Does scuba gear often seem severely overpriced ?

[Hoag]

Anyone eyeballing a Zeiss lens must seriously think scuba is cheap.

Actually, (and I almost can't believe I am saying this but ...) the Zeiss is a compromise lens for what I really want. For night time Milky Way photography, I would prefer something wider & faster like the Sigma Art series 14mm f1.8 or even their 20mm f1.4 lens. For landscapes, specifically for sunsets and sunrises, I want something wide that will give me little to no flare and a great sunburst such as the Voightlander 10mm f5.6 or their 15mm f4.5.

The Loxia 21mm f2.8 gives amazing sunbursts with virtually no flare while being wide and fast enough to shoot the Milky Way if I bump up the ISO a little.

 

[cneal]

The older you get the more overpriced everything is. The baseline for cost is set when you are young. For me, gas should be 30 cents, 20 in a gas war. Bread should be a dime, a nickel for day old bread. My first new car was $2,800. No need to go on.

Haven't seen a bargain om 50 years.

 

[chrisch]

The government could crack down on the racket whereby manufacturers price fix and allow the exact same gear item to be half the price in Europe as it is in the USA! Isn't Leisurepro known for cashing in on gray market imports from Europe to the USA.? Or if you try out a European retailer like simplyscuba.com you'll often get an error message when ordering about how certain items cannot be shipped to the USA ?

I am surprised by this. Pretty much everything in the US is cheaper than here. But you are correct (if exaggerating a little)

SP Mk17 1st stage

US $323 ScubaPro ScubaPro MK17 Regulator - 1st Stage Only - DIN
UK $214 Buy Scubapro MK17 Evo First Stage – FAST FREE Delivery | Deep Blue Dive

So scuba gear is not "expensive" just that it is overpriced in the USA for some reason.

 

[MAKO Spearguns]

Have you considered branching into scuba gear sales ?

Thanks for asking. We've considered it and although I am a scuba diver myself, I have much more experience in freediving and spearfishing while breathholding. The guys who work for me are also freedive spearos.

One of the benefits of my business plan is that it allows direct communication with our customers, so we want to continue to ensure that we can provide quality advice and recommendations with respect to gear selection and the wide variety of conditions - around the world. We handle quite a few telephone calls and inquiries each business day from our customers. Since we don't have the same level of expertise in Scuba, so we've tried to stick to our strengths.

However, we do offer a pretty wide variety of items which are applicable to both activities. In fact, it is my opinion, that a considerable portion of the gear freedivers normally use is actually superior to what many scuba divers are sold through dive shops.

For example,

• Freedive wetsuits use a warmer design and generally leak much less water and are more flexible.
• Long freedive fins are recognized as superior by a good percentage of serious scuba spearos as well as guides
• The low volume masks are very comfortable and provide great visibility - since the glass is so close to the eyes.
• Elastic Freedive weight belts are much more comfortable, slide around less, adjust for suit compression and although they have been around for along time, most scuba divers are not yet familiar with them.
• The surface floats (with dive flag) we sell are far superior to the typical "dive flag and float" commonly used by scuba divers.

We also sell a wide variety of gear that is common between scuba and freedivers, such as Go Pro accessories and tray system, gear bags, compact and powerful dive lights, lionfish collection gear, warm water and cold water gloves, lycra suits and one piece, back zip wetsuits, hoods, masks, fins, snorkels, weightbelts, quick change dive weights, lobster collection gear, shark protection, knives, line cutters and post dive washdown solutions, dive reels, SMB and probably another dozen things if I really went through our selection. it is definitely not just "spearguns".

Maybe I can mention one more thing that sets us apart, our weight belt policy. If a diver ditches their MAKO belt and/or weights in an emergency (and they are unrecoverable) I will replace for free, as long as the diver shares their story and provides all of us a safety reminder.

Dive Safe

Dano

 

[Barmaglot]

People have mentioned photography as a comparably expensive hobby. You really wanna talk outrageous money? Combine scuba and photography. Here's an example:

Indeed. I just added up the cost of my gear, and the diving stuff came out to just over $1k, including an air-integrated computer, while the dive photography part is well over $3k, and I'm still looking at $600+ for a pair of strobes and an uncertain sum for some kind of macro setup.