What is the future of Scuba Diving and the technology we use

[tarponchik]

I'd like to see an easier to use underwater camera that the typical layman like myself can use and take quality pictures and be cost effective like the digital point and shoots I use on the surface. Why can't they make a dslr body smaller, yet contained in a completely waterproof housing that's the size of what a normal body on the surface would be like? I guess I'm just not very good with UW cameras and would like the manufacturers to fix it for me at a low cost. I can't be the only one out there who dives and sucks at taking UW pics!

Good point. An ideal underwater camera from my perspective is not a DSLR but an upgrade from point-and-shoot camera. From DSLR, it needs only three things: large sensor for less noise at high ISO, an ability to focus manually to shoot low-contrast objects (an electronic push-button control, best of all), and a good processing engine to shoot RAW files quickly. To make it smaller, the camera needs no case. Its own body should be its waterproof case, with the exception of the lense which must be hooded. No electronic viewfinder needed since you will use LCD for aiming and focusing.

The reasons why this takes so long to get rid of the mirror even for non-underwater digital cameras are probably in tradition; but things are changing slowly. Sony's R1 was the 1st, now there are Sigma's DP1&2, and more will come, I am sure.

 

[SteveAD]

I'm waiting for "micro scuba" James Bond had it in the 70s Obi Wan and QuiGon had it in Star Wars 1. Where's mine?

 

[tarponchik]

My overall prognosis for the diving industry is pessimistic. On the one hand, since the 80s the middle class in US has been eroding, with the top 1/5th getting richer and the bottom 4/5th getting poorer. This, combined with high oil prices, will gradually cut the bulk of recreational divers off distant exotic places and push the die-hard enthusiasts to everything cheap, like local lakes, kelp shore-diving, and Florida. Since the scale saves costs, we'll probably see cattle-liveaboards with 250 divers traveling from one abandoned oil rig in the Gulf to another. On the other hand, coral bleaching and overfishing will make rec diving less attractive to newcomers. So the major attractions will be of human origin, like sunk firetrucks and jumbo-jets with some well-fed moray eels chained inside.

 

[David Wilson]

This, combined with high oil prices, will gradually cut the bulk of recreational divers off distant exotic places and push the die-hard enthusiasts to everything cheap, like local lakes, kelp shore-diving, and Florida.

Which means a, for me, welcome return to the pioneering days of the 1950s, when diving was all about the simple enjoyment of local waters. I love snorkelling in the North Sea, seven miles from my home in the North East of England. I wouldn't go back now to those cattle-boats in the sky which make me wait hours at the check-in desk, regulate the weight and dimensions of my equipment, subject me to humiliating searches, feed me puppy-chow when I eventually get on board and then dump me in some anonymous exotic resort with plenty of diving to exercise my body but with little or no culture or civilisation to exercise my mind as well. It's an ill wind...

 

[tight rope walker]

Well, I know I'm probaly in the minority here, but I really like my old gear, because it does what it is suppose to do,and does it very simply. But I also realise the industry could not survive, with people like myself. Finally after 30 years, I finally updated my gear, and hate most of the new stuff I bought.

I will use sp as an example. I would like to see sp come out with a classic line of gear, with things like the original shot gun snorkel, the all metal balanced adjustable, not the 250v, re-introduce the pilot, re-introduce the stabilizing jacket like my original without all the bells and whistles. Re-intoduce the ls 1 compass, I have the new one and it is not the same. I recently watched a sb nos shotgun snorkel go for 70 dollars on ebay. I didn't pay that much for them when they were new, and I do not believe that snorkels going to end up in a museum.

I am not saying to ignore the future, but why turn your back on customers that have made the company what it is. Some of the new gear is not as good as the old, though it is probaly less expensive to manufacture.

I know that I am not as articulate as other members on scubaboard, so I am probaly not saying this the right way. But I like to keep things simple, so I can have some control over it.

Just look at the cars now a days, if you are not a computer tech, you can't work on the damn things.

Finally I'll end with this, on page 6 of sb 2009 catalog, they state that the a700 has a work of breathing of .49

My pilot cracks at .4 , and it's 32 years old.

 

[BDSC]

I read somewhere that the world will end in 2012 so the future for diving is bleak. Of course I guess the future for anything is kinda bleak if the article was true.

 

[Hatul]

My overall prognosis for the diving industry is pessimistic. On the one hand, since the 80s the middle class in US has been eroding, with the top 1/5th getting richer and the bottom 4/5th getting poorer. This, combined with high oil prices, will gradually cut the bulk of recreational divers off distant exotic places and push the die-hard enthusiasts to everything cheap, like local lakes, kelp shore-diving, and Florida. Since the scale saves costs, we'll probably see cattle-liveaboards with 250 divers traveling from one abandoned oil rig in the Gulf to another. On the other hand, coral bleaching and overfishing will make rec diving less attractive to newcomers. So the major attractions will be of human origin, like sunk firetrucks and jumbo-jets with some well-fed moray eels chained inside.

Wow, and I thought I was pessimistic. Yours is like a George Orwell vision of scuba diving.

I'm more optimistic than that, because for one thing the ocean is huge and mostly unharnessed. Also there is a natural selection away from cattle boats and bad dive boats. The boat that give a good experience still wins.

The big factors in scuba technology is: 1. it continues to be a niche sport and 2. and new advance tends to skyrocket in price

Adam

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

I read somewhere that the world will end in 2012 so the future for diving is bleak. Of course I guess the future for anything is kinda bleak if the article was true.

In also read that the winter solstice in 2012 is the end of the Mayan calender which they saw no point in rebooting it for another three hundred some odd years. It doesn't mean the end of the world as we know it.
The earth will continue to rotate and the sun will continue to come up every day just like always.
I cracks me up how people always have to have something bigger than themselves to worry about that they can't control.

 

[tight rope walker]

I read somewhere that the world will end in 2012 so the future for diving is bleak. Of course I guess the future for anything is kinda bleak if the article was true.

If that's the case,BDSC, can I have your gear?

 

[DCBC]

Commercial divers have and continue to use 'hot water suits' which operate on a similar principle. But these 'heat jackets' which are smaller and umbilical-independant make fusion of drysuit warmth with wetsuit ease is a reality.

Although hot-water suits are currently umbilical dependent, for deep saturation it's common to use a CCR as an bail-out breathing system. Units such as the Divex are capable of providing heated breathing-air to the diver (which could be adapted to provide heated-air to a dry suit as well). Perhaps in the future, the range of operation of these systems may include a closed-circuit hot-water wet-suit capability.

I've been involved with equipment research involving independent hot-water suits (in the late 70's), however the system was incapable of providing sufficient hot-water for a sufficient duration at that time. It wouldn't surprise me that today's technology could address this problem, but the demand often has to be there before such development occurs.