I  have been shooting underwater for almost a decade and one of the challenges that I have tried to resolve is finding a one size fits all type solution to making sure my underwater camera rig was at or near neutral buoyancy.  You might think why worry about that issue;  for me the response was simple:  after a week or more of shooting it meant that a rig that was not buoyancy neutral made my arms and shoulders sore.  Towards the end of a week of shooting it seemed to me that I was not taking as many shots and missing some shots that I ordinarily would have taken.  What I have also observed is that buoyancy or lack thereof was in part dependent upon what mode of shooting I was doing.  And, it made a big difference depending upon whether I was shooting wide angle or macro. Wide angle I wanted to be as close to neutral as possible. If I was shooting macro, I could get by with being a little negative, but being positively buoyant was a real pain.

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For instance, I started out shooting mostly wide angle.   In 2010 I bought a used ikelite system off eBay which came with the standard steel handles and the ikelite arms which were also steel.   I started shooting a wide angle port with a 20mm lens on a Nikon D200 camera.  When I attached the Ds125 strobe and the Ds51 strobe, which came with my purchase, the rig was more than 3 pounds negative. 

That might not sound like a lot but after a week of shooting it was a beast to drag around.   I changed lens and went to an 8 inch dome and the rig got closer to being neutrally buoyant.

But that was until I added the focus light.  The focus light was supposed to be close to neutrally buoyant, but in reality it was negative.  The attachment hardware only compounded the problem.  But the focus light meant that if I wanted to instantly capture a scene without waiting for the lens to hunt and find focus I had no problem doing so.  Before I added the focus light there were several trips where I felt I missed interesting shots because the camera would not focus quickly enough.   It was time to go back to the drawing board again. 

My next move was to add carbon fiber arms to the rig to replace the steel arms when they became available.  That was a good move and got my rig for wide angle to less than a pound negative which made things much better.  I used 4 Nauticam carbon fiber arms, two on each side and that got me to a good place until I added a video light and upgraded to an ikelite housing for the D800.  My solution was to alternate, shoot still with the focus light on one dive and then on other dives remove the focus light and replace it with the video light and shoot video.  It was not ideal, but I made it work. 

Then I got interested in shooting macro.  I had one flat port which would work with either a 105mm lens or a 60mm lens.  I liked the 60 mm lens because my old eyes adapted to shooting with it much easier. 

The problem was that with the float arms and the 60mm lens and the flat port now made my rig very positive.  I tried taking off two float arms off but that made the rig negative.   I tried taking  off just one float arm and while the rig was close to neutral it was not well balanced.  When I changed to the 105mm lens it displaced enough air in the port so the rig was pretty close to neutral with all the float arms in place, and a focus light mounted to the rig, but not the video light.  So I shot macro with the 105mm more than with the 60mm, but even then only spent about 10% of my time shooting macro.  Wide angle remained my primary focus.  

By the time the next camera cycle came around, 2018, I had decided to change to a new housing.  I replaced the Ikelite housing and went with a Nauticam housing for a D850.  By the time I ordered the housing, two of my trusty Nauticam float arms had sprung a leak— they were over 6 years old so I figured long off of warranty.   So I added two aluminum arms and some floats with the thought that I could add or subtract floats to balance the rig and keep it neutral.  I went with the Inon 330 strobes.  

I bought a 4 inch dome to house the 16mm lens and I bought a macro flat port to use with either the 60mm or the 105mm lens.  I also added a subsee 10 wet diopter.  And then I added a carbon fiber snoot.  What I found was the rig was a little negative with the wide angle set up.   I was slightly positive with the macro set up unless I added the diopter which made it negative, but not by much.  

After some trial and error I realized that the floats on the aluminum arms was not quite as good a solution as I had hoped.  I also decided that I wanted to try shooting some splits which would require a bigger dome.  I went with a 9 inch glass dome by Zen with an extension for a 16mm to 35mm lens.  It was when I was playing with the zen dome in the pool that I began to realize just how much lift the dome and extension piece added to the rig.  Now I had yet another problem:  I could be about a pound negative if I shot the 16mm lens and about 2 pounds positive if I shot the 16mm-35mm lens in the nine inch dome.  

And then I happened across a description of float arms by Kracken that were adjustable.   I contacted several distributors about purchasing a pair, but they were not easy to find.  Finally I contacted Mike Bartick who I met in the Philippines a few months before and thankfully Mike came through with a pair just in time for my trip to Tonga and Fiji.   Before leaving for my trip, I had to try out the arms in the pool.  

The valve, which is the shinny silver part on the right of the float above, is used to allow water to be added to the float arm. The value is unidirectional so you should give some thought to how you mount the float arms to your rig.  I mounted them closet to my housing.  I found that sometimes it was helpful to have the inflow valve mounted away from the housing so it was easier to add water to the arm.  I suspect that regardless of how you mount the arms to your rig there will be a certain amount of personal preference that should guide how you set up your rig.  I did not find any differences in adding fresh water at the pool or salt water to the float arms in Tonga or Fiji that made any difference.   

Shooting the 9 inch dome with no strobes and the Kracken float arms, just add a little water to the float arms and the rig is neutral.  Cool, shoot whale shots and split shots no problem with the Kracken float arms.   Add the strobes and the focus light, no problem, don’t add as much water to the float arms and shoot away.   Want to switch to the 16mm and shoot sharks in Bega or soft corals on the Rainbow reef, no problem, just add a little bit of water to each float and shoot away.  And now the other nice discovery, want to shoot either the 60 mm or the 105mm behind the flat port with or without the diopter, not a problem.  Use the Kracken adjustable arms to adjust to the rig.  

One of the things I do appreciate about the Kracken float arms that does not directly relate to shooting is that when you are done with the trip, you can easily empty the water from the arms and dry them out so they don’t weigh much when they are packed away for the next flight.  With as much camera gear and dive gear as I carry, I am always trying to lighten the load even if it is only by a few ounces here and there.

So at least for now I think I have found a solution to the problem of trying to balance the rig and getting it to neutral buoyancy so I can go back and forth between wide angle, macro and super macro.