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SO ENGROSSED WAS I with getting the best out of this little Olympus digital camera in its submarine housing that I was shocked to find that I had racked up 20 minutes of decompression stops during a dive. That's a positive danger with a camera that allows you to take a picture again and again until you get it right. At least I hadn't run out of air!
As with most digital cameras, there is a time delay between pressing the shutter and recording the picture. Diving from mv Emperor Pegasus in the northern Red Sea, I had taken a lot of pictures of empty spots vacated by fleeing fish before I came across an obliging moray eel that posed elegantly for me.
Elegantly, that is, until it decided to try to take a bite out of the clear Perspex housing. I guess it thought the flash it saw repeatedly twinkling might have been a tasty little meal in the form of a silverside. My buddy said he had visions of me writing a letter to Olympus to tell it why it couldn't have its camera back.
The 3.2 megapixel Olympus µ (mju) 300 is one of the latest generation of tiny digital cameras that is driving the high-street one-hour mini-labs out of business. No-one wants to wait for their holiday snaps now.
It delivers 50 jpegs in the higher of the three qualities possible on one 128MB xD-Picture card, and these are perfect for making A4 prints and e-mailing to friends. The camera comes with a standard 16MB card, but that stores only six shots in super-high-quality (or 99 in standard-quality for simply viewing on a PC).
Either way, no more inviting a reluctant audience round to see your holiday slide show. You can now bore them to death on the information super-highway without having to buy them any beer and Twiglets, or remove any stains from your carpet.
I had the Olympus µ (mju) set up so that I got a post-viewing of each picture I took. It was perfect. I could throw away most of my attempts to get a good shot long before I got home. My dustbin men will be pleased about that.
I found that for good colour I needed to use the built-in flash, and for any result at all I needed a static subject. It's perfect for shots of your buddy, too. Not only that, but instead of swimming round encumbered by a massive lump that represents a 35mm film camera and flashgun, I could put the little Olympus µ in my BC pocket until I needed it.
Compared to my buddy's equally small digital, the Olympus gave me more time to study my results as I went. There also seemed to be less delay between pressing the shutter release and getting the shot, even if it was still significant. The Olympus µ runs on a rechargeable lithium-iron battery.
Resistant to damp conditions, you need to put it in its purpose-built PT-106 housing to take it under water. This has big buttons you really can use under water, though it takes some time to navigate around the menu. I was surprised that I was so quickly able to get the hang of changing from close-up (0.2m) to mid-range focus mode, and to turn the flash on and off as required. I also liked the fact that the housing came with a viewing hood so that I could actually see what I was getting on its LCD screen. The optical viewfinder is useless under water.
I kept the camera's 3x optical zoom at its widest setting and got in close to my subject. And I enjoyed the instant gratification of shots that turned out well, even though I wasted much time trying to get them.
The list of options available with this camera is endless. I suggest that the second most important underwater accessory after its PT-106 submarine case is a second cylinder of gas to breathe for the extended deco-stops you might unexpectedly incur!
Pictures were quickly downloaded on to my eMac via the USB cable provided, and all the Olympus software you might need for other PCs is supplied bundled with the camera.
Expect to pay around £400 for camera and housing. Prices reduce daily as new models arrive from Japan.
Olympus, 0800 0720070, www.olympus.co.uk
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+ Instant gratification
+ Good value
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- For subjects prepared to stop and pose
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There are many things in life that we own but have forgotten about. Forgotten about, that is, until we suddenly need them.
Examples include the spare wheel in your car, that fire-extinguisher you stashed away somewhere, the smoke detector, and the spare key to your house that you once left with a neighbour.
None of them are sexy. You have them but hope you'll never need them. It's the same with most stuff for emergency use.
I was sent a Jotron Signal Strobe for the What's Bubbling section of the magazine and thought it might come in useful. I stuck it in the pocket of a BC that I own. Well, I don't often get to dive with my own kit, thanks to the treadmill on which I work, so it had been forgotten after more than a year when I found myself bobbing in the ocean, wondering what had happened to my surface cover.
My flag had been fluttering proudly but night was drawing in and I was contemplating switching on one of my underwater flashguns in emergency signal mode.
Then I remembered the cigarette-pack-sized lump tied by a lanyard to an internal D-ring. It hadn't flooded, and its two AA batteries seemed OK, so I clipped it to my BC epaulet and let it do its work.
