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In rough seas around here I much prefer to giant stride with my DSLR. Trying to get close enough to grab a camera from a large boat that's slamming back into the water with every wave is not safe. I wear a drysuit and stiff fins and find I can control my jump....by the time the water's up to my chin, I'm not moving very fast so my camera rig hits the water gently. No disasters as yet.

I have backward rolled too, that takes a bit more practise with an 8" dome. Most fun of all is an abseil down into water with the camera swinging under you. I love cave diving! I also take my neoprene dome cover with me on every dive.

My standard procedure is to go online, do my research and print out a few prices from stores I would be prepared to buy from. I then take those print outs into the local shop and see what they have to say. If they are nice (i.e. polite, cheerful) and can price match down to online price + 10% then I will buy in store. If the price is more than 10% more, or if they are rude and I get a lecture about "supporting local businesses and the evils of the internet" I leave and buy online.

 

I think it's fair and reasonable to give the locals a chance. If they're offering similar prices I'll cheerfully pay for local service. If the service is rubbish, or the prices are too high.....I too am a local business, and I'd rather spend the difference in pricing on supporting myself.

 

It's worth noting that the current price of our 5DIII body only in the major camera shops in Australia is $3,800. For my last lens purchase, the lowest the local shop could do was $1200 (RRP $1300), whereas I landed the lens for $880. The distribution model is antiquated and ridiculous. Customers can buy online for cheaper than the store can get stock from the Australian distributor, and it's going to kill off our locals.

I love that eyeball shot. Looks almost like a painting...picture perfect! Fantastic angle on a very weird looking creature.

I replaced the push button o-rings on my Aquatica myself earlier this year, and the o-rings that came out were a lot flatter than the o-rings that went in. It didn't feel any different to dive with but I felt happier for having done it.

I come from a long line of cave diving underwater photographers...which is to say, my Dad did it too. He was heavily involved in the exploration of the caves on the Australian Nullarbor Plain in the 1980s, both as a push diver and as the trip photographer. He has a filing cabinet full of slides from his Nikonos II's and V - he's kept every single one! But they're no good to anyone sitting in a cabinet so over the course of this year we've been scanning and digitising them. I think this was especially important for the early slides from 1979 because at the start of his underwater photography Dad was cutting costs by using unbranded slides and they're starting to degrade. The move to Kodachrome means the later slides have held up better.

In the interests of getting both the pictures and the story out there, I've been posting a small selection up on my website each Thursday. So far I've been covering the Cocklebiddy Cave exploration in 1979, 1982 and 1983. Cocklebiddy is a famous cave in Australia, and at the time was famous around the world as it held the record for the longest penetration. For those who aren't familiar with the system, it has a 1km sump, a giant rockpile which you climb over to reveal another 2.7km swim, surface to an even bigger rockpile now called Toad Hall, and then there's the third sump. These were discovered over several trips, and diving technology was invented to get divers further into the cave. It's all about the sleds!

If you're interested in the photos and the whole story, check out the list of posts here:
http://lizrogersphot...ack-in-the-day/

And here's a couple of photos to give you an idea of the insanity:

1979, the trip that attempted to scale the first rockpile and push into the second sump, but didn't make it further than had previously been discovered. Here a diver swims next to a safety tank tied to the line in the first sump.


1982, divers manhandle a sled of tanks through the water as they swim towards unknown territory. The "sled" has a plumbing pipe down the middle of the tanks to give it structure (and a dry place to store things, like film), and a broomhandle through for steering. Buoyancy control was a real issue.


1982, Ron Allum and Hugh Morrison tie into the end of the line in the second sump after dumping the sled some time earlier. They are about to start the swim that will discover the second rockpile, Toad Hall.


1983, things get serious. 12 divers advanced to the first rockpile, and 6 divers took three sleds to Toad Hall in preparation for a push into the third sump. Dad had sled pushing responsibilities, so photos were taken at the 1km and 2km rest stop. In this shot divers rest the sleds against the roof and drink a fruit box before swimming on.


The rest of the 1983 pics will go up this Thursday and next. Enjoy!

Liz Rogers

I'm a regular sidemount cave diver, and my first observation would be that sidemounts off a small to medium boat are a nightmare. I usually sit in the cave entrance in the water to put mine on, and walking around in them can be impracticable depending on your harness. I wear them so I can get into small caves, but in the water they're also great for photography - I can roll over sideways and shoot up without turning turtle like I would in backmounted steel twins and drysuit. Sidemounts are great for the "too heavy on land" problem because you can carry them one at a time.

Backmounted independents create more task loading than a manifold during your average dive, as you have to switch regs regularly to decant evenly. In an emergency though, switch to the reg that works and leave. Manifolded twins are easier most of the time - no reg switching - but in an emergency you must respond immediately to save your gas. I'm not sure why people think that if they can't handle reg switching most of the time, they'll magically be able to handle valve shutdowns when it all goes wrong. Check out the graphs at the bottom of this article to see how much time you have to shut down your manifold. If you can't do it within that limit, you're on a single tank with additional failure points and a misplaced sense of complacency. Understand your life support equipment!

Steel twins are heavier underwater, and you won't need as much lead. They do slow you down swimming into current which might be a concern for you. For travel, you can carry rigging to create independent or sidemounted twins from hired single tanks without much fuss at all. For diving at home, a pony might be enough to add the redundancy you're looking for.