Advice on compact set-up for video?

Yep, as Davide explained, do all the weighing in water. I didn't go with a float collar for my Inon wide lens as it's quite compact, but for a lens like the Fantasea UWL-09F yep, you should probably get one.

Just remember to have the camera with a battery inside the housing when doing your weighing.
Add anything like lights or tripod base and you'll have to compensate for that as well.

Once you get it neutral or close enough you'll want to work on getting as balanced as possible, so it doesn't tilt sideways or back / forward, otherwise you'll have to compensate that when filming, which will be uncomfortable and can add jitter due to muscle tension.

Get some cable ties (they also sell resusable / releasable cable ties, which wastes less plastic) so you can figure out where you'll need to place the floats, and then you can look into more definitive solutions.

Some housing buoyancy tips in this video here:

https://youtu.be/Rs3XXeJF0qY

3-2-1 Ready!

@bghazzal I was trying to install the cine-d profile following the various youtube videos you linked to, and for some reason it isn't working for me. I am able to successfully connect it via wifi to my computer, open the html file, do the handshake and connect, but when I deploy, it appears on the browser like it should have worked, but the profile looks exactly the same as the standard profile. Any chance you've seen this happen before?

@Davide DB I have now weighed my rig under water! I ordered the float collar that goes with the lens, but the website says  'Compatibility / Total Weight Underwater: UWL-09 / -60 grams (Positive Buoyancy)'. I'm not totally sure how to interpret that and wondered if you might have any insight? Does it mean that the lens with the float collar weights -60g? I don't know how that means it would be positively buoyant as the manufacturer indicates, but very possible I'm totally misunderstanding. I'm trying to figure out piecing together the rest of my floats and was hoping to order them before waiting to get the float collar, but getting stuck on that part. 

Thanks both for all of the advice!!

21 minutes ago, shelbyrose said:

the website says  'Compatibility / Total Weight Underwater: UWL-09 / -60 grams (Positive Buoyancy)'

It means that to get perfectly neutral you should apply a 60 grams weight.

Basicaĺly 60 grams positive/negative it's neutral

How much does it weight now the whole rig?

3 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

It means that to get perfectly neutral you should apply a 60 grams weight.

Basicaĺly 60 grams positive/negative it's neutral

How much does it weight now the whole rig?

Thanks so much! 1.15kg was the total weight for the wide angle set-up. So to make sure I'm totally getting this lol, after adding the float collar, I still need to compensate for 1.09kg right?? 

Ehm no.

After adding the collar you would compensate for 1,15 Kg minus the  underwater weight of the WL-09.

All websites state the UWL-09 weights 1 Kg.

I don't understand if it's underwater.

18 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

Ehm no.

After adding the collar you would compensate for 1,15 Kg minus the  underwater weight of the WL-09.

 

The 1.15kg weight includes the UWL 09 lens (camera + housing + tray + UWL 09). So with the lens included in that overall total, how do I calculate how much additional float I need beyond the float collar?

34 minutes ago, shelbyrose said:

Thanks so much! 1.15kg was the total weight for the wide angle set-up. So to make sure I'm totally getting this lol, after adding the float collar, I still need to compensate for 1.09kg right?? 

What's the starting point?  The rig has the UWL-09 on it or not?  I assume it does as you said you got the rig with the UWL-09.

If this is the case and you don't have the collar yet, the website says total combined weight of the UWL-09 is -60gr.  So this being the case you weigh the rig without the UWL-09 with all of the other bits and pieces strapped on - do you have lights or strobes as part of the rig?

Then take that weight and subtract 60 grams from it.   That's you UW weight. Order floats with enough buoyancy to counteract that.  Take your UW rig weight and subtract the total buoyancy of the floats you propose to buy from that.  This is your UW weight.

21 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

What's the starting point?  The rig has the UWL-09 on it or not?  I assume it does as you said you got the rig with the UWL-09.

If this is the case and you don't have the collar yet, the website says total combined weight of the UWL-09 is -60gr.  So this being the case you weigh the rig without the UWL-09 with all of the other bits and pieces strapped on - do you have lights or strobes as part of the rig?

Then take that weight and subtract 60 grams from it.   That's you UW weight. Order floats with enough buoyancy to counteract that.  Take your UW rig weight and subtract the total buoyancy of the floats you propose to buy from that.  This is your UW weight.

