March 1999

John Bantin has been a full-time professional diving writer and underwater photographer since 1990. He makes around 300 dives each year testing diving equipment.

The final Frontier?

• The final Frontier? - Mares Frontier Expedition BC
• Hello Vera - Mares Vera BC
• Tough stuff - the right way up - Dacor 960XLE reg.
• Another bash at the flash Puts us in the picture - YS-120 Duo flash
• Wrap up warm - Prinsport neck warmer

Like most products made by Mares, the Frontier Expedition BC is expensive and looks it. It is a conventional jacket-style advanced diving vest or BC, made of 1000 denier cloth, with buoyancy provided at the back and round the sides of the abdomen. It has a hard back-pack and comes loaded with features.
Included is an integrated weight system which installs the weights via a webbing strip against a plastic panel to keep them from digging into your ribs. The whole lot then goes into a drawstring bag which is inserted into a special weight pocket, one each side of the BC.
Each pocket is closed with a substantial slab of velcro. An easy-to-grip knob, also held in place with velcro, provides a way of pulling the weights out and away should the need arise.
With enough lead installed for use with a thick wetsuit in a wintry and very salty Red Sea, I found it rather difficult to pick up the Frontier and slip its camband over a tank. Once I had managed this feat I chose to leave the rig lying on the deck, because the centre of gravity made the cylinder insecure in the tank-rack of an unstable boat.
The Frontier Expedition has a conventional design but with extras. The shoulders, for example, have Flash Gordon-style extensions that spread the load of tank and weights, which was much appreciated.
The BC comes with two large stainless-steel D-rings at the upper shoulder-strap facings plus two hoseclips and a whistle. There are three cross-straps with fastex buckles, two at the waist over the adjustable cummerbund and one at the sternum.
I was unable to slip the rig on prior to diving in the easy way that I can with some other BCs. Not only did it feel complicated, it also felt very big at first, though other passengers suggested that it looked a little small on me! Once I was in the water, however, it felt like part of me.
The power inflator is a sexily designed item that clips neatly together with the direct-feed hose and incorporates a dump valve. This valve is operated by tugging on the corrugated hose and proved highly efficient, located as it is in exactly the right place at the highest point of the BC bag, even when swimming horizontally.
If you prefer, there is also a dump at the opposite shoulder, operated by a pull-cord threaded through the shoulder facing of the right-hand strap. The toggle at the end of this is chunky and heavy, so it always falls easily to hand.
On the example tested the pull-cord of the bottom dump was equally heavy. When inverted, the toggle fell in among the folds of the BC and the tank, making it almost impossible to find. The same applied to the last Mares BC I tried; but a Mares representative has now told me that the company is going to fit floaty toggles to the bottom dump, and I saw the first at the DEMA show in January.
With the weights installed the jacket gave me fantastic stability under water - so much so that I had great difficulty twisting to one side. This is a movement often required by underwater photographers, as I was constantly reminded every time I wanted to swim next to my subject with my camera turned to face it. Not being allowed to rotate freely proved irritating.
At the surface the Frontier Expedition, clamped to an aluminium tank, held me comfortably with my head well clear of the water. I did however notice a little torso squeeze, and found it impossible to put my safety sausage back into either of the small zipped pockets without letting some air out of the BC first.
I also found the weights difficult to jettison without a determined effort to drag them from the vice-like grip of the velcro. Then again, few divers seem to remember that they have the option of dropping weights in an emergency, because it is not a well-practised underwater routine.
Available in five sizes from XS to XL, the Mares Frontier Expedition costs £375. Size M provides a maximum lift of 22kg (manufacturer's figure). There is also a ladies' version (see below).

Blandford Sub-Aqua 01923 801572

PLUS	MINUS
+ Comes loaded with features + High quality of manufacture + Fantastic stability underwater + Dump valves perfectly positioned for efficient use	- Expensive - Integrated weights make it hard to stow on boat - Small amount of torso squeeze

Hello Vera!
Some names suffer in translation, the lady's version of the Mares Frontier being a case in point. It's called the Vera, but Mares might fare better by renaming it Racquel for the British market!
I enlisted Lynne Marshall-Dunn, a dive guide with Dive Africa of Sharm el Sheikh, to try it out and tell me what she thought.
"Apart from its horrendous name, I fell in love with this BC," she told me. "It is really very comfortable. I'm impressed."
I noted that she was not enamoured of the integrated weights system when walking about the deck before diving. "I'm unused to all the weight being on my shoulders," she said.
In the water she found both shoulder dumps to be fast and efficient - "Excellent!" - and she thought the Frontier Vera afforded her a nice attitude when swimming horizontally. It was cammed to an aluminium tank.
What makes it particularly suitable for women appears to be the position of the cross-chest strap. The waist straps are clipped by a fastex buckle over an adjustable cummerbund but the upper strap is abnormally high to keep the area of the breasts unconstricted. There are also no D-rings. Perhaps Italian women think it unfeminine to dangle their kit!
Lynne found herself floating very upright with it when it was fully inflated at the surface, although I felt she looked a little low in the water from where I was next to her.
That said, it took more than a little persuasion to prise it from her grasp when the time came for me to take it back to Blighty.
The Mares Frontier Vera comes in four sizes from XS to L. Maximum lift in size M is 14kg. The Vera costs rather more than the Frontier Expedition - £430.

