BCD for UW photographers, jacket or backinflated?

After 34 years my vaguely orange Scubapro stabjack started leaking, so I am looking for a new BCD. Nowadays they come in flavours: jacket, backinflated or wing. 
I used a wing for a short time on a double seven but I did not like it. It doesn't allow you to roll along the body axis when you want to reach a macro spot.
I can imagine a backinflated BCD is perfect to keep you in position while photographing on a flat surface, but does it have the same disadvantage as a wing at other places?

What would you recommend, jacket or backinflated?

Hey Floris

I've been using a Zeagle Escape for more than 20 years and find it perfect for photog. Backinflated.

44 minutes ago, Floris Bennema said:

After 34 years my vaguely orange Scubapro stabjack started leaking, so I am looking for a new BCD. Nowadays they come in flavours: jacket, backinflated or wing. 
I used a wing for a short time on a double seven but I did not like it. It doesn't allow you to roll along the body axis when you want to reach a macro spot.
I can imagine a backinflated BCD is perfect to keep you in position while photographing on a flat surface, but does it have the same disadvantage as a wing at other places?

What would you recommend, jacket or backinflated?

 

My first BC was a back inflate, after using the jacket style for certification and my first dive trip or two.  The pack better, weigh less and do what needs to be done.  I don't eve feel like I need inflation along my sides.  I  have dived (dove?) with plenty of folks in wings and have never seen an advantage.  The only benefits I see are (1) is the idea of a weighted backplate instead of using lead weights, but I have no desire to add that weight to my luggage, so I would use an aluminum or carbon fiber backplate anyway, and (2) if you cannot find a BC that fits properly and does not slide around or ride up, you can custom fit a backplate and wing.   

It is expensive but I have been happy with the scubapro hydros pro and after I had one for a year or so, my wife got one and likes hers.  I use it with their "tech" strap sytem with just a couple small weight pockets.  It packs up into a size just a bit bigger than shoebox.  Before that I used a Zeagle back inflate and it was fine, too.

But the decision is really a personal one with no right or wrong.

I started 30+ years ago with a jacket, then to a back inflate (which I still have) and now a wing. Personally I see no reason to ever use a jacket or back inflate, other than when I'm helping OW courses and there's benefit to having the same gear as OW students.

If a wing is not allowing you roll along your body axis, that's a pretty clear sign that you're over weighted, and you have too much air in your wing to compensate.

For regular diving and photography, the benefit of a harness and wing is that I have nothing cluttering up the front of my torso except for a D-ring on each shoulder strap. That's freedom and comfort that a back-inflate gives to a certain extent, and that no jacket can.

I have a stainless steel plate that I'll use with my doubles. If I want to use a single tank, same plate and harness, just change to a smaller wing and use a SS single-tank adapter. When I travel, I pack my carbon fibre plate and single tank adapter, and the same single wing as my cold water kit. Means I'm diving with subtle variations of the same gear no matter what type of diving I do.

But as @Draq said, it's a personal decision to suit your own needs and comfort. The fact that there are literally dozens of each type available on the market is testament to that.

I have back inflated Oceanic BCD, it's served me pretty well.  I mostly do shore diving hauling your self up and down steep stairs and over rocks, the cumberbund and padded shoulder straps make this pretty comfortable and it works fine UW being able to roll in any position easily.

I just recently bought a Dive Rite TransPac XT harness with the Voyager wing and love it! It is completely open in the front with lots of D rings for attaching stuff. Plenty of room in the front for my camera. I had to buy the pocket to store a dive light and pointer stick. It mounts a steel 100 tank solid, doesn’t ride up or shift side to side. With the soft backplate is is fairly light for travel. I can also mount a pony bottle or side mount if I ever choose. I like it so much I am selling my other BCBs.

What Tim and Chis said!  Back inflated configurations can be cinched tight for shore dives, negative descent backrolls off the boat, and any manner of contortions to get the shot once under the surface without ever feeling constricting.  I love my Zeagle Ranger and would only change it for a lighter weight tropical version. 

Another vote for Scubapro Hydros Pro. My wife and me have it and it is very comfortable to wear and also the buoancy is very good. The only negative side is the price...

