Cold-water photography in dry gloves?

[Bernhelm]

Hi all!
This is the year I'm hanging up the 7ml wetsuit and stepping into my first dry suit. I usually dive and shoot photos in Monterey, CA where the water is in the upper 40s or low 50sF, and I'm considering trying dry gloves to prevent hand numbness or shivering while taking macro photos.

Questions for cold water photographers in dry suits: Do you still use wet gloves or do you use dry gloves? How does using dry gloves impact your photography? Can you manipulate the buttons on your housing & strobes with a dry glove setup?

Thanks for any tips and recommendations!

 

[undrwater]

@MaxBottomtime

 

[rx7diver]

@Stoo

 

[MaxBottomtime]

I use Showa 720 dry gloves. They're thinner than PVC gloves but have more cut resistance.

 

[Darnold9999]

I use dry gloves with a pair of bicycle gloves underneath as the undergarment. Very thin, reasonably warm and if they get wet still offer some warmth. Bought them at a bicycle shop that sells mountain bikes. This setup allows me to manipulate most controls and remain mostly warm. Kind of a tradeoff between warmth and flexibility. If I need to get at the small buttons on the housing to get to menus it is "possible" - I rarely do however. Focus, focus lock, shutter speed dial, aperture dial and trigger are pretty much all I use on a cold water dive. My strobes have a dial that is easy to manipulate so not an issue. If I am doing multiple dives the bicycle gloves come with a liner that I add, but with the liner the buttons go from possible to probably not.

 

[beldridg]

I dive and shoot with dry gloves and liners all the time and my dry gloves are probably thicker than most people use: Rolock Drygloves - Black w/Separate Liners

I use a Nauticam housing and find that having the back button focus lock helps.

Regards,

- brett

 

[DiveTucson]

I was using Waterproof Ultima gloves with the Fourth Element G1 liner underneath in 33-34 degree water and doing two hour + dives. The key is getting good airflow to your hands.

 

[davehicks]

The key question is what model housing you are using. Compact camera housings can be very difficult to use. Tiny controls, multi-button functions, etc make them difficult to use. Any DSLR housing such as Ikelite, Nauticam, etc are going to be pretty easy to operate in most cold-water scenarios.

If using dry gloves be sure to get a dipped rubber glove with a thin glove liner underneath. Heavy neoprene gloves are more likely to be a problem so avoid those. I use the Ultima ring system and Showa 720s. I wear a 1mm glove liner underneath. I have plenty of dexterity and no issues with cold hands.

 

[Bernhelm]

I'm using a Nauticam housing for an olympus em1 set up for thumb focus, and YS2DJ strobes, so good point, it'll be a lot easier than on my old TG5 + Inon s2000 rig. I used to dive with a 3mm glove with the forefinger and thumb cut out so I could change settings.

Thanks for the tips on dry gloves, everyone!

 

[Bernhelm]

I was using Waterproof Ultima gloves with the Fourth Element G1 liner underneath in 33-34 degree water and doing two hour + dives. The key is getting good airflow to your hands.

In the SSI training material they recommended using a short length of surigal tubing in-between the drysuit wrist seal and the glove seal to avoid squeeze, is that what you mean about airflow?