Bifocal mask

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Well, I just received the Optx stick-on lenses from Amazon. My normal reading correction is +2.25, so I ordered the stick-ons in +2.00.[...]
I'll dive the mask next week, and see how it works in the water.

Well the stick-on lenses were absolutely worthless. I can see my gauges clearer with just my spherical corrective lenses. Maybe it's the fact that the stick-ons had to bend to conform to the inner convex curvature. I peeled the stick-ons off after two dives.

Good news is, even with a +2.25 reading correction, I can still see my gauges absolutely perfectly in water without any reading correction. :confused:
 
Hi- I am new to this board- but I bought a pair of the optic inserts- and i am having trouble getting them to stick to the lenses! Any Ideas as to how i can fix this problem??

I put a dot of super glue on each corner. I had a lot of problems with them fogging, though.
 
I had two dives with my bifocal mask today, and find that I'm really enjoying diving with it. Yes, there is a bit of a problem exiting while wearing it; I normally walk up the river bank quite a ways with my mask and helmet on. This gives my head a bit more protection if I were to fall. I actually did fall today, and turned my ankle a bit, but that was heading down to enter and not exit, and had to do with my foot slipping on a small, dirt-covered rock and not any problems with my bifocal mask (which I wasn't wearing at the time).

SeaRat
 
Dear Folks,
I am the operator of Seawiscope and I have the SeawiscopeEY developed. I thank SteveTan for speaking out of his experience with SeawiscopeEY recently in this forum.

Stevetan is a friend of mine, and a fanatic of SeawiscopeEY. Stevetan got a SeawiscopeEY from us some time ago and he has obviously been excited with it. SteveTan has no finance interests in Seawiscope.

I am convinced that writing to this forum is effective to bring attention to concerned persons. Please do write to me if you wish to know more about of our line of products.

I have received my SeawiscopeEY, and I have to say, wow, Wow, WOW!!! This is an amazing device. I made two dives with the SeawiscopeEY, and have found that this is an amazing device. The first dive was just yesterday after work, in the Clackamas River near Portland, Oregon (actually in Gladstone, Oregon). The water was 67 degrees F (about 20 degrees C), and the air temperature 90 degrees F (32 degrees F), with visibility about 10 feet in the river, which was about 20 feet deep (6 meters). I spent 64 minutes yesterday, and about half an hour today diving the SeawiscopeEY. Here’s what I saw:

--the incurrent and excurrent siphons of freshwater sponge, and the tiny mites living in the tissues.
--The several small sculpins, very close up. Then, some larger sculpin came out to challenge my mask (they are very territorial). As I watched these fish, they started feeding on something in the sand. I had never seen that before, even though I had observed them before. But I could clearly see them grab something from the sand, then a few seconds later spit out the sand.
--Snails feeding off the rocks, with their shells swiveling 180 degrees in the current—I had seen the snails before, but not watched their shells in the current, nor seen more interesting behavior before. That behavior was the snails congregating onto each other, and there was probably some sexual activity involved.
--Seeing very small hatching fish (probably Northern Pike Minnows) feeding in mid-water. Their swimming motions were jerky and not at all like the swimming motion of mature adult fish.
--Aquatic insects on the rocks, which were about the diameter of my little fingernail.
All this showed me the value of the SeawiscopeEY. This device would be great for an invertebrate biologist who dives, or a zoologist specializing is small animal life. Crawdads look like giants, and the worms on their claws are easily seen.
I used it on my TUSA LiberatorPlus mask, but it does not fit on my older, vintage masks. That mask also has prescription lenses and bifocals, so I can use this device with my prescription.

There are a few things to talk about, which people will need to adapt to. Because of the near focal length of the SeawiscopeEY, when it is down and you push away from the object to swim, everything becomes blurry. The action of swimming in this manner for this 64 year-old caused some dizziness bordering on vertigo, until I put the lenses up and was back to normal sight. I find it interesting that we are so dependent upon our vision, even underwater, for our balance. But the lenses are easily flipped up out of the way for regular swimming and observing at normal distances. I had a similar experience looking at the very small fish feeding near the surface, then inadvertently pulling my head out of the water to look around—now I know what a visually-impaired person feels like, as the world immediately went blurry. But again, simply pulling the lenses up makes the world go back to normal. A little girl swimming nearby yesterday giggled when I pulled the lenses up, so I imagine that they make me look like a four-eyed monster.

In the interest of disclosure, I will tell you that these were sent to me without my paying for them, to try out. But no conditions were placed on this. The owner simply wanted me to get to try them out. I did, and I really like them.

