Camera + strobe too heavy. . .where to put floats

[outofofficebrb]

Put some Stix floats onto your arms. I have 8 jumbo floats on my rig and it is slightly negatively buoyant by 1-1.5 pounds underwater. Figure out how much you need and then add up the sizes to figure out what you need.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I prefer floatation arms. I've used stix and diviny cell but they get bulky and stay wet.

 

[bvanant]

It is not clear that bulky is all that different between float arms and foam type arms for the same flotation. I will try to put together some data to check out the differences. Foam does indeed get wet and stays wet for a bit, but not for very long.
Bill

 

[tursiops]

It is not clear that bulky is all that different between float arms and foam type arms for the same flotation. I will try to put together some data to check out the differences. Foam does indeed get wet and stays wet for a bit, but not for very long.
Bill

Bulk is one issue, travel weight is another. I usually have more room than weight allowance in my travel luggage. The table I presented earlier provided cost for 100g of buoyancy. Also interesting would be travel weight per 100g of buoyancy.

 

[aviator8]

I just went through this too. Another DIY option is to get some of these and drill the center hole out to 1" and slide them onto aluminum ball arms if you have them. You can get many different sizes to tweak the buoyancy for the price of 1 carbon or aluminum float arm. PVC Sponge Floats

I am just coming back from diving with these PVC floats for buoyancy and can report back that they do not suffer from any compression or loss of buoyancy. I did multiple dives with them down to 60-75 ft with no issues. I brought along multiple pieces which is nice for tweaking out the buoyancy depending on wether I was diving strobes vs video lights, wide angle lens vs macro. It really lets you get almost perfect bouancy for multiple setups for dirt cheap. These may have issues deeper but I don’t go deep. Since I did not see any compression down to 75 I would bet you get minimal to none down to recreational limits.

 

[Monbit]

Hi I have just put my camera setup into a bucket of water.

It displaces about 3kg of water.

Does this mean I need to add 3kg worth of bouyancy to counteract ??

 

[tursiops]

Hi I have just put my camera setup into a bucket of water.

It displaces about 3kg of water.

Does this mean I need to add 3kg worth of bouyancy to counteract ??

3kg? That seems really unlikely! What is your camera setup?

 

[Monbit]

3kg? That seems really unlikely! What is your camera setup?

I have Olympus Tg 5
Tray
Loclite arms
2 strobes
1 video light

I filled a bucket almost to the top.
Measured the level.
Placed the gear in.
Measured the higher level.
Took everything out.
Measured how much water i put in to bring the level to higher level.

Am I not doing something right?

 

[tursiops]

I have Olympus Tg 5
Tray
Loclite arms
2 strobes
1 video light

I filled a bucket almost to the top.
Measured the level.
Placed the gear in.
Measured the higher level.
Took everything out.
Measured how much water i put in to bring the level to higher level.

Am I not doing something right?

You were measuring the volume of your setup, but want you want is the in-water weight. Just use a simple luggage scale and hang the camera setup in the bucket. I'd be surprised if it is more than a fraction of a kg.

 

[Monbit]

You were measuring the volume of your setup, but want you want is the in-water weight. Just use a simple luggage scale and hang the camera setup in the bucket. I'd be surprised if it is more than a fraction of a kg.

Tursiops

You are correct. When I do it your way it comes to about 0.5 kg.

So that’s the bouyancy that I need to target??