My first rebreather was an AP Evolution, and it served me brilliantly for close to ten years.
In 2017 I switched to diving a micro titanium rEvo, and have never looked back
While there are many good options on the market, here are five reasons why I think that the rEvo is the smart choice for the underwater cinematographer:
1. Streamlined Form Factor
- The rEvo unit has internal counter lungs which are housed inside the metal casing.
- This combined with its overall slim and small form factor, translates into minimal underwater drag.
- It feels very similar to diving open circuit 9SCUBA) with a 12l Steel.
2. Minimal Internal Air Volume
- The rEvo has a relatively low internal air volume.
- you need to add less weight to the unit or yourself to make it neutrally buoyant or negative.
- This also translates into a lighter unit to carry around on land.
3. Shearwater Petrel Controler and NERD Combo
- The rEvo uses a Shearwater Petrel controller and the option to combine this with a Shearwater Nerd Head-Up Display
- These electronic units talk to three and two dependent oxygen sensors respectively
- This allows for confident and redundant monitoring of PPO2 and other critical metrics.
4. Freedom of Head Movement
- The loop on the rEvo is soft and flexible.
- This makes scanning your environment a pleasure and not a pain.
- On other units your head is unmovable and body movement is required to scan left to right.
5. User Replaceable Components
- I travel with a full set of spares for my unit, including electronic boards.
- I can swap out any component that may fail in the field.
- This provides real piece of mind when travelling to remote locations.
6. Scrubber Sorb Efficiency
- The rEvo is designed with two radial scrubbers, both of which can be monitored on your primary controller.
- After a dive, it is possible to promote the secondary scrubber canister to the primary slot and only replace the absorbent in the original primary canister, which would then be inserted in the secondary slot.
- On other models which only have one scrubber, all of the absorbent would need to be ditched.
7. Build and Tear Down Efficiency
- The rEvo is very easy to assemble on a shoot and also to break down for overnight venting and drying out of the counterlungs.
- This creates more time to focus on reviewing rushes.
- And enjoying dinner.
8. It Looks Good
- I think the rEvo is the best-looking unit on the market.
- The way it combines beauty and functionality would have made it the unit of choice at the Bauhaus
My only complaint about the rEvo/Shearwater systems is that they have not yet built any haptic (vibration) feedback into their systems
I have on my Garmin Descent 2 wristwatch and its brilliant.
Apart from that, I do not see any reason to shift to another manufacturer any time soon.
So to summarize, my advice is as follows:
- Buy rEvo
- Buy NEW (It's a life support system, don't F@%K around)
- Borrow the money if you have to!