Diving is such a visual world, yet it is difficult to see the really small and intricate life around us. A drab bottom of a river becomes a living world, where you can see the camouflage of a sculpin as it swims onto a rock and changes from dark to light brown to blend in. Or a simple rock becomes a haven for dozens of aquatic insects and worms that you can now see. Or a small snail harbors an insect nymph on it’s shell. These are now visible, and observable, with the SeawiscopeEY.

SeaRat
 
I have received my SeawiscopeEY, and I have to say, wow, Wow, WOW!!! This is an amazing device. I made two dives with the SeawiscopeEY, and have found that this is an amazing device. The first dive was just yesterday after work, in the Clackamas River near Portland, Oregon (actually in Gladstone, Oregon). The water was 67 degrees F (about 20 degrees C), and the air temperature 90 degrees F (32 degrees F), with visibility about 10 feet in the river, which was about 20 feet deep (6 meters). I spent 64 minutes yesterday, and about half an hour today diving the SeawiscopeEY. Here’s what I saw:

....................
........................
All this showed me the value of the SeawiscopeEY. This device would be great for an invertebrate biologist who dives, or a zoologist specializing is small animal life. Crawdads look like giants, and the worms on their claws are easily seen.

I used it on my TUSA LiberatorPlus mask, but it does not fit on my older, vintage masks. That mask also has prescription lenses and bifocals, so I can use this device with my prescription.

There are a few things to talk about, which people will need to adapt to. Because of the near focal length of the SeawiscopeEY, when it is down and you push away from the object to swim, everything becomes blurry. The action of swimming in this manner for this 64 year-old caused some dizziness bordering on vertigo, until I put the lenses up and was back to normal sight. I find it interesting that we are so dependent upon our vision, even underwater, for our balance. But the lenses are easily flipped up out of the way for regular swimming and observing at normal distances. I had a similar experience looking at the very small fish feeding near the surface, then inadvertently pulling my head out of the water to look around—now I know what a visually-impaired person feels like, as the world immediately went blurry. But again, simply pulling the lenses up makes the world go back to normal. A little girl swimming nearby yesterday giggled when I pulled the lenses up, so I imagine that they make me look like a four-eyed monster.
...............
....................

Diving is such a visual world, yet it is difficult to see the really small and intricate life around us. A drab bottom of a river becomes a living world, where you can see the camouflage of a sculpin as it swims onto a rock and changes from dark to light brown to blend in. Or a simple rock becomes a haven for dozens of aquatic insects and worms that you can now see. Or a small snail harbors an insect nymph on it’s shell. These are now visible, and observable, with the SeawiscopeEY.

SeaRat
A big thank to John for all his kind comments. In spite of the humble Chinese way of thinking, I am proudly taking John’s wow, Wow, WOW on SeawiscopeEY. These were also my own feeling when I tried the first prototype. We are not alone on this. I was in Cebu (Philippines) last week and two buddies tried on the device. Very much in the same way, as soon as they exited water, they shouted out “HD !!” . (High Definition TV was recently introduced in Hong Kong.)

John commented that the device will be great for biologist and zoologist divers. I could not agree more on these. I however believe that most, if not all, divers are some sorts of biologists, keen to see creatures in actions in their natural environments. After all, the device was designed primarily for fun divers like me, not only for specialists of any kinds.

In the development of SeawiscopeEY, other than the optics, I spent considerable time on the mechanics to accommodate most masks. I believe this final version fits most modern masks. It is a bit of challenges for masks that have highly curved tops and rubbery sides for mask straps (buckles arising from the mask skirt).

mask fitting composite.jpg


Even for these, as shown in the images, they work OK. In fact, I have yet found a mask that it fails to fit. I am a bit concerned when John failed to fit the device to some of his older masks. (John, it will be great if you could send me images of those masks. There is a little trick that I do not have room to write on the instruction.)

SeawiscopeEY is for near vision, the original mask window is for distance vision, both distance and near vision are important for the fun and safety of scuba diving. Please do put your distance prescription on the mask, but bifocals will be a redundant.

John said that “people will need to adapt to”. I felt this may be a bit too heavy when one can get so much out of it in the first dive. As with any new stuff, one may need to get acquainted with its operation.

I am not saying SeawiscopeEY is perfect, and nothing is anyway. My major obstacle in marketing the device is actually its looks, the “four-eyed monster” issue. I have to live with it. I am not a product design expert and I am not well off enough to get professional assistance. I have been reminded again and again (by my wife and some dive shop operators) that I have invested too much (in hard cash) for so few (presbyopic divers). While I am not seeing the possibility to recover the costs in the near future, the biggest return is to have someone sharing my joy.

Please PM me if you want to give it a try.
 
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https://www.shearwater.com/products/peregrine/

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