Talking Tec

Damien Siviero · Issue 60, May/Jun 2011 · pp. 45–48

Products mentioned: Canon 7D, Tokina 10-17mm, Aquatica housing, Inon Z240 strobes, Inon DS-125 strobes, Stix arms

Early on in my closed-circuit rebreather (CCR) training my instructor once said “that camera is going to kill you”. He also forced me to conduct the vast majority my training either carrying or using a DSLR camera rig. His sobering words made me carefully consider how and where I would take a camera in the water from then on. Underwater photography presents a serious task load on any diver, so the concepts in this article apply also to standard diving as well as tec diving, loosely defined here as any diving conducted past accepted norms of depth and/or overhead environments. Understanding Risk From the start of our open water course we are told that scuba diving has risks; that is true but no where do they become more real than when tec diving with a camera. Understanding what additional risks a camera puts on us is critical in mitigating and/or accepting them. We are confronted with va…