New to scuba diving and have a general question.

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!

Cameras seem to be good way to find out who really has their buoyancy and trim skills nailed. The task loading tends to make people who need to think about buoyancy end up all over the water column. On one dive I saw the dive leader need to chase and drag back down a guy with this monster camera twice as he drifted towards to surface while he was totally absorbed with his camera.

Don't be that guy.
 
I used a video camera I borrowed on my first ten dives in Apo Island when I got my OW certification. The sea turtle and the sea snake I recoded while snorkeling. The rest was while I was taking the course and the 4 fun dives that followed. My favorite photo was the nudibranch I found on the wall at about 14 meters. It was a great macro shot...

[video=youtube;xTTiVC_RT90]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTTiVC_RT90[/video]
 
Nice job on the video. It looks much more polished than the ones I've posted. But I am going to side with others. Take the first two days to dial in your gear. The shark dive sounds really cool, but from what you've said, it is going to be relatively challenging. It would be a shame to be struggling in the water with a camera because you were not dialed in on your rig. Take the time to master the gear before you add a camera to the mix. You will find it time well spent.
 
Great video! Moorish Idols, Tomato Clowns/RBTA, Pyramid Butterflies. How big was the flower pot coral around the 10:00 mark? I would love to dive that part of the world.
 
Nice job on the video. It looks much more polished than the ones I've posted. But I am going to side with others. Take the first two days to dial in your gear. The shark dive sounds really cool, but from what you've said, it is going to be relatively challenging. It would be a shame to be struggling in the water with a camera because you were not dialed in on your rig. Take the time to master the gear before you add a camera to the mix. You will find it time well spent.

Thanks for the compliment.

Not sure there are sides here. I do understand what you guys are recommending and I agree. It's a concern that I have because I also just bought a Suunto Zoop dive computer I'll be getting familiar with as well. I've been using a decent source to study it in simulation. It portrays the computer functions and displays while in dive mode and emergency situation like exceeding no decompression limits. Here's what I'm talking about...

[video=youtube;vuE9_sZs7lM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuE9_sZs7lM&x-yt-cl=84924572&x-yt-ts=1422411861#t=13[/video]

I may have somewhat of an advantage to the average newbie. When I was a child my mother considered the local public pool my babysitter in the summertime. When I was in Jr. High we moved to Hawaii where I took up surfing and snorkeling. While in high school we moved to California where I continued surfing. Never did much snorkling accept on rare occasions. I'm actually surprised it took me this long to get around to Scuba Diving. But when I moved to Taiwan which is an Island, I decided to finally do it. I'm a two hour flight from the Philippines which costs a US $200.00 round trip, so I'm all in. I guess you could say I've caught the bug.

---------- Post added January 29th, 2015 at 12:24 AM ----------

Great video! Moorish Idols, Tomato Clowns/RBTA, Pyramid Butterflies. How big was the flower pot coral around the 10:00 mark? I would love to dive that part of the world.

Thanks.

The flower pot was about the size of a car tire. It's a shame I didn't have LED lights for that camera I borrowed the colors were lost a 16 meters. But I have some now and they're for my new camera. :)

Ya, the Bubble Tipped Anemone was a great find. I was really testing my buoyancy with that shot. I had my feet extended towards the surface while looking down on it from above. As I maintained that position, I was spiraling around the anemone for nearly 4 minutes. The point of doing it was to keep the female on guard and defending all sides of the anemone. It kept her active and dancing around while recording instead of remaining stagnant in one defensive position.
 
I have the same computer. It's pretty intuitive to me and not hard to figure out.

$200 round trip to the Phillipines? Major jealousy here.
 
Nitrox will certainly increase your BT and if your gas consumption is good you will enjoy the benefits. Consider though that if you're going to get into photography you'll also need to have very good buoyancy and propulsion skills to be able to hang there for a while and get great photos... and also not damage the reef in the process. So as others have said, it's best to focus on these skills to be able get the most out of your photography... and your diving.

On that note, I have seen a few dive operations that will allow you to hire a private guide and cater to your specific requirements. This may be worth looking into when you're ready.
 
when I was diving with a few shops in the Philippines it wasn't that uncommon to have one group for the photographers and one group for the rest

---------- Post added January 30th, 2015 at 12:12 AM ----------

bring your camera to balicasag though dude you'll get so many turtle shots (and even the boat ride over there is pretty beautiful)
 
Consider though that if you're going to get into photography you'll also need to have very good buoyancy and propulsion skills to be able to hang there for a while and get great photos... and also not damage the reef in the process. So as others have said, it's best to focus on these skills to be able get the most out of your photography... and your diving.

To help with buoyancy, I added some plumbing insulation sleeves to the flex arms of my LED light tray. It looks like this..
images
moK0G16FQKtBZtATGTCv0gA.jpg



The smaller insulation sleeve is plenty buoyant enough and it requires just a small amount. You can trim it with scissors to adjust the buoyancy. It fits very snug as you slide it on to the arms. I have them positioned just below where the LED lights would be. The insulation resembles neoprene. I'm bringing extra to account for compression at depth just in case. The cost is soooo cheap.

---------- Post added January 29th, 2015 at 11:07 PM ----------

when I was diving with a few shops in the Philippines it wasn't that uncommon to have one group for the photographers and one group for the rest

This is reassuring. Thanks for posting.
 
I agree with scrane, it takes time to get your skills "up" so just get comfortable diving and leave the camera equip on board till you get there, the camera can be very distracting, as you get more dives under your belt then bring it in, and as far as nitrox I often dive with it but I didn't start until I had quite a few dives under my belt. Just go out and enjoy.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

Back
Top Bottom