Gernot, known in the underwater community as BigG, is 56, lives in southern Germany, and has logged about 1,000 dives over twelve years. By his own count, 988 of them were with a camera. As he puts it: "I don't dive because of diving. I dive because of UW photo and video. Thirty years of snorkeling didn't give me this opportunity."
His wife Susi is his permanent dive buddy. He shoots both macro and big fish on the same trip, writes dive-trip features, and modifies almost everything he owns. He spends most of his diving time in warm, salty water, and most of his garage time fabricating brackets in metal.
Why he switched to DIVEVOLK
BigG tried plenty of action and compact cameras before he settled on the DIVEVOLK SeaTouch 4 Max about two and a half years ago. He uses it for fun dives with Susi and for the photos and video that go into their dive-trip articles.
The reason a smartphone housing works for him is range. He shoots soldierfish in black coral and tiger sharks in open water on the same trip, and the SeaTouch lets him swap lenses and use the phone's full touchscreen without breaking the dive. For background on why phone sensors hold up underwater, Tony Dou's smartphone primer on the Underwater Photography Guide is a good starting point.
"There must be a screw in my head"
BigG is a chronic modifier and the first to laugh about it. "In this case people say there must be a screw in my head. I can't use anything without trying to modify it for my use."
His day job involves modifying cars, inside and out, so his garage already has the tools. He uses the same tools on his camera rigs. When something on the housing tray bothers him, he doesn't post about it; he machines a part for it.
Asked whether the modifications cause problems, his answer is short: "Of course I always see something to improve, but for regular use everything is fine." The platform is solid enough out of the box that the mods are about optimizing a working tool, not patching a broken one.
Why he keeps modifying: heavy current and shot review
The mods aren't for show. They come from looking at the photos after the dive.
"Most improvements are to optimize the handling, for example in critical situations like heavy current. After analyzing the pics we are thinking about upgrades that can help to make them better."
This is the part most gear reviews skip. The next round of changes comes from sitting down with that night's images and asking what shook, what drifted, and what would have nailed the shot if a light arm had been an inch shorter. Buoyancy, drift positioning, and a stable rig matter more on a strong-current dive than any spec sheet (PADI's drift-diving guide covers the technique side).
Then BigG drops the line every shop owner should screenshot:
"It's not necessary to buy a more expensive or bigger phone. Sometimes a lens or a stand or buoyancy control are more important than the camera itself."
If you're new to phone-based underwater shooting and trying to decide whether to upgrade your handset or your lens kit, that's the answer from someone with 988 camera dives behind it.
His range really does go from a nose-to-nose moray to an open-water tiger shark on the same trip.
What BigG wants DIVEVOLK to build next
His wishlist is short and specific.
1. A Bluetooth or Wi-Fi flash trigger that talks to UWACAM.
"I try to find, since I started, a possibility to add a flash, but I think the only way is a solution from DIVEVOLK, like a little active Bluetooth or Wi-Fi flash trigger, for example perfectly in cooperation with UWACAM."
Triggering an external strobe through a sealed phone housing has been an open problem for years, mostly because radio doesn't travel well underwater. BigG's instinct is right: the answer probably has to be a first-party DIVEVOLK accessory wired into the camera app, not a third-party hack. For UWACAM's current capabilities, see our deep-dive on the UWACAM app.
2. A flip-up display protector that doubles as a sun shade.
"What I also think of is a sun shade for the display, a combination of display protection and sun shade you can flip up and down."
If you've tried to compose a shot in tropical surface light, you know the problem. A hinged shade that protects the screen during transport and pops up to kill glare on the boat would solve a real, daily friction.
What you can take from BigG's setup
If you're building a smartphone underwater rig of your own, BigG's path is a useful reference:
- Start with a modular platform. The DIVEVOLK housing range and the SeaTouch 4 Max Kits are designed around swappable adapter trays, so a phone upgrade doesn't mean a new housing.
- Stabilize before you spend. Buoyancy and trim usually do more for your photos than a more expensive phone. DAN's notes on buoyancy and trim are worth a refresher.
- Add the right glass before chasing megapixels. Wide for big animals, macro for small ones.
- Plan for light. Color drops fast even at recreational depths, so a dive light is rarely optional. The DIVEVOLK dive lights page is a good place to start.
For another diver-led perspective on the platform, our Shiro Dive review goes through a different working photographer's setup. The rest of the user stories live in the DIVEVOLK story library.
Follow BigG
BigG documents his trips, his mods, and his macro-meets-big-fish obsession on Facebook as divespotchecker by BigG. Worth a follow if you want to see what a fabrication-minded diver does with a smartphone housing.