Wolfgang

Great, thanks for the advises. Many 'votes' for backinflated, now I will have to decide which one.  I'll visit two diveshops soon and hope the perfect compromise exists. Lightweight for travels to the tropics and sturdy enough for dives along West-European shores.

Hi Floris

Back inflated or wing have the same principle for the buoyancy. It is in the back. 

the main difference is the flexibility in setting up the configuration. 

If you do a lot of different type of dives (exemple: cold water deep dives, holidays tropical dives), a backplate and wing allows you to have variances on the configuration that makes it more comfortable to use in the different dive types.

some years ago, I decided to stir line all my equipment to make it more simple and less obstructive to appreciate the dive and specially to not mess with the photography.

Regarding bcd, I started with a jacket, and when I changed to a wing (Diverite Transpac with a RecWing) it was a game changer. Very comfortable to wear, but more important with all my front and side torso completely free of any bulky bags or similar. At that moment I was taking Deco Procedures course, so I wanted a wing that was capable to have single and twins tanks.

Most recently I was finding that the big wing was increasing the drag on water, so I sold if and bought a aluminum backplate and a 13kg wing. I love it. Quite small, easier to pack for travel, extreme streamlined underwater.

My wife has a Scubapro Litehawk. She loves it. I like it a lot also. It is a backinflated bcd, very streamlined also. The only difference from mine is that it is not adaptable for other dives that might need more lift (for instance to use with twins and/or a dive within the technical dive depths). On a backplate and wing system, you can change to a bigger wing if needed.

Backplate wing or backinflated bcd, goes for a donut design. Avoid horseshoe design of the inflated bag as it will make it more hard to do all the non orthodox positions time to time you have to do to take that special photography (I know what I am talking about as my Recwing from Diveright was a horseshoe design)

Another thing I have made was to reduce the amount of thinks messing around me, was to use an air2 from scubapro in replacement of the octopus (one hose less around me), and also adopted and wireless air transmissor to my computer and not using the  tank pressure hose (another hose less around me tangling). I know this might be controversial,  but that’s the “cleanest” way to dive. Less than that is to go in apnea.

I had a Hydros pro for a while and found it rather lacking, using a single plus pony it was not capable of stopping me from tipping over to the side without perfect counter weight and always felt like just a big air bubble that would move around the bladder at any opportunity. Being on my side it was very unhappy with this configuration and just never felt that it was in stable trim. Probably just fine with a single tank but if you dive asymmetrical I would say beware of this model. I don’t find this issue at all with my Atomic BC2 which I love.

I love my BPW. My first rig was an Apeks back inflate. After moving to BPW, the freedom to get rid of all the clutter was liberating. I can also reconfigure it however I like. For example, I decided to try diving my pony bottle back mounted, so I added a additional D-ring for the regulator on my right shoulder strap. 

I've only got a few hundred dives in and no experience with wings.   After a year in a used and too-large typical BCD, I bought an Oceanic Islander BCD.

It's all I've used since 2009, and I'm extremely used to diving with it.   It is designed for warm water diving and light weight.  It only weighs 6 pounds.

I'm not sure if you call it back-inflate or side-inflate.  I've had some wing divers look at it, and aside from the lack of flexibility for different diving, it tends to inflate like a wing.  It doesn't really have side inflation as the inflatable area doesn't really get that far.

I've recently changed/upgraded all of my dive gear aside from the BCD and regulator.  (Same regulator since 2007, the top end Aqualung back in the day.)   In the past year new dive computer, mask, fins, swimsuit and wetsuit.   I can't see an advantage of a wing for the single-tank diving I do in the Caribbean.

I CAN see advantages to a wing for the trip to Truk tomorrow, for dual tanks.  But this is the only time I've even gone somewhere like Truk.

Honestly, I think you should try both and see what feels most comfortable. I don’t have any problem using a jacket, mainly because I like having the extra pockets. Then again, my set up is very small and compact, so I can just clip it off and forget about it… Well, I used to. I had a Nikon aw130 that died this month and now I’m waiting on a tg6 to arrive. 
 

I guess I will have to take my own advice and try it with one of my bp/w rigs as well as my jacket to see what feels normal. I don’t think there’s any right or wrong way to do it, only what is comfortable and works for you. 

