Inon Mega float M for heavy strobes/lights?

[tamas970]

My rig needs more buoyancy and I am planning to get an Inon Mega M segment. Any thoughts speaking against loading it with a heavy strobe and video head?
Of course more weight will be "below" the arm (housing & battery tank for the video lights), balance should be OK.

 

[Searcaigh]

Hi Tamas, I bought a pair of short mega floats to try them out a few months ago and use them with my Sea&Sea housing along with long ULC buoyant arms with two Sea&Sea YS110a and a Sola 1200 focus light.

With my mini dome and a Tokina 10-17 on board I have a completely neutral rig, which is great for my deep dives as I can clip off the rig and it floats out of the way while I can focus on other parts of the dive such as switching stage bottles.

However when I change around to the 60mm lens and port, I have a negative rig again, so I am contemplating the longer ones which should make a difference.

The downside is the space that these arms occupy when traveling, although I haven't taken them on a trip yet, I think they may have to go into my suitcase as they are too bulky for my hand baggage.

 

[tamas970]

Thanks for the valuable feedback! A pair of long clamps is also on my list. In case of travel (they will, in February) I'll put them in the hold luggage for sure, with the rest of the tray-system.

 

[Interceptor121]

I wrote this few years ago

Increase the your rig’s buoyancy using floats or float arms | Interceptor121 Underwater Photo & Video Blog

 

[AggieDiver]

We purchased the Stix floats to use with our rig this year and I was very happy with the way they worked. We have a Nikon D3200 in an Ikelite housing with an 8" dome and dual strobes. On land, the rig weighs somewhere around 12 pounds. It was about 1.8 pounds negative in fresh water without the Stix floats. With the floats, it was perfectly neutral in salt water and much easier to handle. I will have to look when I get home, but I believe I used a combination of 2 large and 2 jumbo floats, but can't remember off the top of my head.

 

[Interceptor121]

Stix floats work well with systems with dome ports where you need limited buoyancy. When you have wet lenses and flat port in combination you run into problems as the lift is insufficient and you loose the space to attach a lens holder on the arms