My DIR practice buddy and I did our first pure fun dives together yesterday. I encouraged him to bring his camera. He has a fairly large one, with tray and long-armed strobe.

We did no skills on these dives, but on the way home, my buddy was fussing about air-sharing with the camera. He has his light head on his left hand, and the camera in his right (and I believe a lanyard around the right wrist, although I am not sure). He was having some difficulty figuring out how to do an efficient deployment of the long hose with that setup.

I came up with three options:

1. Drop the camera, accepting that air-hungry buddy trumps need to preserve photographic equipment. This is not a viable option for any underwater photographer I know, and is especially unsuitable for drills.

2. Deploy long hose with camera, and expect that air-hungry buddy will accept being whomped in the face with same in her gratitude for life-saving air. Hope camera survives impact. This won't fly with air-hungry buddy, particularly in the face of repeated practice sessions.

3. Signal air-hungry buddy to wait a few more minutes while camera is properly stowed, then deploy long hose gracefully.

All humor aside, has anybody come up with a really efficient and workable solution to this problem?