I learned in a jacket style, then bought a used back inflate, then bought a BP+W, then went to sidemount. I love sidemount, I dive sidemount when I can, which is every dive I'm not with an OW class, which I use my BP+W for. I currently dive both LP50s and LP72s, I'm looking to get HP100s for deeper tech diving then I can use my LP50s for decompression gases.

One thing to keep in mind with a BP+W is that you will have to add on pockets for "stuff" if you wish to have pockets.  Most back inflate BCDs have accessory pouches.

Everyone is different, many here will say sidemount isn't good for photography but I'm the type of person who photographs while diving (vs the person who dives to photograph) so I need my diving kit to be the most efficient.  

I bought a ScubaPro Hydros Pro when they were still relatively new. It is the best integrated BCD I have used. But, I only use it when I'm teaching OW classes.

For everything else, I use a back plate and wing.

I think @froop hit the nail on the head when he said that if you can't roll along your body axis and hold whatever orientation you want, then you are probably over-weighted in the rig you are using. Or, if you were using a twinset, that extra weight, including the manifold and extra 1st stage regulator, was messing with you. I have done a fair bit of diving with double 120s (aka twin 15 liters). I can comfortably dive those also in whatever orientation I want. But, that is more of an acquired skill than diving a back plate and wing with a single tank.

I think back inflate is back inflate, whether it's an integrated BCD or a wing. But, with a disclaimer:

If an integrated BCD has a much larger lift capacity (which they usually do), then a comparison to a wing may not be fair.

The Hydros Pro is 40# of lift (in bigger sizes, anyway). The wings I use are 18# in warm water and 30# in cold water. The bigger lift means it has a bigger air bladder. Which in turn means the air inside can get further away from your center of gravity. That can make it a little harder to control for things like venting gas and for maintaining an orientation other than belly-down.

Also, specific to the Hydros Pro, unless they have fixed the design, one quirk they have is that the bungees that go through from one side to the other to pull the air bladder sides in tight, when it doesn't have too much air in it, are not fixed in the middle. Because those bungees are not fixed, they can slide from side to side. That means that if you roll onto your side with a Hydros Pro, all the air can go to the high side of the air bladder, pulling the bungee all the way to that side. Then, when you roll back to belly-down the bungees are no longer centered. That will make one side of the wing be smaller than the other, holding less air. You will then feel like your BCD is trying to roll you back on your side. It's easy enough to reach back and pull it back to centered. But, some people don't like that.

If you get a back plate setup that gets your single tank as close to your center of gravity as possible, and use a wing no bigger than you NEED, and you are correctly weighted, you should feel like you can do anything you want. Hold any orientation you want. My single tank rig makes me feel almost like I'm diving with no BCD on at all and I love it!

On 3/7/2023 at 5:09 PM, stuartv said:

Also, specific to the Hydros Pro, unless they have fixed the design, one quirk they have is that the bungees that go through from one side to the other to pull the air bladder sides in tight, when it doesn't have too much air in it, are not fixed in the middle. Because those bungees are not fixed, they can slide from side to side. That means that if you roll onto your side with a Hydros Pro, all the air can go to the high side of the air bladder, pulling the bungee all the way to that side. Then, when you roll back to belly-down the bungees are no longer centered. That will make one side of the wing be smaller than the other, holding less air. You will then feel like your BCD is trying to roll you back on your side. It's easy enough to reach back and pull it back to centered. But, some people don't like that.

 

I understand they did change that in later models.  I, too,  have an early one, but when I am diving I generally have very little or no air in the BC, so it is not a problem and as you mentioned, it would be easy to adjust while diving.  I agree, the 40 LB bladder is too large, but the bungees seem to keep it from flapping around.  It is all highly personal.  One son dives with a zeagle and is completely happy with that, another son uses a long-discontinued Oceanic BC that is pretty minimalist and likes that.   For me, the light weight, packability and fast drying of the Hydros overcomes some minor issues like bladder size  or bladder shifting.  It also fits well and does not shift around on me while diving.  I have dived with people using backplates and wings and while I appreciate the customization possible with them, I don't see much benefit for me.  If I were diving locally and not always traveling to dive, I might feel differently.

Highly personal choice with no real universally right or wrong answer.