One of the most common accessories to add to an underwater housing is a tray. Trays allow you to have a handle or pair of handles to give a steadier grip when using your camera and also allow the mounting of an arm system to use strobes or video lights. Some trays also support shutter release triggers to make operating your camera while holding the handles easier and more comfortable.
As with most equipment in underwater photography prices, designs and quality of tray and handle systems vary substantially.
Apart from whether it is compatible with my housing, the priority for me when choosing a tray is comfort. I don’t tend to let go of my camera during most of each dive and will often be in the water for between an hour to an hour and a half. Because of that the handles on my tray need to be the right shape, size and material for me to not end up with sore fingers or cramp in my hand.
When deciding on a tray think about whether you need one or two handles to start with and whether you can add a second handle down the line or will need to replace the whole tray. If you are only using one strobe or light a single handle on the left of your tray will be fine if you are happy to hold the setup with your right hand around the housing. It’s often necessary to do this even with two handles because of the need to operate the shutter release etc
The size of your hands will play a substantial part in decision making when it comes to what tray to go with. There’s a substantial variety of size and style of handles. How much you can adjust the position of the handles in relation to your housing also has an impact. If you have small hands you may find you want a tray with small diameter handles but also need the distance from the right handle to the side of the housing to be close so you can hold the handle and still reach the shutter release. Big hands or at least long fingers tend to be an advantage. I have had at least one workshop customer who found the size of one tray’s handles so large that despite it having a shutter release trigger she couldn’t operate the camera shutter while holding the right handle. Instead she opted for a tray with quite small handles that could be adjusted so the side of the housing was very close to the right handle. This allowed her to reach the shutter release with her index finger while still having a hold on the handle.
A guest on one of our Red Sea Workshops using a demo strobe setup. The tray is a Nauticam one with a single handle while the arms and strobe are Inon and the clamps are also Nauticam.
Something else to be aware of is that while most housings have standard 1/4-20 UNC threads and so do most trays, some manufacturers notably Ikelite have made housings and/or trays with different size threads and you may need to buy separate screws or avoid certain trays altogether.
If you’ve read my previous blog looking a arm systems you’ll know that I don’t recommend the so called ‘flexi’ arm systems and when it comes to trays the poorest options in my view are those that are just a base plat with a length of flexi arm attached where you hold part of the arm as a handle. Doing that negates part of the limited flexibility that this type of arm provides and if you do choose to use a flexi arm I’d recommend one where the arm is mounted on a handle or has ball ends to attach it to a ball mount on a tray.
Hopefully you’ll find that helpful and in the rest of this blog I’m going to look at the range of trays that we sell. Prices are current at time of writing (22nd January 2024) and you can order or get more info from us by emailing info@alphamarinephoto.com
INON’s Grip Bases
INON’s tray system, the Grip Base has evolved over the years into their current version the Grip Base D5. It can be bought with a single handle included (£68) or just as a base plate (£34). Additional handles are £34 each. The handles are cylindrical with a rubber grip surface and fairly small diameter.
The position of the handles on the Grip Base D5 can be adjusted to accommodate different sizes of underwater housing. The base plate can be used without handles and have ball mounts attached to its underside. Combined with clamps and ball ended arms you can turn it into a simple tripod.
The handles do not come with a ball mount included but a range of INON mounts for attaching equipment can be fitted to them. These include the Direct Base III (£14), Multi Direct Base IIa (£27) , Z Adapter II (£27) and Direct Base YS RT (£14). Of those the Direct Base III does the job of a ball mount for attaching a clamp for an arm system perfectly well at a low cost.
It’s possible to add an adapter bracket (£21) to the top of a handle which can then be fitted with an INON lens holder and there are lanyard plates (£21) available that add a set of stainless steel eyelets to your handles to which you can clip a lanyard or rope handle.
INON also produce the Compact Grip Base (£101) a specific tray for use with GoPros which comes with two handles and supports various mounts on the handles as with the Grip Base D5 as well as the SD Front Mask for use with their specialist lenses for action cameras.
Nauticam’s Easitray & Flexitray
Nauticam’s tray systems are the Easitray II (£108) and Flexitray II (£152). There is also a Flexitray II W (£173) for particularly large housings. The Easitray II is the lightest of the three and works well with compact and small mirrorless camera housings. Larger housings you may want to opt for the FlexiTray II which also has an adjustable left handle which the Easitray II does not. The Flexitray II W does not have an anti slip feature that the other two have so it doesn’t suit being used with housing that only have a single screw hole for attaching to a tray.
The more adjustable Flexitray II and Flexitray II W give you more scope for using larger housings while still having those comfortable Nauticam handles. The W also has two tripod screw holes for mounting your whole setup on a tripod.
Each tray comes with a left handle and an adjustable right handle (£46) can be bought separately. The right handles are a universal design usable with any of the Nauticam trays. I find the handles some of the most comfortable to use of any trays I’ve tried. They aren’t overly large and have a pistol grip style with a soft rubber covering.
