For underwater photography the most popular arm systems for positioning strobes or video lights are those that use 1”/25mm ball ended arms with clamps to hold them together. These clamps are made by lots of brands, come in a range of designs with cost and quality varying. This blog is an explanation of the differences between the clamps we sell and the uses you might have for the non-standard types of clamp available.
Standard Clamps
Sometimes called butterfly clamps these are most commonly used for connecting two ball ended arms together, a strobe or light with a ball mount to a ball ended arm or an arm to the ball mount on a tray or housing. To use a ball and clamp arm system you should keep the clamps fastened tight enough when out of the water that the strobes don’t flop around. Once underwater you loosen the clamps slightly. A good clamp combined with quality ball arms or mounts should hold the weight of a strobe or light while still allowing you to change the position of it.
We sell standard clamps by Nauticam (£38), INON (£26), Deepshots (£29) and Divepro (£25)
From left to right: Nauticam, Deepshots and Divepro clamps
Why so many and what are the differences? Aside from price there are variations in design and materials. The premium priced Nauticam clamps have all metal construction including handles, are robust and reliable. I’ve had the same Nauticam clamps in use for a long time and the only maintenance they’ve required are a good soak in fresh water after use. If you want tough low maintenance clamps that work well, then Nauticam are worth the money.
INON as a company have a reputation for quality products and reliability. Unlike many clamps their standard Clamp III has a resin handle and this is the reason I don’t tend to recommend them over the Nauticam and Deepshots. But they are now only £26 each
INON’s Clamp III
Deepshots are a newer brand and we’ve sold quite a lot of their metal handled standard clamps. At £9 less than Nauticam you can make a significant saving on cost when buying six for a two strobe set up. The only issue they have is a need for them to be maintained more. It’s recommended you take them apart and clean them before storage rather than just soaking them in freshwater overnight. If you don’t do this from my experience they get squeaky and stiff to tighten and loosen.
Divepro’s Butterfly clamps are the lowest cost option we regularly sell. Like the Deepshots they need regular maintenance to keep them working smoothly. They also are less refined in construction, unlike the other clamps mentioned when you tighten the Divepro clamps the end of the metal bolt sticks out through the centre of the handle. I’m not keen on this especially as it is a bit sharp in some cases. If you are practically minded you could probably smooth the tip off or even shorten it yourself. I keep meaning to give that a go.
Clamps with Shackles
Several manufacturers include clamps that have a shackle attached to them. Using two of these in an arm setup for two strobes or lights gives you points to attach a rope carrying handle such as a Lanyard with Snaphooks made by Nauticam. The best place to put a pair of these clamps is as the middle clamps between pairs of ball ended arms.
Nauticam’s Multi-Purpose Clamp with Shackle is £58 while Deepshots produce one that is £30. In both cases the function and quality level is similar to their standard clamps.
Nauticam Multi-Purpose (MP) clamp with Shackle
Because you are going to be carrying an expensive and possibly a quite heavy camera setup supported on these shackles I’d recommend you check them regularly to make sure that no parts are loose or damaged.
Long Clamps
Longer than standard clamps help give space to manoeuvre for example when using float arms with large diameter that sometimes get wedged against each other when using standard clamps. I’ve also used a long clamp for mounting a GoPro on a cold shoe ball mount on my camera housing. If you have a large port on your housing the extra length helps to position the GoPro so you don’t get parts of the port in your videos, it also helps with folding the GoPro out of the way when you want to bring strobes close in at the top of your housing.
An old picture of me with a Gopro mounted on my housing using a cold shoe ball mount, a GoPro ball mount and a long clamp.
Our range of longer clamps include offerings by Nauticam, Deepshots and DivePro.
Nauticam produce long clamps with shackles (£69) and without (£45). Deepshots only make a long clamp without a shackle (£30). Divepro on the other hand only make their long clamps with a shackle (£45)
Triple clamps
Triple clamps are used in a number of ways. A quite popular method of adding some extra buoyancy to a camera setup is to use a triple clamp on each handle of a tray or housing and then place a float arm between them. The other part of the clamp is then used for attaching the arms for the strobes or lights to go on. Another fairly common use is for adding video lights or a focusing light to an arm setup. Usually the triple clamps will be the middle of three clamps in an arm setup with two ball ended arms. It’s very much a matter of personal preference as to whether these types of setup will suit you. Some people like them others find them too cumbersome especially when using large video lights along with strobes.
Triple clamp being used to mount a video/focusing light at the joint of two ball ended arms
Triple clamps by Nauticam (£51), Deepshots (£36) and Divepro (£35) can all be ordered from us.
Parting Shots
You will find clamps for sale on the internet for less money than the ones mentioned here but it is very much a matter of getting what you pay for. I’ve had attendees on my workshops bring clamps that they bought cheaply online and they are generally poor quality. In particular I’ve seen them with sharp edges in the cups where the ball mount sits which shred the o ring on the ball when the arms are adjusted. In fact on one occasion I’ve insisted that someone used some of my clamps when he tried one of our demo strobes to prevent the o ring getting trashed.
Thanks for reading this. Apologies for it being more sales orientated than some of the other blogs on here, but I’ve written this in part for customers who enquire about our range of clamps so that they can see all the options laid out.
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