 

Thanks, Chris! Ah yeah I weighed the rig with the UWL 09, so total weight for my wide angle set up is 1.15 kg. Is there a way to figure out how much additional lift I need without re-weighing the rig without the UWL 09?

43 minutes ago, shelbyrose said:

Thanks, Chris! Ah yeah I weighed the rig with the UWL 09, so total weight for my wide angle set up is 1.15 kg. Is there a way to figure out how much additional lift I need without re-weighing the rig without the UWL 09?

You need the UW weight of the UWL-09, I can see it listed as 430 gr and 500 gr, say it's 430 gr as I saw a couple of sites list this.  So it's simple arithmetic, 1150-430 = 720 + (-60) = 660 gr, which means you will want 2 x 330 gr float arms or less.  Whether you wait of not is up to you, you probably don't want to buy arms with too much buoyancy as a positive rig is difficult to deal with.

12 minutes ago, ChrisRoss said:

You need the UW weight of the UWL-09, I can see it listed as 430 gr and 500 gr, say it's 430 gr as I saw a couple of sites list this.  So it's simple arithmetic, 1150-430 = 720 + (-60) = 660 gr, which means you will want 2 x 330 gr float arms or less.  Whether you wait of not is up to you, you probably don't want to buy arms with too much buoyancy as a positive rig is difficult to deal with.

Gotcha, that’s really helpful. Thanks so much. 

11 hours ago, shelbyrose said:

@bghazzal I was trying to install the cine-d profile following the various youtube videos you linked to, and for some reason it isn't working for me. I am able to successfully connect it via wifi to my computer, open the html file, do the handshake and connect, but when I deploy, it appears on the browser like it should have worked, but the profile looks exactly the same as the standard profile. Any chance you've seen this happen before?

Not sure - if it worked after deployment the picture profile name should be blank (no name). Do you have this?
When you do you should then save this to one of the 3 presets (C1, C2, C3) so you don't need to redeploy after turning off the camera.

To see if it worked, shoot something in this blank, no-name profile. When you review the file in camera, the file info should read Cine-D.
 

You might not see a major difference in camera, but it's a good neutral profile to grade footage with.

Good luck with the buoyancy calculations!

6 hours ago, shelbyrose said:

Gotcha, that’s really helpful. Thanks so much. 

Chris was better than me at finding the weight of the lens underwater.

Also he asked you if you already have the lights and weighed them with the housing because if the lens weighs 400 grams in the water, then 1kg total seems low to me.

You have to attach the lights to the housing and weigh the whole thing.

7 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Chris was better than me at finding the weight of the lens underwater.

Also he asked you if you already have the lights and weighed them with the housing because if the lens weighs 400 grams in the water, then 1kg total seems low to me.

You have to attach the lights to the housing and weigh the whole thing.

Ah missed that re: the lights. I'm just using ambient light for wide angle right now.

8 hours ago, bghazzal said:

Not sure - if it worked after deployment the picture profile name should be blank (no name). Do you have this?
When you do you should then save this to one of the 3 presets (C1, C2, C3) so you don't need to redeploy after turning off the camera.

To see if it worked, shoot something in this blank, no-name profile. When you review the file in camera, the file info should read Cine-D.
 

You might not see a major difference in camera, but it's a good neutral profile to grade footage with.

Good luck with the buoyancy calculations!

Thanks for this! I played around with it more and think the issue was I was moving to C mode before deploying (following one of the youtube tutorials), but for some reason that was re-setting it to standard. If I stayed in movie mode for deploy, it worked, and I have verified as you suggested. Super helpful, thank you so much!

1 hour ago, shelbyrose said:

Ah missed that re: the lights. I'm just using ambient light for wide angle right now.

Ok so Chris calculations are ok. 

Maybe a single longitudinal floating arm would be the best option for now.

Alright, one more Q! Does anyone use a white or gray card for manual white balance? If so any suggestions? Thanks!!

7 minutes ago, shelbyrose said:

Alright, one more Q! Does anyone use a white or gray card for manual white balance? If so any suggestions? Thanks!!

I used the Whibal G7 Studio card (the "pocket" model is too small to be really useful) on a retractor for manual white balance  when shooting wide angle in ambient light  - really great.

http://whibal.com/

https://www.outdoorphotogear.com/collections/whibal/products/whibal-g7-white-balance-studio-card

I use a cheap amazon solution. One year old in salt water and ok so far:

https://www.amazon.it/gp/product/B07318GYGP