Dive Master duties

Taking videos while acting as a DM/Teacher on a dive is

  • Totally acceptable

    Votes: 4 3.8%
  • Acceptable

    Votes: 9 8.6%
  • Neutral on the subject

    Votes: 13 12.4%
  • should be avoided

    Votes: 26 24.8%
  • Totally unacceptable

    Votes: 53 50.5%

  • Total voters
    105
  • Poll closed .

Please register or login

Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.

Benefits of registering include

  • Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
  • A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
  • You can make this box go away

Joining is quick and easy. Log in or Register now!

Freewillow

Contributor
Scuba Instructor
Divemaster
Messages
1,671
Reaction score
420
Location
Brussels
# of dives
500 - 999
I was diving in the Maldives on a dive crew and somehow the dive master, who was among others, a PADI instructor did not have an easy time. We were 20 divers divided in 3 groups. In our group 2 divers were clearly not at the requested level for such a cruise in the Maldives where strong current will happen. The official requirement was experienced divers, minimum level 2 or AOW with at least 50 dives.

The result was that the Dive master did three things at the same time: guide the group under water, teach one diver ( if not 2 ) the AOW that was requested beforehand and ON TOP OF that took videos during the dives. In fact the goal was to try to sell a 30 minutes video at the time of the cruise for $40/ Piece.

I had a discussion with the DM on this. His answer was that the fact that he was filming underwater had no interference with his two others responsabilities. What is your own opinion?

Do you think that to take a video while you are acting as a divemaster and teacher is

Totally acceptable
Quite acceptable
Neutral on the subject
Better be avoided
Not acceptable
 
Important question that is relevant to your poll: was the "dive master" or the "instructor" actually teaching a course?
 
  • Like
Reactions: Doc
yeah that is convoluted. No issue if DM and videoing at the same time, no issue with teaching and videoing at the same time *we do that all the time so the students have feedback, but it's either helmet mounted gopros which don't require active input, or while the students are conducting their own portion of the dive and we are babysitting*. Big issue with teaching and DM at the same time depending on circumstances, and bigger issue with trying to do all 3 especially if the video was a rig that required active input.

Unfortunately it seems like a lot of what the industry is trending towards, but if you have a big issue with it, report it to whatever agency the guy was associated with and they'll do an investigation.
 
While I put better be avoided it really is one of the two acceptable answers I have in my open water class -- Q1, Ch 1 OR "It depends" -- and yes, this is an "it depends" question.

For example, if I was teaching my TecReational Class, I might well video some of the in-water stuff to use as a teaching tool. All students are certified divers with experience and the video is generally useful.

In an OW class -- nope -- no video by any "teaching/supervising" personnel.

On the UW Nava dive of an AOW class -- maybe -- particularly if the students have asked for feedback. Since the supervision of this dive doesn't need to be direct supervision, videoing would not interfere with the DM/Instructor job.
 
The rig is a rig with two lamps some 3 feet apart and the AOW, as you know, is a few dives and some written questions. But yes, formally the guy was teaching. I have no REALLY BIG Issue. Just the fact that I believe you do a better job if you are searching for species to show to everybody in your group. In this case, most of the time: the DM finds something, shows it to somebody and then goes away in order to film something else. He told us, it was up to the second guy to show the item to another one and then on and on. In practice, such a message does not go to the end of the group :(. Looking at the video, I may have seen 20/25% of the items that he filmed during our dives. I would have preferred to see more than 50% rather that see less that 25% and have to pay $40 in order to see the rest on a movie. I do not understand why a dive master should not do his first responsability job and charge $40 for something that he did at my detriment :(. I would tend to call this cheating, but I may be the only one of that opinion. First time I have seen this behavior in 10+ cruises, so unpleasantly surprised.


FYI, while I understand that one may film students in order to show performance of the divers, the only intention here was to sell a $40 video of fishes and creatures , seen during our dives.
 
What is your own opinion? Do you think that to take a video while you are acting as a divemaster and teacher is

Totally acceptable
Quite acceptable
Neutral on the subject
Better be avoided
Not acceptable
I agree with the gist of very specific answers you have already received, 'It depends.' :)

I most definitely believe that using video - of the student diver(s) - as part of instruction can be a tremendous asset.

If I am an Instructor for a course, and responsible for direct supervision of student diver activities, I avoid being the camera man. If a DM is working as my CA, I avoid using that person as the camera man. I prefer to have a DMC in the water to handle the camera, when possible.

