REALLY Cool Underwater Tripod

Of all the hats I've worn in my younger days, prototype aerospace machinist and aerospace quality control manager were two of them.

That means I have a terminal case of tinker. So we approached Aquatica about a tripod they've already made a one off prototype of, but we couldn't get them to bite again. If I wasn't so busy, I have a precision 16"x40" lathe and power feed vertical turret mill, with digital readouts on all axis on both machines, and I would make the best one ever, but, who has the time?!

So back to my inner McGuyver....

The issue with tripods are they will corrode, but if cheap enough, after a week, who cares, BUT, videographers and photographers are already lugging too much equipment around to begin with so we're normally already up against airline luggage weight restrictions, and we have to resort to countermeasures, so adding a heavy, and worse yet, bulky tripod is about as high on our list as buying a CD of fingernails on chalkboards and other fun sound effects.

Gates makes an underwater tripod for their housings, but in my opinion any current tripod, land based or otherwise is going to be problematic underwater.

The drawbacks to land based are you have to adjust each one of the legs, and that is time consuming when you must act quick to catch that elusive macro critter. Most land based tripods have legs that do not fold flat, but Manfrotto makes a below model whose legs fold all the way perpendicular for those low angle shots. This also facilitates folding them all horizontal so they don't stick downwards while cruising close to the bottom.

But between all of them, including the custom Gates, the last thing I want to do is have to adjust each one of the legs, both in angle and length.

In aerospace manufacturing we used to have metal cutting machines whose cutters had coolant directed at them via locking spheres. So with a little bit of searching, here is what I found made by a company called Joby

Attachment 968

Each legs is about 12" long, flexible, will not corrode in salt water, weighs next to nothing, folds flat for transport, and has a real smooth give to it so if you need to "pan" your shot, it will act as sort of a viscous pan head when you "steer" your videocam on the subject.

Now this tripod will not hold the weight of a 3 chip HDcam on land, but underwater, your videocam should be more or less neutrally buoyant.

Now for macro shots where your videocam is within 12" of the bottom, I think this rig will become the defacto standard for macro videographers.

As an update, Joby is now producing a new, heavier duty model shown below called the Focus that will hold the weight of a large videocamera up to 11lbs. on land, which means it should work even better underwater.

Attachment 969

We will be getting one in soon for a complete review, and we will be taking it to our next underwater HD video production shoot in Asia to let you all know how well it works.

We think that at a $110 pricepoint, it can't be beat. If you can't wait for the on location use and review, you can order yours now directly by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom of the web page.

I use the Gates with no problems. Anythng, IMO, is going to be a tad difficult to handle underwater as opposed to on land. No problems thus far with Gates though.

Cheers,
Mark.

yeah I've just started using the Gates... pretty good. Nice and tidy too.

I reckon once you have used it a few times will be awesome, just takes a bit of time to get used to setting it up.

Jon

The Gates does look like it sort of has a lot of adjustments and whirlygigs.....

Aquatica has a new tripod.... we took some photos of at DEMA:

As a keen tinkerer myself, I built my own. The most important feature is to get the camera as close to the bottom as possible without shooting down. I found the best way to do that is to build the tripod around the camera instead of under it.

I destroyed a cheap sony VCT-R640 tripod (just use the legs) so that the legs are adjustable in length, and then attach it however you can depending on the housing. I used the same principle (and Sony tripod) for a smaller version for my Navigator 900 housing too. For the bigger housings (like the one i use now), the ability to adjust the angle of the back leg is very important from a practical point of view.

Interesting quadpod Josh....I know what you mean about getting the videocam on the bottom. I am always trying to mash my battery pack into the sand which makes for a good tripod yet I can still pan it a bit and follow a subject.

Ok, we have had a chance to check out both Joby tripods as shown in the opening post.

Frankly, both sizes work. The smaller one in the original article is all plastic, and is lighter for travel. It moves a little easier underwater in case you are slowly deforming the legs by pushing the housing around following a moving subject.

The larger one with aluminum segments works well too, and is sturdier, with legs a little longer. I am toying around with the idea of putting a Manfrotto ball head on it set loose.

Both of these are between $110 and $60, quite a bargain and I am pleased with both of them.

As soon as I get the wrong port sent to us issue fixed so I can use my screw on achromatic diopter again for some serious macro, I will post some footage.

I had the gorilla tripod before but I found it unstable in currents or surge, as the legs only spread from the center position. So I did something similar as Josh I assembled 2 legs in the front and one in the back. I just used arms from an old still camera used for strobe lights. The length suits me well and if I want to extend them I can always add another arm as they are connect with ball joints.
this is easily done and works well for me.

Kumusta Klemens, welcome to the SMN Community.

I just got back from Malapascua shooting an HD promo video for that region.

Since I try to do some pretty strong macro, currents and surge are always a problem. If I stay still, the subject might still be swaying. I just need a scuba sherpa to carry around some studio style sandbag weights to weight my rig once it is set up on tripod, lol.

Interesting handles you have there, I still can't figure it out.

I have heard of others successfully using cheap land tripods and if they give out after a week, for the $20 dollars 1000 pesos they don't care.

The handles are actually pretty simple. They are loc line segments
www.loc-line.com
I'm sure you've seen them many time for lights and strobes,as many manyfacturers use them to attach their products. Originally they are cooling systems and can be bought at these companies by the meter for a much cheaper price then from the scuba industry. I bent them to the position I wanted and filled them with marine exopy adhesives so that they stay in position. At the end I put a skrinking tube over it which you can get in electrical supply shops, this is the blue rubber hose you see on the pictures.
As the Gates has only manual controls in different locations I found the original handles always too far away from the controls, so I solved the problem this way.

I thought those were lok-lines, but it looked like you had wrapped them...I guess my middle aged vision is not totally failing!