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So I will soon be (hopefully) diving the great blue hole in egypt. This has a depth of around 60 meters to get to the arch. Sadly my current camera is rated only to 50 meters.
Who among you would care enough to see me dive the blue hole archway out into the sea enough to make it worth me upgrading my camera?
@freemo
What is the name of this site pls? You'll need nitrox for such a deep dive i guess?
@lefarfadet Nitrox isnt for depth, its doe duration at shallow depths. When you go deep nitrox becomes deadly and you need air, even deeper and air becomes deadly and you actually need a gas with less oxygen than air with some of the nitrogen replaced with helium (hypoxic trimix).
The site is called the blue hole. It is in egypt on the south sinai peninsula just north of dahab.
@freemo
Thanks! i didnt know the nitrox was deadly at depth.
@lefarfadet yea most people wouldnt unless they are a tec diver or nitrox diver. To give you an example 100% O2 is deadly beyond only 20 feet.
O2 toxicity results in seizure so while not directly deadly a seizure under water pretty much is a death sentence.
Your 50m VIRB case would probably work down to 60m, as they usually put in some wiggle room on specs. If it fails, it's not life or death, you just lose a camera. The media (SD card) would probably survive so you could recover what video you had up to that point. Just make sure you record the video into multiple shorter files for easy recovery.
I have a 60m capable older go pro, its just really hard to operate under water due to the pressurized buttons on the case. I'll likely use that.
I have found int he past when you take electronics past their rated depth they do fail, but in a way that is recoverable. The first fail point is usually that the buttons get depressed due to pressure and isnt usable until you come back up enough to alleviate pressure. So you are right it is unlikely to implode by a 10m overshoot.
>they do fail, but in a way that is recoverable.
You wouldn't even be risking the camera then. Maybe there is a way to hack the button depressors, to make them more firm?
The GOPRO should be fine. There aren't many settings on those old GOPROs anyway -- you could just start it on the surface and let it run for the whole dive. I think GOPRO automatically breaks up the video into separate files of 10mins each or something like like that, so if it fails you can easily recover video up to the last segment.
Yea the risk to the camera isnt too bad. Now that I found my gopro and found it is rated to depth im not even worried. That said i never saw a setting to auto split the video and I have had quite a few lost videos before.
>and I have had quite a few lost videos before.
In that case, you better do both!
I cant recall now but I think the GOPRO lost videos more than the VIRB. I do recall much prefering the VIRB for dives in the past.
But yea im thinking on the bluehole I might hire someone to video tape me so I can demonstrate gas changes and other things I cant tape myself and then carrying another camera on me to tape the scenery.
Its a shame I dont have a camera that can go down to 120m. I do dives 120m+ sometime and it would be so cool to tape that but literally everything i have would implode at those depths.
>120m
That's way down there! I think light is an issue at that depth.
The GOPRO is so small you could probably strap it to your arm or forehead or something as a bodycam and just not even think about it.
Depends on where you dive. Even in crystal clear Caribbean waters there is no doubt its a little darker down there and the colors are muted. But there is more than enough light to operate without a flashlight and see in to the distance.
On the flipside if your diving in murky waters like NJ or something it would be pitch dark at that depth.
Anywhere I would care enough to go to 120m+ would be a place that is clear enough I wouldnt need a light. Not including caves of course, need a light for those at any depth.
You could just strap on the camera and forget it, but that tends to result in unusable video. I do often when i cave dibe attach it to my light which itself straps onto your hand in a way you dont need to grip it. That works well since your always pointing the light at the space ahead or whatever you look at.
Yes, I've seen your cave-diving video -- very cool.
I was just trying to think of a way that you could run two cameras simultaneously. If you hire a video guy, I guess you're covered anyway. (Plus you've got an extra tank to buddy breath if something goes wrong.)
As a general rule (and this is contrary to conventional wisdom) I dive every dive as a solo dive even if someone is there. Yes in a pinch a person to help may save your life, but I'd never depend on someone despite the training to do so.
That said all tec divers, but specificially ones like me that are solo-certified, will have reduntant systems on them. Should something fail you always have a backup on you. We wear double tanks with two entierly separate connectors and cutoff valves and a third valve in the middle to isolate the tanks should it be needed. Each tanke then has a completely redundant primary and secondary regulator hooked up to it.
The only thing that isnt redundant is the deco tanks. That worries me personally and probably the only reason having a buddy in an emergency is a must (or at the minimum someone on land to signal to come help).
Well in relity deco tanks and travel tanks.
Typically deco tanks are half tanks (half the size of a single tank). One is 100% O2 the other is 50% O2. You use them during your decompression phase where you surface, which isnt uncommon to take up to an hour. Typically you breath the 50% at a 70 foot stop and the 100% at a 20 foot stop.
The travel tank I just mention is used to get you between the hyperpoxic (>21% o2 oxygen) at 70 feet and the hypopoxic (<21%) gas used at depth.
On a deep dive, which implies a deco dive, we usually have a total of 5 tanks, 2 deco, 1 travel, and 2 tanks as "Back gas" (whats on our back and used at the bottom).
No human being could SCUBA anything even approaching the mariana trench.
In SCUBA anything below 100ft is considered deep diving.
Correct, but the term "deep sea" is very different in a submarine context then it would be in a SCUBA context is the point here. Generally deep sea just means depths beyond the norm for the context. In SCUBA that is anything below 100ft (basically depths beyond rec training). For a submarine its obviously much deeper.
