Brules
Contributor
I'd say the answer has a lot to do with the DM knowing your skill set & believing you'll be able to both know where the rest of the group moved on to while you stayed to take photos AND in thinking you can & will catch up. That takes some time to prove to a DM so unless you find an op that caters to photographers you may miss some opportunities on the first few days of diving while you prove your skills. Fortunately I've done that over the years with the DM's I use but as Marg has said you can't predict what the current will be on any given day at any site.
THIS POST NAILED IT.
Of my 20 years of diving in Cozumel, I can say without a doubt that Pedro @ Blue XT Sea is the slowest DM I have ever dove with LOL which = the best photo friendly I have ever dove with! He does not kick his fins hardly haha.....! Just dove with him in early june and it was such a nice change vs the DMs who swim you to death to get you out of the water. As proof, we regularly did 70-80 min dives on AL 80 tanks lol.......we did 80 minutes on Tormentos one day when the current was at almost 0 (that site is normally 3+ knots).