking a break from disassembling gear when noticed your post. Here's what I use.
I added a couple of ball mounts and use a strobe arm and a couple of clamps to create a crossbar that allows mounting a near-centered ball mount for my focus light. The ball mount on the crossbar is designed specifically for use on strobe arms. The crossbar system works very nicely. All of the parts are from ULCS.
The same mounting system can be done with a longer strobe arm and a couple of triple clamps to attach the bar to the handle ball mounts rather than adding ball mounts.
A crossbar makes it easy for a boat crew to handle the housing/camera system as they hand it to and take it from a diver who's in the water.
-Tinman
  

I use triple clamps to mount crossbars on a couple of my housings that lack mounting points for additional ball mounts. The triple clamps on these rig don't limit arm movement much, but your experience is probably different from mine. I use longer arms on the rigs with triple clamps.

All my rigs have lanyards and these have been used for many years when passing rigs to and from the boat. During this last trip, one crew member commented that he liked the crossbar better as a grab point because it felt more solid than than grabbing a lanyard. Honestly, I didn't care which 'grab point' he used as long as he didn't drop it. (LOL)

I like having my focus light mounted as close to the center line of my rig as possible, but that's just a personal preference. A friend accomplishes pretty much the same thing with a housing mounted ball mount, a short strobe arm and a couple of clamps; he gets much greater movement angles with his focus light than I do with my crossbar.

As noted in a previous post, there are lots of solutions to mounting focus lights (and other stuff like Go Pros) without a cold shoe mount. Some just stick a ball mount for their focus lights on a strobe arm. There's really no wrong way; it's more about our preferences.

Someone stole a cold shoe mounted focus light off one of my rigs a couple of years ago. It probably only took a couple of seconds to remove it when no one was looking.

Fun Stuff!

Tinman

Yes it is very personal
I always have the focus light at an angle as I have had issues with backscatter in torbid waters but to be frank the light is also used as torch during wreck dives or similar
I ended up with the M5 ball mount


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On 3/27/2023 at 10:26 AM, Tinman said:

The triple clamps on these rig don't limit arm movement much, but your experience is probably different from mine.

I swapped over to using separate ball heads on each handle using the ultralight T-groove adaptor and then the xit 404 double ball head https://www.backscatter.com/XIT-404-Quad-Ball-Adaptor-Kit-with-2-Balls. It means the cross bar is not connected via triple clamp so when you move one,  you don't move the other. It also gives a pretty solid handle for handing cameras,  but I also use it when I want a different grip when shooting video underwater and holding both handles will compromise the shot.  The advantages to this is also that they come off pretty easy for transport making the housing shorter when packing (which can be nice).  The disadvantage is for some reason the bolts in the XIT are not metric....

I don't have a close up of the setup but here it is and you can see the separate of arms and cross bar (I've posted this image before...sorry for the repeat).  

Anyway - sounds like the mounting of the aiming light is solved- but wanted to share other options than the triple clamp route.  

Another option (and I'm not sure how universal this will fit housings from other brands) are a rigid mounting bar like this one:

https://www.marelux.co/products/marelux-cross-mounting-barwithout-housing-mounting-ball

That would provide both a great mount and a great hand hold...

An inexpensive, relatively, solution may be to just get a new YS-type ball arm, maybe 75 or 100mm, which will get that light a bit further out and have a bit more flexibility with positioning. 

11 hours ago, RVbldr said:

An inexpensive, relatively, solution may be to just get a new YS-type ball arm, maybe 75 or 100mm, which will get that light a bit further out and have a bit more flexibility with positioning. 

The M5 ball arm is $28 I paid £24 in UK. This is by far the cheapest neatest option