What do you do with your wet lenses between dives?

[bhd]

Hi,
I'm off for a week's boat diving in Egypt soon, have done this many times before, but up until now have only had my S95 and housing to worry about. Rather than leave it knocking about in the fresh water tank between dives I've usually rinsed it and then kept it with me in a bag in the shade, which has been fine so far.

However now I've bought a couple of wet lenses, and wonder what the routine is for looking after them between dives. The leaflets that come with them are filled with dire warnings about the importance of drying them out completely, but without exposing to so much direct heat or light that the coating is damaged. What do you typically do between dives? Detach? Dry? Leave mounted?

Also, just in case you had any illusions about how much of a newbie I am, when do you attach your wet lens? Do you attach it above water and then re-attach before you descend? Can you wait to re-attach until you've reached your chosen depth?

Thanks,
bhd
(All the gear, no idea)

 

[Ran Mozaik]

I'll try to answer some of your questions.
As long as it's just an hour or two, you can rinse your gear as it is in fresh water, and place it in a safe location with a towel on it. That's what I usually do. I hate leaving it in the sink tank banging against the rest of the gear, especially if the boat is moving.
I wouldn't start cleaning and drying up each lens after each dive, but only once at the end of the day.
Most of your maintenance should be done at the end of the day, in the quite of your room. This minimizes the chance of mistakes during the day, dropping your lens because the boat moved, etc...

If you have one macro lens and one wide angle, I would put on the wide angle with the port cover before the dive, and only remove the port cover when I'm under and away from other divers which may be descending on me or kicking me with their fins.
Then I would make sure that there is water between my port and my wet lens by unscrewing it slightly and screwing it back to release all air bubbles that may be trapped.

Your biggest concern should be not dropping it when changing lenses. I wouldn't try to switch lenses during a wall dive with an abyss under me!
I try to use lanyards whenever I can to secure it to my rig, with a cable tie around the lens to give me a way to secure a lanyard to it.

A general tip - try to stay focused on one type of photography each dive. Switching between wide and macro multiple times would just get you confused and frustrated, and make the dive less enjoyable, hurting the final results you get. Consult with the dive master as to which "mode" you should be on before hand, and concentrate on that. Do keep the other option handy in case a Whale Shark comes to visit on a Nudibranch dive, or if you spot a SeaHorse on a Manta Ray dive...

 

[bhd]

Thanks Ran,

very useful tip about the cable ties, I was wondering about how to secure lenses, I should have known that cable ties were the answer!

So unless there's good reason to swap lenses, you'd leave the lens mounted between dives, or let the trapped water out? This is going to be the first time I've dealt with swappable lenses, so I'm quite happy to commit to either the macro or the WA on a given dive, I don't anticipate taking both. If the seahorse turns up I'm happy to eyeball it without stressing about missing the shot (yet). Thanks also for the tip about keeping the lens cover on until under water, this is the kind of very basic procedural stuff I need to know.

Incidentally I see you're part of Mozaik, I'd just like to mention that I've already found the blog entries etc on your website very informative, so thanks to whoever is responsible for writing those.

Cheers,
bhd.