Ladies and gentlemen, what's going on? Welcome to SCUBA Diver Magazine. My name is James
and I'm SCUBA Diver Magazine's man in Miami. I'm a professional technical diving instructor
and digital content creator, and SCUBA Diver magazine have brought me over from my own
YouTube channel, Divers Ready, with one simple goal in mind, to help make you a better SCUBA
diver. Welcome to this, the third installment in
the series that we're calling Basics. Sponsored by Aqualung, where every video, we take one
component of the basic SCUBA equipment set up and break it down part by part, giving
you a guide as what you should be looking for when shopping for each item of dive gear.
As you can probably tell already, this video we're focused on masks.
We're going to be going through the mask in probably more detailed than you ever thought
was possible, breaking down and explaining the different components of a dive mask and
what you should be looking for when you invest in your own dive mask. As if that wasn't enough,
SCUBA Diver Magazine will be giving away one Aqualung Plazma mask and one Apeks VX1 mask,
newly released masks on the market here. Stay tuned to the end of the video for your chance
to enter and win these masks. As Aqualung were kind enough to send me one
of these masks each, I took them for a test dive down in Key Largo so later in this video,
I'm going to be giving you my thoughts and feelings about these masks and who I think
they're best suited for as well as my number one top piece of advice for anyone at any
stage of their diving career looking to buy a new mask. Stay tuned for that, you're not
going to want to miss it. But first, let's dive straight in and talk
about the different components of a SCUBA mask of which there are really four basic
parts, starting with arguably the most important part, which is the skirt. Now the skirt of
the mask is the part that dictates how the mask fits to your face. Having a nice wide
contact area is very important because that's going to create a seal. Now when you buy a
mask, fit is everything. If the mask leaks, that's the number one thing that can ruin
your dive experience and turn a confident diver into an unconfident one and just generally
mar your whole dining experience. So a good fitting mask is absolutely essential and that
all starts with the skirt. Now the skirt is normally made of silicone
or some kind of blend thereof. Each manufacturer has their own proprietary formula for the
particular types of silicone that they use to create the skirts for their masks, but
what is important is you're looking for softness, suppleness, and the ability to create a fit
to your individual face. Now I can't tell you what the best mask in
the world is for you because I don't know what your face looks like and everyone's face
is different, but what you really need to make sure you do is try the mask on, make
sure that any mask considering fits you really well.
The main decision making factors when you're choosing a skirt for your mask, other than
the fit, is do you want a clear silicone skirt such as this one or a dark silicone skirt
which doesn't necessarily mean black, it can be any one of a number of colors these days,
but non-translucent, i.e., it's not going to let light in through the side. Definitely
on the technical diving side and the photography side, we tend to prefer dark silicone skirts
because it focuses your field of vision better. People who suffer from claustrophobia often
prefer a lighter mask because it lets more light in from the side and gives more of kind
of a wide open feeling. Next up we have lenses. Your choice with lenses
basically comes down to whether you want one or two lenses in your mask. What do I mean
by that? Well, both the Plasma and the VX1 mask here by Apeks have one single piece of
glass that forms both sides of the lens, as opposed to something like this, which is one
of my old masks, that has two separate pieces of glass.
