Photography Question

[Redheadcrl]

What is the best camera to use when wearing gloves? I find many cameras hard to push the buttons when you have on big bulky gloves. I wear gloves on 99.9% of my dives since I live in central Illinois where the water is always cold!

Thanks!

 

[Searcaigh]

Wear thinner gloves.

I frequently dive with no gloves if I am not on a wreck, but the gloves I do use cannot be more than 1mm thick in order to work the controls on my housings.

3mm gloves are too thick

 

[seaducer]

You will probably not find a camera that is glove friendly per se, but you can get used to operating most any camera with gloves on in you are slow and practice. Most settings are one time deals anyway and can be adjusted prior to diving or early on in the dive to the conditions you see on the bottom.

A trick used in the military that also works here is to cut a slit into a finger so that when needed you can slide that finger out of the glove, manipulate the controls then slip it back in.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

All that really means is that you have to practice more ... I can manage the buttons on my housing wearing drygloves ... but I had to work at it for a while before I could do it reliably.

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[scubamarketing]

I agree with the prior statements, but (very) generally speaking I would look at Ikelite housings. Their knobs & levers seem to be some of the biggest I've seen.

 

[MXGratefulDiver]

I agree with the prior statements, but (very) generally speaking I would look at Ikelite housings. Their knobs & levers seem to be some of the biggest I've seen.

Ah ... depends on the camera and whether or not you don't mind a rather largish housing. Some Ike housings don't give you full function over your controls. And some don't really fit all that well. I had a friend with an S95 who had problems with how well her camera fit inside the Ike housing ... she had issues with some buttons working once the camera reached a certain depth (pressure). She figured out how to jury-rig it to work ... but it involved cutting up pieces of foam and stuffing them around the camera.

If you're going with a 3rd party housing of any sort, it's always best to do your homework and talk to someone who's used them with the camera you're using ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

 

[g1138]

Wear thinner gloves.
.....
3mm gloves are too thick

3mm is too thick!??
You wouldn't last long in Monterey

To the OP
I take it you're diving cold quarries over in Illinois? I'll agree with Searcaigh in that you'll probably need to "downgrade" to thinner gloves. I prefer to go with 3mm gloves. Since I've been wearing 3mm gloves ever since getting certified, I can do pretty much anything just as effectively when I'm not wearing them. The only exception would be tying sewing thread in a knot.

If you don't have a pair of 3mm gloves I'd recommend getting one with a single wrap velcro closure. None of those plastic piece wraps. A good pair/ example would be Aqua Lung Aleutian Kevlar gloves. Super durable and warm. The point of a single wrap velcro closure is it provides easy slip on and off when wet (compared to non velcro gloves) and it restricts water from free flowing, so you're hands can warm up the layer trapped in your gloves.
You'll want to get a pair that's snug. That's the important part, you need to have snug gloves if you ever want to learn dexterity with gloved hands.

Try wearing your gloves around the house doing everything your normally do. With under 24 dives I'm sure you're just not used to them.

 

[g1138]

Forgot to mention, if all else fails you can try out a Sea Life DC1200.
Huge buttons on those housings.

I've tried it out from a friend and I personally have a DC 800. It's an easy to use camera, however I personally don't like Sea Life, but that's a different story. Stay away from the DC 1000 and DC 800 because their housing shutter button WILL JAM shut on you during your dive. Sea Life's only address to this issue is to send you a new housing but it will keep happening. It's a design flaw in their mechanism for the shutter button; I had to so some disassembly and filing to correct it myself.
Don't know why they don't bother correcting this.

 

[scubamarketing]

Ah ... depends on the camera and whether or not you don't mind a rather largish housing. Some Ike housings don't give you full function over your controls. And some don't really fit all that well. I had a friend with an S95 who had problems with how well her camera fit inside the Ike housing ... she had issues with some buttons working once the camera reached a certain depth (pressure). She figured out how to jury-rig it to work ... but it involved cutting up pieces of foam and stuffing them around the camera.

If you're going with a 3rd party housing of any sort, it's always best to do your homework and talk to someone who's used them with the camera you're using ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

That's why I said "very generally speaking" I've run into those same problems with a couple of Ike's I've used/owned over the years, it's not what I currently use, but the knobs and buttons tend to be fairly oversized which would help with thick gloves.

The original question reminded me of a split vs blade type question, so I went with a ballpark answer

 

[rameus]

hey there!
well if you already have the camera with the housing then i guess it really is a practice thing. i personally have an ikelite-housing where the button can be pushed by a little stick which has to be pushed down.

after time you get used to it since i'm wearing 5mm gloves when it really gets cold ;-)

Thomas