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INON Float Arms
Good personal buoyancy control skills are vital to any diver purely from a safety standpoint. For underwater photographers buoyancy control needs to be especially refined. We need to be able to keep our cameras rock steady while we line up our shots or risk our compositions been spoiled by camera motion. Focus can be lost and the shot ruined by the slightest camera movement. Though many underwater photographers do have superb buoyancy control skills, very few underwater digital cameras are neutrally buoyant or well balanced. In fact, an underwater digital compact camera or D- SLR outfit can be negatively buoyant by over 2.5 kg. That is a very substantial amount to be overweighted by as a diver to begin with. It also makes your underwater camera much more difficult to support, operate and aim. Basically, you constantly are fighting against the forces that cause the camera to want to constantly nose dive. In mid water, this will actually pitch your body head down. If you are on your knees, you'll still have to contend with holding the equivalent of a heavy diving weight out in front of you for long periods while waiting to take your photographs. And if you drop your underwater digital camera, it won't sink gently. It will plummet.
Making your digital underwater camera easier to handle isn't difficult. Using INON float arms, as Ed Rowland did, allows you to add buoyancy to your camera and bring it to a near neutral state. You'll find it easier to shoot one handed when your other hand is occupied hand holding a strobe or torch, hanging onto a shot line , signalling to your model or carefully using one finger to steady yourself against the reef. When shooting close ups you won't be fighting to keep your subject in frame and in focus as your heavy camera dances all over the place. And, if you do accidentally let go of your kit, your camera won't go plunging at mach one into the distant depths.
INON float arms allow you to customise your cameras buoyancy from dive to dive depending on the accessories you are using. This is no different to varying your own weight when you change from thin to thick wetsuits or switch tank sizes.
Mark or Steve will be pleased to talk you through how to make your own digital underwater camera outfit easier and more comfortable to use under the water.
Hi Steve, I thought I would give you some feedback on the Mega Float Arms you sold me just before I left. I have to say they are fantastic! Although they do make the rig pretty bulky (trying to get my head under a rock at night upside down to try and get a picture of a slipper lobster was really quite tricky for example) they make the system completely neutral when I have my INON UWL-100 wide angle wet lens attached. They are too buoyant for when I don't take my wide angle down with me, but then I can always revert to just using one float arm and one normal arm for this scenario. So overall they saved me a lot of arm ache. On my safety stops I was able to just leave my camera floating in the water next to my attached to me only by the lanyard and the system neither floated or sank. Ed Rowland |
Hi Steve and Mark, Just wanted to let you know I love the float arms!!! Everybody here is raving about them and want to know where they can get them - so I think they are a total hit!! Hoping to get some really good shots here - conditions almost perfect and reefs so healthy - Have a good weekend, and thanks again, Lisa Collins |
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