It also has a little torch-type light that's good for looking at your instruments if you're caught short during a night dive. I was quickly collected by the cover boat, which had been diverted to pick up some of my fellow-divers who had drifted.
Of course, there are other routine uses for signal strobes like this, such as marking an anchorline or shotline in bad viz or darkness. This one is bright enough to convey the idea of overall direction, even if it is obscured by wreckage or a rock.
The Jotron AQ-5 is made in Norway, noted for its long winter nights. I remember that the previous model was bulkier but did its job equally well.
The AQ-5 is neutrally buoyant, so becomes unnoticeable in the pocket. It's there when you need it but not when you don't.
It's rated to 30m and costs £49.35.
Jotron (UK) 01670 712000
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+ Effective when it's needed
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- Not rated to go very deep
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Times were hard when I were a lad, after the war. We took our holidays at Hayling Island and my mum knitted me swimming trunks from the unravelled wool of old squaddies' pullovers.
As long as I stayed safely wading in the shallows with my feet still dry in my wellies, everything was fine, but if I were to accidentally succumb to the embrace of an incoming breaker and get myself wet, disaster would befall me. The knitted swimming trunks stretched.
So it was not so much the threat of drowning that kept me from learning to swim back in those tender years, it was the threat of loudly delivered derision from my elder brothers as I squelched back up the beach, holding my skimpies up under my arms.
Why am I confessing all this? Because there was something uncannily familiar about the Fourth Element Thermoclyne swimming kit that I took on holiday to Majorca with me.
Part of a range of garments, this shorts and long-sleeved top ensemble is made of a fabric called Polartec and is claimed to have a thermal efficiency equivalent to 2.5mm of neoprene, yet to be neutrally buoyant.
Available in both a smoothskin or a woven finish, it was the knitted effect of the woven version that reminded me of events that happened in my dim and distant past, when Hayling Island was the most exotic destination the Bantin family could reasonably expect to visit.
I am pleased to report that these 21st Century shorts did not stretch and fall off my hips like the '50s woollen swimming trunks. The other Brits I spent my time with this summer are also pleased about this.
In fact me Thermoclynes stayed rather snug, and certainly saved me from the shock of entering water a lot cooler than the 37°C-plus air temperature of last July. The long-sleeved top was equally efficient, if slightly too tight for me, which caused a degree of difficulty in getting into it with the arms facing the right way. Never mind, the sweat broken in forcing my arms through its sleeves was soon washed away in the limpid pool that was the Med that month.
The manufacturer's claim for neutral buoyancy was not proved entirely true. I guess it made its calculations based on fresh water, and I was in the sea. I noticed a slight upforce when swimming on the surface, and need a kilo of lead to make shallow breath-hold dives more comfortable.
That said, the suit pulled off easily enough and dried quickly in the sunshine, so I was spared that clammy feeling of wet knitting hanging about my groin. A large range of different garments are available and they could always be used to augment a suitably loose-fitting wetsuit should you find the conditions where you are to be colder than expected.
The Thermoclyne top and shorts shown cost £65 and £45 respectively.
Fourth Element 01326 291091, www.fourthelement.com
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+ Hi-tech alternative to a lightweight wetsuit
+ Near neutrally buoyant in sea water
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- Reminded me of best-forgotten past
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I like to keep an open mind and test each piece of equipment on its merit. My aim is to tell you, the reader, as much as I can about all the products that are available to you, without fear or favour.
I was pleased to receive a Halcyon Eclipse wing-style BC to try for these pages. However, another person in the office greeted its arrival with the sort of welcome that might have greeted a parachute sent by Osama Bin Laden. Halcyon products bear the mark of DIR, and while to some this is seen as a sign of all things good, others see it as the mark of the Devil.
For those divers who have been living on another planet, I should explain that DIR, or Doing It Right, is a system of diving which embraces not only equipment and training but attitude and lifestyle. Some see it as rather Mormonic in the demands it makes on those who subscribe to its teachings, but then there do seem to be a lot of very happy Mormons.
Well, as a professional maverick, I didn't feel threatened. Nor did I feel I needed to recant any previously held beliefs to go diving with the Eclipse and tell you what I think of it. Halcyon's importer has clearly decided that it needs to widen the market for its products rather than limiting sales to the few faithful followers of the DIR creed.
The Eclipse is for use with a single tank. It is a simple bit of kit that marries to a Halcyon stainless-steel or aluminium backplate and harness. When supplied complete, it goes by the name of a Multifunction Compensator.
