Welcome to ScubaBoard, an online scuba diving forum community where you can join over 205,000 divers diving from around the world. If the topic is related to scuba diving, this is the place to find divers talking about it. To gain full access to ScubaBoard (and make this large box go away) you must register for a free account. As a registered member you will be able to:
Participate in over 500 dive topic forums and browse from over 5,500,000 posts.
Communicate privately with other divers from around the world.
Post your own photos or view from well over 100,000 user submitted images.
Gain access to our free classifieds marketplace to buy, sell and trade gear, travel and services.
Use the calendar to organize your events and enroll in other members' events.
Find a dive buddy or communicate directly with scuba equipment manufacturers.
All this and much more is available to you absolutely free when you register for an account, so sign up today!
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact the ScubaBoard Support Team.
I read about these masks on discovery.com, they seem to give you much better vision underwater, but after reading a review of them, they seem pretty troublesome, you have to wear contacts (even if you have 20/20 vision) and then you have to have some other lenses to put on on the surface to be able to see.
Haven't tried it on myself but talked to some dive shops about it. The technology sounds really interesting. Most of them said that many divers simply decided to go ahead with masks with prescription lenses as it is much cheaper for initial purchase and replacement in the future. Having to carry an extra optical lens with you provides more chance of losing it.
Well, just something I've learned from others. Hope this helps.
The way is to the destructive element submit yourself,
and with the exertions of your hands and feet in the water
make the deep, deep sea keep you up...
I know there are tons of threads about this particular topic. I have one and LOVE it. From what I've read you either love it or hate it. There's no real in between about it. I'm a naked eye user and have been through three masks before.
The only thing I've found that I have an issue with is that I seem to get more of a mask squeeze than I ever got with other masks--I don't know if this is related to the fact that it is not a low volume mask and sometimes difficult to clear, or the fact that the nose bridge is very low and I'm equating normal pressure on the bridge of my nose to an actual squeeze. You can't beat it for panoramic view and correction if you fall into the naked eye user category though.
One problem they had with the mask frame was that the injection-molded plastic frame was too small in the nose for some North American consumers. Although the company doesn't do it, they used to recommend that endusers with large noses get someone to mill off some of the extra plastic over the nose. This didn't weaken the frame since it was over-engineered to begin with.
With the two purge valves, you should not have any trouble with mask squeeze, but all the ventilating in the world won't help if ambient pressures at depth ram the mask onto the bridge of your nose.
I still have two that I keep meanng to use, but I always find excuses not to bother with them. It is one awesome idea, but actually using them just adds more complexity to the normal gearing-up. More power to you if you love them.
Makes perfect sense. I'll see what I can do about that bridge issue. I guess luckily for me, I'm a naked eye user (-3.75 and -4.5 naturally) so I don't have to fuss with the contacts...and my natural myopic vision isn't bad enough that it bothers me horribly to be a little nearsighted on the trip back in...or I just take off the mask and put on my prescription sunglasses and put the mask in the dive bag. I can see the hassle involved if one had to be "corrected" one way or the other just to use the mask. I wouldn't use it either if I had to do all that rigamarole just to go dive. I dive to get away from hassles...not create more of them...grin!
hmmmmm.....yeah, this reminds me that I had to try several different masks till I got one that fit right, and this is one size fits all, probably not a good thing to drop 200 bucks on and hope it fits.
One problem they had with the mask frame was that the injection-molded plastic frame was too small in the nose for some North American consumers. Although the company doesn't do it, they used to recommend that endusers with large noses get someone to mill off some of the extra plastic over the nose. This didn't weaken the frame since it was over-engineered to begin with.
With the two purge valves, you should not have any trouble with mask squeeze, but all the ventilating in the world won't help if ambient pressures at depth ram the mask onto the bridge of your nose.
I still have two that I keep meanng to use, but I always find excuses not to bother with them. It is one awesome idea, but actually using them just adds more complexity to the normal gearing-up. More power to you if you love them.
I just spent two weeks diving in the Red Sea, wearing my HydroOptix on every dive. Compared to my normal prescription mask it's like watching widescreen high definition digital tv. There are drawbacks, however :mad1: . Any water in the mask will pool in the center view when you look downwards. I can deal with that as well as with the mask squeeze and the incessant flooding, but the fogging is just too much. The Sea Gold (TM) leprechaun spit that came with the HydroOptix only does the trick when applied and dried far in advance, and I've often switched to my regular mask halfway through the dive.