How bad was this thing I did? (2nd dive ever)

[Scuba-74]

Did I mention that this buddy is the woman I've been romantically involved with for 5 years?

In that case, you might be able to resolve your disagreement by making sure your footage contains more of your buddy and less of fish and coral.

 

[mcohen1021]

I have been on dives with those guys who take what feels like 15 minutes to take a single picture because they have to have it perfect like they were in some kind of contest...

Add a drift I've to that mix and it just doesn't work...

In a case like this the photographer either needs to do some type of self-guided dive or hire a private divemaster where they're not with a general group

 

[Saboteur]

Speaking from experience.... photographers and videographers are terrible buddies. Terrible.... I wouldn't blame anybody for not wanting either as a buddy.

There are some good ones. I dived with a grizzled old diver in GC. He'd been diving for decades and dives nearly every day. He had a keen eye for finding critters and pointing them out, eager to share his knowledge of sea life with a newbie vacation diver. Was kind enough to send me some photos.

 

[txgoose]

Did I mention that this buddy is the woman I've been romantically involved with for 5 years?

So, you open yourself up to a bunch of folks assuming to know how bad you dive because they have seen other people dive poorly while running a camera. If you had started with "My SO wants me to do stuff their way," we could have gotten straight to the meat of it all. And had twenty pages instead of four. At least that way we could make assumptions about how you manage your relationships, because we have seen how other folks manage theirs.

 

[Scuba-74]

At least that way we could make assumptions about how you manage your relationships, because we have seen how other folks manage theirs.

Oh, snapppp! "Scuba-police photo/video prevention unit" just took a serious hit!

 

[Saniflush]

Did I mention that this buddy is the woman I've been romantically involved with for 5 years?

See if you would have lead with this I could saved all these pages and just reminded you that you needed to practice saying "yes dear".

 

[txgoose]

Oh, snapppp! "Scuba-police photo/video prevention unit" just took a serious hit!

Sorry. Having had my own run-in with the scuba-police I might get a bit sarcastic about all the judgement. When we talk about the giant stride it, at times, appears to be our ability to jump to conclusions.

 

[Rob Bibber]

Did I mention that this buddy is the woman I've been romantically involved with for 5 years?

Well NOW you're in trouble!

Seriously I see no problem with what you did. Seems like nothing negatively impacted your buddy in any way.

I am a novice diver as well, and like you, I am older and have proven experience handling myself in high stress situations (USMC veteran, former commercial fishing boat captain, etc) and I see nothing wrong with taking a gopro to shoot photos and video to document my dives. I do not plan on spending entire dives with a camera in front of my face - only taking it out occasionally to shoot something interesting.

 

[Hoag]

Why would you use a camera in 10 ft of water? or have a tank on if you weren’t doing some sort of u/w work?

If this is truly how you feel, then save your money and skip that Fiji trip you were asking about on another thread. I don't think that you would be happy there and it is a lot of money to spend on a trip that you won't enjoy. The tops of the "Bommies" in Fiji are absolutely spectacular but many of them are in the 10-15 foot depth range.

 

[Caveeagle]

That's got to be some of the most beautiful under water video footage I have ever seen.

Sounds like a diver who can't be bothered unless you have 100'+ vis and calm seas.. There is some really cool shots in that video.

Re the 10' dive.. Actually its pretty easy to get 20' at BHB, but who's counting. And not only is it a great dive, but a nice place to do shake downs. I recently had my three kids down to S.Fla for two days of boat diving. We timed it so we could hit BHB before the two days of boat charters so they could confirm buoyancy and weight needed for salt water before going out on the boat.

Speaking from experience.... photographers and videographers are terrible buddies. Terrible.... I wouldn't blame anybody for not wanting either as a buddy.

Ummm.. generalize much? I have had terrible dive buddies where no cameras were involved.

I would agree that an overly camera-focused buddy can be rude and detract from the enjoyment of the non-photog. But, it depends a lot on several factors.

I had a recent dive, where I knew in advance my buddy wanted to shoot some video. We talked it through and even agreed on timing and lead/follow protocol so he could get shot of me navigating a specific restriction on the dive. We had a dive plan that we were both comfortable with and we stuck to it. ..NO problem.

As far as the OP.. I think he took reasonable steps. I like that he had the FeauxPro on a recoil mount and seemed to realized that pic taking was definitely secondary to buoyancy and trim.

Now for how to deal with your significant other.. I have found "Yes Dear" to generally be the best course of action.. But this might be a golden opportunity for you to double check boundaries and level of commitment..