tjgreen

Wow. Great thread, though my wife might stop believing I read Wetpixel just for the articles.

Hey Eric, if this keeps up, you might need to add a "NSFW" flag to the Wetpixel lexicon, for those of us who browse at the office.

I'll add a couple of cents. For what it's worth, I own all three types (jacket, back-buoyancy, and backplate/wing). They all have their uses, but I prefer the back-buoyancy for photography. Yes, it makes it a bit easier to trim out into the head-down/feet-up position that I prefer, but mostly, it's the lightest and easiest to pack for dive trips. Keep in mind that the Diverite and Halcyon backplate/wing systems, while great, are fairly heavy (even w/ an aluminum backplate); great modular system, but luggage restrictions are only getting more stringent.

Ditto on the try before you buy - most shops rent both. Would also recommend you don't buy until you're good in both jacket and back-buoyancy style (either wing or regular), since neither will fix lack of skill, and either will work if you're good. Otherwise, tough to compare them fairly - like buying your first SLR; who knows what camera best suits your shooting style until you actually have a style?

Thanks for sharing, I like the arch shots. I have no pointers, but you've got me interested - I like the effect of isolating a WA subject against a black background, similar to macro w/ small aperture.

Beautiful pics, whoever posted them (this thread was so long I forgot) - thanks for sharing. I really hope the general public learns what nudis are; I get vaguely disturbed looks when I show pics to people now (or disappointed - "dudes, I said nudis, not Nudes").

For the rest of it, wow. Holy dead horse battery Batman. This poor horse has been flogged, buried, dug up, flogged some more, quartered, cremated, scattered at sea, reborn as carbon atoms in fish, caught, clubbed to death, made into animal feed, fed back to a different horse, whipped, ridden into the ground, flogged some more, and then rendered down for soap and glue, which (in a final irony) was probably used to bind the National Geographics.

Tim
We are not going to solve anything by discussing it but by discussion, some people may make that conscious decision not to do that when they are presented with that situation etc.

Yes, exactly - raising the flag on the behavior informs me, and allows me to make a choice.

It's sorta like discussing sex between teenagers and parents. Just cos you don't talk about it don't mean it don't happen

Here's where we disagree - the parent/child relationship presumes a moral authority, "father knows best" kind of thing. We're not the moral authority here - the locals are. As Craig says, the dive guides are adults, and it's their home/their rules. Depending on where you are in the world, those rules can be very different. I'm uncomfortable telling them what their rules should be, but entirely comfortable placing further limits on myself.