have a question for UW-Photog that dive drysuits.

[ChrisM]

As mjh says, I prefer using my BC too, that way I don't have air migrating round my drysuit during the dive and I only add enough into the suit to beat the squeeze

Agree. Although it's taught, drysuit's not a good buoyancy device, IMO.

When diving in colder waters with a wetsuit that compresses (7 mil), it's often (usually) necessary to ad some air to the BC to compensate for the loss in buoyancy. By the time you reach 15-20 feet, BC should ideally be empty

Chris

 

[John Gulliver]

I live in Sweden, dive all year round, with surface temperatures as low as minus 1 Celsius in February, so it's year-round drysuit diving. I have to agree with others above - provided you are properly weighted and not diving with very heavy twinsets and stage bottles, putting just enough air into your drysuit to prevent it squeezing should make you neutrally buoyant. You should only need to put air in your BC on the surface. As regards the dumpvalve, if it doesn't dump air fast enough in an emergency, it is either badly designed or faulty. A good dump valve dumps air very fast when fully open. I dive with mine fully open throughout the dive.
So my answer to your question is hold your camera in either hand and just raise your arm/shoulder slightly as you ascend, with the valve fully open. It's often called an autodump, which means that it does just what that says, dumps air automatically at an appropriate rate as you ascend and the pressure decreases, provided you are properly weighted.

 

[nwdiver2]

Using aurtodump on your wrist or your shoulder, don’t you find you dump air at times you don’t want to? I find that when in many positions waiting for a photo (looking up under an overhang, camera in both hands as an example) situation to develop I may lose air due to body position.

I always hold my camera in my right hand, never clipped off, I don’t want a large housing and twin strobes banging around my chest or knees and it would get dumped (crying sounds here) if needed in an emergency.

My solution was to move my dump valve to the right shoulder. I hold camera in my right hand and my left hand dumps air from right shoulder and BC hose on the left. This allows me to control my ascent, my camera gear and easily dump air as required.