Part 1: Positioning Your Camera Inside The Sony a6000 Water Housing
All Aquatech housings use a metal plate which slides into place on a plastic tray within the housing, normally you bolt the camera directly to the plate itself, positioning it securely in exactly the right position for the controls and lens port, obviously the a6000 is a different shape and size to a Canon DSLR, so I had to position the camera appropriately.
I tried a few different options, I had some luck using a bolt and an oversized washer with foam pads stuck on each size, but I found the camera twisted when I used the zoom control on the telephoto lens port as there wasn’t enough resistance.
The PU-60 quick release plate, it’s supplied with a tripod screw, but you need a longer one to attach it to the Aquatech plate.
The solution was to use the PU-60 Quick release plate, it’s designed to slide into an Arca Swiss style clamp, and it’s got three slots in it to attach your camera in various positions, as luck would have it if you attach the Sony a6000 to the far end of the longest slot one of the threaded parts of the other slots lines up almost perfectly with the original tripod screw hole in the Aquatech tray.
To attach it to the tray you can use any tripod screw that will fit, I found you need a longer screw than normal though, so if you don’t have anything suitable lying around you can buy a set of two for a few dollars:
You need the longer screw in order to securely attach the PU-60 plate to the Aquatech base plate.
The PU-60 plate is cheap and readily available, I actually bought it as part of a set which included the clamp, then I picked up a cheap L bracket too so now I have an arca swiss style clamp for my tripod that I can use for landscape photography in the future.
If you’re converting a different style of housing you might need to work out a different method of adjusting the position of the camera, the SPL housing I had didn’t use a slide in base plate but you could definitely stick some foam in the housing to make it a sung fit, alternatively you could install your own quick release clamp system in the housing if there’s room.
Page 2: Positioning Your Sony a6000
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