Float Arms – Which Ones To Buy?

When you first start diving, the most difficult but important thing is to maintain proper buoyancy. This is even more crucial when you dive with a (big) camera! Neither do you want to damage corals or any marine life, nor your expensive toys. Also, you want to save your wrist from heavy lifting underwater and dragging “dead weight” around which affects your air consumption. Luckily, float arms were invented to support you and your camera rig. In this blog, we want to give you a quick guide on which buoyancy arms to choose for your SLR or mirrorless setup.

Nikon 200mm F/4 Micro testing

The Nikon 200mm F/4 Micro is an old design lens, no stabilisers, no focus drive motors.  So it is quite slow and will get blurry if you are not super steady – I would definitely suggest this lens only to those who are looking for a new challenge underwater or if you’re shooting extremely shy animals.  It’s also quite heavy, but feels solidly built with nice balance when used above water.  There are many reviews on the lens around the internet – if you’re also into dragonflies and other skittish insects this lens will already be on your radar.

Which Diopter – Part 3

Day 3 with the Diopters and it’s starting to feel like groundhog day.
Today I had the 45degree viewfinder on, so at least my neck doesnt hurt as I write this.  Today I took down the Noodilab Moby and the SMC2, on the Nikon D500. I’m really enjoying using the crop sensor D500 over my 1Dx, somehow the Nikon colour space just feels much nicer out of the camera on macro photos, and of course the crop is great until you meet up with a hairy frogfish or flamboyant cuttlefish and end up shooting them from over a meter away. Maybe I should bring one of our rental compacts such as the Sony RX100V or Olympus TG4 next time.

Which Diopter Part 2

Today I headed out for 2 dives in the morning, armed with the Nauticam D500, 105mm lens, double flip holder and the SMC1 and SMC2.
I didn’t want to take too many diopters as it would have meant juggling them around underwater, and frankly they are too expensive to risk scratching.

Which Diopter?

These days it is pretty hard to choose from all the diopters available – you probably have at least one old school one in your kit bag.  The Inon UCL 165 and 330 were the first mass produced diopters specifically for underwater use, before those we had to use slide on single element diopters (woodys diopter), or put a higher quality dual element diopter directly on your lens before you got in the water (Nikon 6T).