But, there are circumstances where I do manage the camera if necessary, or (preferably) have a DM / CA manage the camera, for example, filming AOW students engaged in the PPB dive The requirements are for Indirect Supervision. I usually swim along with the student divers as they make their way through hula hoops, or practice hovering, or complete whatever task / exercise that i have assigned, to make notes on their buoyancy and trim control. As long as I have a CA who is watching them, undistracted, I may take the opportunity to film the individual students. Or, I may have the CA do that while I supervise the students.

On any dive where direct supervision is required, I will NOT be the camera man.

Notwithstanding the fact that many feel that shooting video is reasonable to do as a parallel activity, it is a significant distraction, and not something that I can do where I am responsible for directly supervising an activity.
 
I understand the "it depends" answers. But I think that I have described the case very well. Our understanding as europeans are that a DM is NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR the supervision of the divers, only to show the way the dive should be done and also to show fishes/creatures for the other divers. In this case, he was giving, at the same time, an AOW course to a student. I have to add that this was totally unforseen, as ALL DIVERS WERE SUPPOSED TO BE AOW + 50 dives minimum. To dive in the Maldives numerous passes does not happen without some current! But the guy who was the student did not have the skills. In fact it seems that he had not been diving for some time and that a Stab (floating device?) was used by him for the first time. So clearly the participants mistake. But can you as the crew diving director, let the guy without diving for 10 days?

To make things more fun, a lady ( the second diver I mentionned earlier ) when in one of her irst dives with ciurrent and unvolontary ascent from 100 feet to the surface well under one minute and had a mild ADD, requiring only Oxygen intake. But I would say that for this diver, she did it on her own. The DM was not her teacher, only her guide.
 
I was diving in the Maldives on a dive crew and somehow the dive master, who was among others, a PADI instructor did not have an easy time. We were 20 divers divided in 3 groups. In our group 2 divers were clearly not at the requested level for such a cruise in the Maldives where strong current will happen. The official requirement was experienced divers, minimum level 2 or AOW with at least 50 dives.

The result was that the Dive master did three things at the same time: guide the group under water, teach one diver ( if not 2 ) the AOW that was requested beforehand and ON TOP OF that took videos during the dives. In fact the goal was to try to sell a 30 minutes video at the time of the cruise for $40/ Piece.

I had a discussion with the DM on this. His answer was that the fact that he was filming underwater had no interference with his two others responsabilities. What is your own opinion?

Do you think that to take a video while you are acting as a divemaster and teacher is

Totally acceptable
Quite acceptable
Neutral on the subject
Better be avoided
Not acceptable

PADI has some rules for this so obviously as an instructor you have to follow the rules.

Personally, I'm firmly in the "it depends" camp. It depends on the programme being given, the conditions (confined or open water as well as diving conditions) and the ratios. I often wear a head cam that records whatever I'm looking at so I can review it after the class and use (if I'm lucky) some of the video for briefing.

As a general rule in class I think video should be taken as a teaching aid whenever feasible but *when* it is done, the person taking video should either be using a "head cam" or have no other task assigned to them than record events.

If I were running PADI I would require every member of a dive team to wear a head-cam and to store that video as you would a paper file for 7 years. I think SOOOO much good could come of QA having access to video that it would be silly not to....

R..
 
i am too lazy to look up the standards but if memory serves me right it is against standards to use a camera of any kind during a class / supervising students. ok if guiding a non teaching dive or a uw photo class.
the op posted that the dm was also a padi instr, so there should not have been a video made as he/she was also conducting an advance class dive for 1 or 2 students. how about the ratio of preople in the water? if conducting the advance dive with students were the other people on the dive counted towards allowed ratio? I doubt it..standards broken all around. not saying it is unsafe, it could be, but if an accident was to occur and standards not adheared to this instr would have a lot of explaining to do and possibly be denied insurance coverage.
 
i am too lazy to look up the standards but if memory serves me right it is against standards to use a camera of any kind during a class / supervising students. ok if guiding a non teaching dive or a uw photo class.

It's forbidden during intro dives.

I can kind of understand that. We used to give students camera's to "play with" during intro dives in the pool because part of what they wanted to take home was the memory..... but I have to admit, in doing so they were not focused on following instructions :)

As far as I can recall, during training dives, the dive team is forbidden to take video in situations where they are required to maintain direct supervision. That doesn't mean (I believe) that it's forbidden to delegate this task to a diver who does NOT have a supervision task. Also, the head-cam thing is a bit of grey area. I've even had students wear the head-cam....

R..
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

Back
Top Bottom