Solutions for an underwater camera housing that's tilting over

An underwaterhousing can be tilting over because of a large dome port

An underwater camera set can be perfectly neutral, but completely out of balance. Under water it can be possible that your underwater camara set will tilt over all the time. The balance is mostly related to the dome.

To tilt forwards or backwards

For example an underwater camera with a large dome port will have the tendency to tilt backwards. The dome port has a large volume and therefore a large floating capacity in contrast to the rest of the set. The opposite is the underwater camera with a heavy macro lens in a compact flat port. Especially when an extra wet macro lens with and aluminum flip adapter is mounted. Such a set will tilt forwards. The underwater photographer must give force all the time to prevent flipping. For long dives this will result in tired or even painful wrists and arms.

A large dome port; your set will tilt backwards

A large floating capacity from a dome port can be solved by a trim weight belt around the body of the dome. This is a belt that can be applied with Velcro around the lens dome. You can fill the belt with soft lead. As much as needed until the desired contra weight is reached. The soft lead is not included but can be bought in diving shops. The floating capacity can be considered when buying the dome port. A glass dome port is much heavier and has almost no problems with the upward forces. Besides the optical quality this is also an extra advantage of glass.

Trimgewichtband te vullen met softlood

Trim weight belt to be filled with soft lead.

Heavy lens/dome port combination

A dome that has a negative floating capacity can also be corrected. There are several special floating belts available. Such a belt consists out of an adjustable belt with several floating blocks. These blocks are made of a kind of foam that cannot be pressed together (in recreative depth) so that the floating capacity also can be remained in depth. By adding or deleting the floating elements the floating capacity can be adjusted.

Floating ring to be used around the dome of the underwater housing with 10 loose elements.

Floating capacity

It is smart to correct the balance of your set and look at the floating capacity at the same time. It is unsafe and not nice to dive with an underwater camera set with a large negative floating capacity. We have published an article on the correcting of the floating capacity separately.