What style BDC and fins are you using ?

Hello All,

I am in the market for a new BCD. I currently have a jacket style BCD but see many people migrating to the Backplate setups.

I am totally on the fence about what to buy next. I love the idea of the Crotch Strap that the Back Inflates have to keep the BCD in place while shooting, though I love having pockets on the BCK for a safety sausage, etc...

Also, my fins are slightly buoyant which combined with the back inflate BCD makes me a little nervous.

What are you using? BCD type and Fins (negative or positive?)

It's all about the backplate and wing, forget a Jacket. Fins depend on if you dive with a dry or wet suit?

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I ditched the jacket style some time ago for back inflation, but also wanted a little more comfort and pockets than a plate and wing. Now using a Zeagle Ranger and loving it.

I wear a backplate and wing (actually I have two, one for local cold water, and one for tropical). I pair that with a pair of pocket shorts (see Dive Gear Express, Highland, Scubapro, etc). That lets me add pockets to any wet suit or dry suit I own.

Pocket shorts are fantastic. I don't know why more wetsuit manufacturers don't add them to the suits off the rack. You can also get a pocket that threads onto the waist strap of your backplate and wing setup.

I am using a Dive Rite Travel Wing for tropical single tank diving. It's light and comfortable (with lots of places to clip things off).

Back plate and wing setup. With smallest wing possible for the configuration . I have Aluminium plate for travel and summer and Stainless steel for winter. I use Beuchat Carbon freediving fins for blue water diving and Aqualung blades for tech and macro work. I also add Diverite pockets to my own wetsuits for extra storage.

Cheers Mark

Backplate and wing is suitable for all types of diving, this business of a tropical and cold water set up I don't really understand the point. Just find one system that can be used for all situations. For me back plate, wing and RK3 fins. The only time I change is if I wish to sidemount

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backplate (steel with drysuit and mostly with wetsuit as well), aluminium when flying + Wing. Scubapro jetfins with spring straps for drysuit, Seac / generic fins for wetsuit.

Backplate and wing, I have used the Dive rite and Hollis ones. But basically decide whether you want more or less weight to dive your AL vs steel backplate decision. The decide whether you want a deluxe style harness with extra padding in the shoulder straps and on the backplate.

If you are not planning to do much cold water diving and plan to travel a lot, you could consider a soft plate BCD such as the Hollis HTS2 or equivalent.

Size your wing based on the lift that you need with your thinnest wetsuit and heaviest tank combination. For most people something in the 28 - 38 lb wing area seems to be fine. Finally I would recommend a donut style (round) not horseshoe.

i use a travel bc and a pair of 30 year elcheapo paddle fins. They are both light and small and all i need to push my camera around under water in the places i dive (no current). The bc is now getting down to about 3.5 lbs travel weight.

Definetly "wing type". It give you a much cleaner front area foor moving the arm freely and it allows you do be closer to the ground for some picture.

I suggest a light system so you have less problems on the traveling.

I use a Recwing from Diverite with a Transpack. I like a lot the transpack (quite confortable), but the wing is too big (i bought it when I was doing Decompressure Procedures and Extended range courses). Today I would go for a smaller wing.

My wife uses a Scubapro litehawk, a semiwing travel BCD from Scubapro, it is quite nice BCD (time to time I use it, but do not tell her).

The pockets you can solve it as several people explained already. You can have shorts with pockets, add pockets to the wing style bcd, clip the saussege on the back...

A donnut wing is better that a horseshoe one. It is easier to know were you have the air. In certain pictures you are being in funky positions and the air can go all to one side of the horse

BPW & OMS Slipstream fins 99% of the time.

I'm using a Zeagle Ranger with a small wing. The stock is way more lift than I needed.

Dive rite with travel wings here to mirror comments above- Im to the point of hating bootie/fin combos and am looking into non-bootie alternatives- I only do warm water diving though

Size your wing based on the lift that you need with your thinnest wetsuit and heaviest tank combination. For most people something in the 28 - 38 lb wing area seems to be fine. Finally I would recommend a donut style (round) not horseshoe.

2 minor points:

- wing lift has to compensate for buoyancy lost due to wetsuit crush at depth. So, you should base it on your thickest wetsuit, not thinnest.

- wing lift has to accomodate the weight of the gas you're carrying, not the weight of the tank. I.e. a steel 80 holds less gas than an AL100, so even though the AL100 might be lighter, you would still size the wing based on the AL100 because it will have a bigger buoyancy swing as it goes from full to empty.

 

2 minor points:

 

- wing lift has to compensate for buoyancy lost due to wetsuit crush at depth. So, you should base it on your thickest wetsuit, not thinnest.

 

- wing lift has to accomodate the weight of the gas you're carrying, not the weight of the tank. I.e. a steel 80 holds less gas than an AL100, so even though the AL100 might be lighter, you would still size the wing based on the AL100 because it will have a bigger buoyancy swing as it goes from full to empty.

- Re thickest wetsuit / crush depth. I was actually thinking of the other extreme: My first BCD was a Dive Rite AL plate, deluxe harness and the old travel EXP wing. I dove that with Steel Worthington HP100s. My BCD would not float that tank at the surface, and I am slightly negatively buoyant. So, I had to wear a 5 mm wetsuit if I wanted to be positively buoyant on the surface, using that tank / BCD combination, obviously not comfortable to do in the summer heat in TX. So, I got used to wearing a thinner suit to account for the heat and finned on the surface....

- Re heaviest tank, yes, I did not clarify that tanks have varying swings in buoyancy when full vs. empty. For example my Faber LP85s are approximately 4.5 negative full and 2.5 lb if empty. So a 6 lb (or 12 lb if diving sidemount or backmounted doubles) swing in your weighting during a dive is not uncommon.

I was simply trying to keep it to a basic answer :-).