Now the advantages and disadvantages of each are as follows. With a two-lens design, those
lenses are set closer to the face because the nose cup runs between them and that gives
you a better peripheral vision particulary below, which is really good when you're looking
at instruments, gives you a much better field of vision below you. In addition to that,
some two-lens masks allow you to fit prescription lenses into them. So if you're nearsighted
or farsighted or even bifocals, you can get little inserts that go in yeah and adjust
the vision of the lenses. The advantage of a one-lens design is that
the lens it's further away. You still have quite a wide field of view, but there are
definitely less failure points. Then on the market these days, you can find any color
of tinted lenses, mirrored lenses, polarized lenses. In my mind, they're all gimmicks,
you don't need those things underwater, but if that's something you want to spend your
money on, it's entirely up to you. What I'm looking for in the lens, be it a
one-lens or two-lens design, is the quality crystal. Just like buying a lens for a camera,
the higher the grade of glass they used to make the lens, the better the vision, the
better the image quality, the less impurities in the lens, the better the color contrast
is going to be, and the better your field of vision and diving experience is going to
be. But at an absolute minimum, any glass that you buy needs to be tempered. That means
they add a little bit of silica into the glass blend so that if the glass is actually impacted,
instead of shattering, which is the last thing you want with glass near your eyeballs, the
glass just kind of crumbles instead. Your next consideration when buying a mask
is do you want a framed mask or a frameless mask? What do I mean by frameless? Well, essentially
a frameless mask, the main body of the mask I made up of only the two components, the
lens and the silicone skirt, and the lenses are set directly into the skirt. Both of these
masks here happen to be frameless masks. A framed mask, on the other hand, if I just
bring this one back into shot or this one here ... I have a whole bunch of them off
camera ... have some kind of a plastic design that braces the silicone to the glass itself
and holds everything together. I generally prefer frameless design because
there's less failure points again. As you can see with this mask here, a piece of plastic
has actually broken off already, so that's already started to go. That wouldn't happen
with silicone wrapping around the actual lenses itself. That being said, frameless masks do
tend to be more expensive than their framed counterparts. This is because you need to
use a higher quality stiffer silicone to be able to be strong enough to hold the lens
in place. Then the fourth and final part of the mask
is of course, the strap. The strap attaches by a buckle to each side of the mask. The
strap is usually made from either silicone or rubber, or in some cases nylon, as with
the VX1 where they actually supply a nylon Velcro strap that you can switch out for the
silicone one that the mask actually comes with. I'm not a big fan of these because if
you remember your open water course on weight belts, nylon expands when it's wet, which
means during the dive, you're constantly having to tighten these straps.
Remember that a strap shouldn't be doing the heavy lifting. If you've got a good fit on
your mask, the weights of the water pressure will hold the mask against your face. The
strap is really there just to stop it from slipping or coming off in a strong current
or when you enter or exit the water. So you're not looking for too much in a mask. I generally
prefer silicone because it's more grippy and it's going to hold on to the back of my head
better than nylon, which could slip. I know that people with long hair, not an affliction
I've ever been particularly troubled with .... so if I show you my wife's mask, she
has long, beautiful hair, so she just uses this neoprene mask strap cover to go over
the silicone strap, in my mind, the best of both worlds. Mask straps are [inaudible 00:08:04]
and it's always a good idea to have a spare mask strap in your Save-a-Dive kit.
So there you have it, ladies and gentlemen, that covers the four main components when
shopping for a SCUBA mask. Now, as I said, Aqualung were kind enough to loan me a couple
of these masks so I took them down to Key Largo. Here are my thoughts on who I think
this mask are best suited for, starting with the [inaudible 00:08:26].
I think that the Aqualung Plasma is a good entry level mask option. If you're a beginner
diver, if this was my first ever mask, I'll be very happy for this, and to have a frameless
design at this price point is very attractive to me. A couple of things with that, first
off, I'm going to cut it out the box, I didn't even realize it was a frameless design because
the different coloring silicone they put, the actual part that grips around, looks like
a traditional mask frame. So they've done a really good job of disguising that, but
a closer inspection that's not plastic, that's actual silicone and it is a true frameless
mask, which I thought was a nice piece of design. I managed to get this mask to fit
me with no problems at all and it was super comfortable in the water. I would say that
it's not the most flexible or soft or supple silicone skirt that I've ever used, but at
this price point, I wouldn't expect it to be.
I thought the field of vision was very wide. There was a lot of light coming into the mask
and I felt that the color contrast that I was seeing was good enough, again, at this
sort of entry level price point. I certainly think about as a beginner diver, would I know
enough to notice the difference? No, I wouldn't, and I'd be very happy with the quality I'd
be getting. I would say that I was reminded of why I hate clear silicone skirts. As I
was diving, what happens is your vision kind of blurs off towards the edge where the silicone
skirt is letting light in on the peripheral and you get kind of this vignetting effect,
which is why I generally prefer a dark skirted mask, but all in all a good budget option
for a beginner diver. I do feel though that you could spend a little bit more money and
get a much better mask. So that brings me to the VX1. I'm a bit of
an Apeks fan boy. I have Apeks regulators, Apeks wings, and up until this point, I've
always used either SCUBAPRO or Atomic masks. So when I heard apex were coming out with
a mask aimed at technical divers, my main concern was, "Please don't suck, please don't
suck." Although this mask is just on loan to me, I couldn't wait to get my hands on
it and take it for a test dive, and I am happy to report that this mask does not suck.