Blandford Sub-Aqua 01923 801572

PLUS	MINUS
+ High quality of manufacture + Good position of cross-chest strap</td>	- Very expensive - Low in water at surface when fully inflated/td>

Tough stuff - the right way up
Dacor is a name that has been relatively quiet in dive shops on this side of the Atlantic, but it is a big brand in the USA, and its recent acquisition by Mares is likely to mean something of a renaissance for it over here.
The Dacor 960XLE is one of a couple of regulators that I am sure will prove popular with Brit-ish divers. Its old-fashioned, all-metal second stage looks set to take people back to the days when regulator free-flows in cold water were almost unheard of phenomena.
Similarly, it is heavy and tough, and likely to stand up to all the slings and arrows misfortune can find to fire at it. It swivels, too, on a suitably sturdy connection to its hose.
The diaphragm first stage is an equally massive piece of engineering with three medium-pressure and two high-pressure ports. The hp ports are set at a convenient angle to the others.
However, the most revolutionary physical feature of Dacor's new regulator is the turret that bears the primary hose to the second stage. This allows the hose to rotate freely through a full 360°, and in so doing promises to eliminate that "short-hose syndrome" that can pull a regulator out of a diver's mouth.
When used with twin tanks this regulator is also ideal for sharing with another diver, because from whichever angle he approaches, the swivelling turret can accommodate him comfortably. This feature would be particularly appreciated in an emergency situation.
The 960XLE gave a broad yet gentle breeze in the mouth. I felt it was as near as one could get to normal breathing with a mechanical regulator. It was like the air of an Irish moorland.
So up to a point I thoroughly enjoyed the Dacor 960XLE. That point was reached only while I was busy photographing other divers in action from various angles.
When it came to swimming on my back looking up at them, I began to imbibe a certain amount of seawater along with the air that the 960XLE was giving me.
The breathe then became like the atmosphere of an Irish moorland during a particularly "soft" day. Wet. It is something I would probably never have discovered if I had been doing an ordinary dive.
That apart, the heavy weight of the second stage went unnoticed in use and the exhaust air was nicely routed well away from my face, whatever acrobatics I indulged in during the dive.
The Dacor 960 XLE costs £297.

Hydrotech 01455 274106

PLUS	MINUS
+ All-metal construction makes good heat-sink + Near-to-normal breathing + Hose on rotating turret eliminates 'short-hose syndrome'	- Damp breathe when inverted

Another bash at the flash Puts us in the picture
When I tell you what really happens with diving equipment, I sometimes offend whoever sent it in for test. However, the most enlightened suppliers react positively to constructive criticism. Sea & Sea falls into this category.
When I first tried the NX-5 housing with the Nikon F5 camera Sea & Sea had supplied, I was generally impressed but was unable to try it with both YS-120 Duo flashguns together because of a faulty synch lead.
A couple of focus-control buttons weeped slightly, and I couldn't assess the sport finder because it hadn't been supplied. So Sea & Sea put these matters right and sent it all back for a second go.
First, the sport finder made it very easy to see the full viewfinder image and head-up display without the loss of full flash with daylight colour-matrix metering. This is despite what some dealers will tell you, usually while trying to sell you a housing that won't accommodate the larger pentaprism.
Second, this housing was watertight - immaculately. Third, I was able to revel in the use of a proper studio lighting set-up using two flashguns and a precise method of getting the exposure right automatically. Of course, you can only hope to light a small area in this way, so I concentrated on using the F5 and NX-5 in macro mode.
With the aid of Sea & Sea extension multi-stay arms I was able to use a classic main light and fill-in light set-up. My fill-in was fitted with a diffuser and was generally behind the camera's point of view. My main light was adjusted to be exactly where I wanted it each time. With 100ASA film and 60mm Macro Nikkor set to f/22, I let the electronic wizardry of the two Sea & Sea YS120 Duos, set to TTL, and the Nikon F5 sort out the exposure. I came back with roll after roll of precisely exposed colour transparencies, avoiding that gaudy, unnatural look that so many underwater photographs seem to suffer from. If I have a complaint it is that anyone with the money to buy this kit can now take natural-looking macro photos!
Each YS-120 Duo runs on eight AA alkaline batteries, giving around 280 flashes at full power. Dry cells are expensive but avoid the generator problems often encountered when trying to recharge batteries on board boats. The recycling time can be a little slow at 4 seconds, but you can gain a second at the cost of fewer flashes by using ni-cads.
The two flashguns offer less light output than, say, Nikon's own frighteningly expensive SB104 when combined with a wide-angle set-up, although at 105* it is wide enough.
The YS-120 Duo integrates with the electronic TTL exposure metering system of all Nikon, Sea & Sea's own, and many other, cameras. I'm told it is the YS-120's superior electronics that allow it to run in tandem with another YS-120, yet retain this important feature.
The YS-120 Duo costs £731, plus £71 for a synch lead. The multi-stay arm costs £53. Specify camera type for synch connection.

Sea & Sea 01803 663012

PLUS	MINUS
+ Through-the-lens exposure control with tandem flashguns	- The recycling time with dry cells appears a little slow

Wrap up warm
The one part of me that used to get chilled when I dived in a drysuit with latex seals was my neck. A thin layer of latex offers no insulation from the cold water beyond it.
Ironically, there is a major blood supply near the surface here, in the form of the carotid arteries, which carry blood to the head. I found that the answer was to wear either a woollen scarf or a polo-neck sweater along with my undersuit.
Others have also noted this heat bridge at the neck, and I note that a few undersuits coming through now have high insulated collars.
For those still using conventional undersuits, C-Bear has come up with a fleece neck warmer which uses an independent polo neck attached to a bib front and back.
It does the job well, and I can thoroughly recommend it - especially to those who might have drysuits with bellows-style latex neck seals - that is, unless your mum is already knitting you something.
It costs £15.

Prinsport 01827 287274

PLUS

+ Ideal for use with drysuits that have latex neck seals

---

Appeared in DIVER - March 1999

---