The handles do not come with ball mounts included these have to be bought separately (£17 each).
Like all the trays we sell, the Nauticam trays come with standard 1/4 - 20 screws as used on most housings but screws to fit Ikelite housings or housings with M6 threads can be bought as separate parts. (£8 each)
It’s also possible to add a 20mm extension plate (£23) to any of the trays if you find you don’t have quite enough space for your housing.
Anne with her Nauticam setup including the housing for the Olympus OM-D EM10 MKII fitted with an Easitray and adjustable right handle.
Nauticam’s trays can be used with most housings but if you have a Nauticam housing that doesn’t have handles included with it you’ll need a Nauticam tray to use the handle brackets and shutter release trigger that comes with the housing.
I’ve used Nauticam Easitrays with my own mirrorless and compact housings for a long time and rate them very highly. They’ve had hard use and I’ve only recently had to replace the handles because the covering finally split and started to come away.
Kraken
Kraken has been an established brand in North America but it’s only recently been available in the UK. They offer a substantial looking Dual Handle Tray (£109) and a smaller version for action cameras (£79).
Both those trays are made entirely from metal even the shaped pistol grips are aluminium. The action camera tray includes a GoPro mount. It’s also possible to use a GoPro on larger trays and Kraken make a GoPro mount (£12) that can be used in conjunction with any try with standard tripod screws and central hole or slot for a housing with a single screw hole.
Side view of the Kraken Sport TR08 Dual Handle Tray showing the handle shape and cut out style. The width of this tray can be adjusted from an 8inch gap between the handles up to 11.25 inches.
It’s possible to fit a shutter release trigger extension to this tray such as the one produced by Deepshots which we can supply for £55. As mentioned earlier these allow you to keep hold of both handles and still take pictures although to change settings etc you’ll likely have to move a hand. As accessory they can really improve your comfort especially if you have a bulky setup and fairly large housing that you have to hold onto in order to operate the shutter release. I found that with the first mirrorless camera setup I had which was an Olympus camera in an Olympus plastic housing with a single strobe my finger tips would actually get numb sometimes from holding onto the housing. When I changed to a Nauticam housing and tray which had a trigger this stopped happening.
If you are so inclined you can replace the ball mounts for lengths of flexi arm (£39 each) These arms have a YS mount on the end for attaching lights or strobes.
SUPE/Scubalamp TG20
The SUPE TG20 (£99) is a quite large tray with a minimum space between the handles of 23cm and maximum of 30cm. The handles are moulded plastic and for some people they are a bit large. It comes with ball mounts and like the Kraken can be fitted with a shutter release trigger, either the Deepshots one or SUPE produce their own (£75).
Having used this tray and sold a number, we did find that it has some flex in it which can be off putting. This can be reduced by adding a handle bar such as the one made by Deepshots (£30). This reduces some of the flexing, adds extra points for adding ball mounts such as the Inon Multi Direct Base IIA or a GoPro mount and can be used as a carry handle. The Deepshots handle bar can also be fitted to the Kraken TR08 but in both cases it does mean you can’t use a shutter release trigger.
Divepro’s Z10
Divepro’s tray offering the Z10 (£149) is a large and sturdy all aluminium tray with two handles that have ball mounts attached. Both sides of the tray can be adjusted for width and its large size means it can take most housings on the market that don’t come with their own handles included.
I do find the handles a bit large and uncomfortable to use but the metal design is definitely going to be hard wearing. If you find other tray handles are too small this is likely a good choice for you.
Interestingly as well as the ball mounts each handle has a tripod screw on it which allows for attaching things like GoPro mounts and the handles can actually be removed and used as separate GoPro handles. They can also be bought separately for that purpose (£74.95)
The DivePro Z10 is a substantial tray that has mounting points in front of strobe mounting ball. while these allow you to take off a handle and use it on its own with an action camera you could also mount an action camera as addition to your main camera without needing a cold shoe mount.
Weefine’s Trays
Weefine produce a dual handle tray that can be bought either with strobe mounting balls (£139) or 3/4” Loc-Line ‘flexi’ arms fitted with YS mounts. The flexi arm options are £109 for a single handle and £169 for dual handle. The handles have a round cross section rather than shaped moulding and the grip surface is a series of coloured o rings.
Weefine trays come with a range of coloured o rings to use on the handles. So you can give your tray a more personalised look.
One other thing to be aware of is that larger housings for mirrorless and DSLR cameras will often come with handles included so you may not need to factor the cost of tray into your budget.
Thanks as always for reading this. do get in touch if you feel I’ve missed something or have any questions. At time of writing we can supply all the trays and accessories mentioned here. All prices include UK VAT. To order equipment, get quotes etc contact us by emailing info@alphamarinephoto.com
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