This mask is made at the Technisub facility in Genoa, which is where Aqualung make all
of their masks and obviously rebranded for Apeks, but that being said, it has Apeks'
stamp of approval and it is up in line with the quality of everything that they put out.
Let's start with the skirt, super soft and supple. I mean, just really surgical grade
silicone, super comfortable on the fit, no problems at all getting a good seak, and a
nice wide lip so there was very, very little chance of this mask leaking. They haven't
shirked on the material for the contact area with the face and it really feels like a nice,
firm, secure fit on your face. The glass is crystalline. It's beautiful,
nice crisp image, very sharp colors, I thought. Again, it's close to the face with a nice
wide field of view. As you can see, it comes in this nice swanky Maui Jim inspired case,
which is going to make you the envy of all your dive buddies on the boat. As I said earlier,
it comes with a nylon mask trap. When I opened this up, I thought it was going to be a mask
strap cover branded with Apeks And I got all excited. Then I turned it over and saw the
nylon straps; that'll go straight in the bin for me. But this mask case, super lovely,
got a little clip on the edge there, and it's going to protect your investment. And it is
an investment. This mask is not cheap. I did take this mask on a tech dive in the morning
before I did the official test dives on a shallow reef in the afternoon, so I can vouch
that it stood up in deep, low-light conditions as well.
As I said at the start, these are only loaner masks. Would I buy myself a VX1 mask? Well,
if price wasn't a factor to consider, if money was no option then yes, I would dive this
mask. I think it's a solid mask. But the inverse is true as the Plazma mask. If you spent $20
or $30 less, you could get a mask as good a quality as this one. But as an Apeks fan
boy, I'm just really happy that they made a mask that doesn't suck.
Before I get to my last biggest piece of advice for anyone looking to buy a new mask at any
stage of their diving career, SCUBA Diver Magazine, sponsored by Aqualung, are going
to be giving away one Aqualung Plazma mask and one Apeks VX1 mask to a lucky viewer of
this video. To enter that contest, the details are going to be through a link that you can
only access by expanding the description of this video below, clicking on that link and
following the instructions. Good luck to everyone who enters.
Now as has become tradition in this series of Basic, I like to give you my one biggest
piece of advice, impartially, as to anyone who's looking to buy whatever the piece of
equipment is, in this case, masks. Are you ready for it? Pin your ears back because here
it comes. My number one biggest piece of advice for
anyone looking to buy a SCUBA mask is go down to your local dive center and try them on.
This is not something you want to shop for online, unless you have free returns, of course.
No. Better is to go down to your local dive center and try on a whole range of different
masks and find one that truly fits you well. Having a well-fitting mask is going to add
years of enjoyment to your dives. Having a mask that fits you poorly, that's constantly
leaking, is going to make you diving being miserable and eventually put you off the sport
and I don't want to see that. So support your local dive shop, get down there, try the masks.
Don't be one of those douches that goes and then buys online. Spend money locally, support
your local dive shop. You can't fill your tanks online so you're going to want that
business to succeed. Okay, rant over. Don't forget to subscribe
to this channel, ladies and gentlemen, if you haven't done so already. Plenty of great
content here on SCUBA Diver Magazine YouTube channel. If you'd like to see more content
from yours truly, there is a link in the description and below to my own channel, Divers Ready.
Feel free to head over there. I've got tons of hints and tips and travel tutorials aimed
at divers from novice to expert, so enjoy all that great stuff.
I'd like to say thank you again to Aqualung for sponsoring this series of videos. Just
over here, I'm going to put a playlist with all of our Basics videos and below that, I'll
let the YouTube algorithm and pick whichever video of ours is next best for you. Until
next Sunday, ladies and gentlemen, my name's James for SCUBA Diver Magazine. Dive safe,
dive often.