The BC comes with a stainless-steel single-tank adapter with two cambands for securing the tank. You can also buy the wing alone to fit to any harness and backplate you might already have.
It was easy enough to sandwich the three parts and assemble them with the bolts, wing-nuts and washers provided. I was amused to find myself following the instructions on how to adjust the harness straps so that the two shoulder D-rings ended up in the right place. I was suddenly reminded of Henry Reed's famous wartime poem: "...but today we have naming of parts."
The harness is a continuous loop of webbing, just like the one on my first Spiro twin-set of 25 years ago. This means that it can be easily adjusted to fit almost anyone.
It has a crotch-strap with a big stainless-steel D-ring at the back and another at the front, and a big Scubapro buckle. The rear D-ring is evidently intended for reels and SMBs and the like. There is a waist D-ring for clipping off a pressure gauge.
The front crotch-strap D-ring is for hitching to a tow-behind scooter only, so will become rather redundant when we are all using JetBoots!
There is no back cushion as such, just a panel of heavy fabric secured to the backplate with a number of bolts. I found five such bolts in the parcel, although there was the possibility of fitting eight.
The fabric panel hides the bolt-ends and wing-nuts that hold the sandwich of backplate, buoyancy cell and tank-adapter together. It's the shape of the back-plate that stops the bolt-ends and wing-nuts sticking into your back and making you feel uncomfortable.
The cambands were not as easy to tighten as in a conventional set-up, and I strongly advise the user to wet them thoroughly before fitting to a tank. Webbing stretches when wet. The Halcyon type are not as easily threaded as ordinary cam-buckles and you wouldn't want to have to try to tighten them up under water.
The buoyancy cell or wing is of double-bag construction with a urethane-coated bladder inside a ballistic nylon outer shell.
It is shaped like an elongated doughnut, with a pull-dump at the lower front left side and a corrugated hose attached to the upper right back. This has a reinforced elbow. The bag comes with either 18 or 13.5kg of lift.
Despite some shortcomings, I enjoyed using this wing. I like minimalism. Why have something that is not needed?
The Eclipse follows the "less is more" philosophy, but this does give those whose job it is to market the product something of a problem. In our added-value world, how can you sell something that actually strives to give you less?
The press release supplied with the Eclipse made great play of the internal drainage system for excess water. I guess it meant the lower dump valve.
Well, you will need to dump water out of this after a dive, because the only way to dump air from the wing on ascent is to raise the corrugated hose and let it out through the manual inflation valve. This, of course, lets water back in the other way.
Don't expect to get anything as convenient as a toggle on the end of the lower dump's pull-cord either, even though it would have made it easier to find it to dump air during a fast head-down descent in a strong current.
The press release also makes great play of the fact that the corrugated hose has its inflator mouthpiece set to face inwards. What's the mystery? If I ever get any BC that has its inflator mouthpiece pointing any other way, I simply unclip it, rotate it and refit it. My opinions may be heretical to the devoted followers of DIR, but I am equally devoted to the principles of JDI (Just Do It).
Under water, the backplate substituted for lead on my belt, the small wing did not flap around the tank, and the BC became a part of me, which is good.
However,I had to be circumspect about positioning my body in such a way that I could dump all my air on ascent.
If this BC had an upper dump valve, I might well have loved it. If you dive only in a drysuit and use the BC for surface buoyancy, its absence may not be a problem.
There may be merit in having a continuous loop of webbing and only one buckle rather than a couple of pinch-clips, as with most other BCs, but I missed the convenience of conventional shoulder buckles.
When it came to getting my cylinder off in the water, it proved to have become rather a snug fit. However, I am adroit at tipping my rig over my head and ducking out from under it, and that worked fine once I had the existence of a crotch-strap fixed in my mind.
I imagine those of us who are less slim and nimble might have to consider diving only from a boat with a ladder, so that they can climb aboard still fully kitted.
But then, if you follow the strict DIR regime in all its aspects, you will be at least as fit as me!
That's it - a wing perfect for shore-diving in a drysuit in freshwater lakes. No BC needs to be complicated to work, and the Halcyon Eclipse is certainly not unnecessarily complicated.
I often find myself writing that less is more. In this case, less certainly costs more. This is a BC stripped to the bare essentials, and what essentials there are seem to be solidly made. But then they would have to be, to justify a whopping £424 price-tag.
W Silent Planet, 001305 824 555, www.silentplanet.info
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+ Well-made
+ Simple design
+ Old-fashioned values
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- Less is more when it comes to cost
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