Last week I was happy to receive the OrcaTorch ZD710 zoomable dive light, and obviously, I took it along for a first dive over the weekend.
Receiving the OrcaTorch ZD710 zoomable dive light was basically no surprise; and I mean that in the best possible way. Nicely packed in an OrcaTorch case together with the 5.000 mAh USB-C charging battery. Obviously, the fist step was to charge the battery for which the USB-C charging cord was included. With the battery’s led changing from red to green, putting the battery in the ZD710 and attaching the also enclosed lanyard, I basically was ready to dive.
Nevertheless, a first quick check to ensure all is working well (of course it did!) and see how the light changes when turning the light head from wide beam (76 degrees) to narrow beam (8 degrees) and back. When looking at the light on the wall, a nice bright and evenly distributed light circle appears for the wide angle. On the narrow side, you can clearly distinguish four leds (or is it four parts of the same led?), once holding the ZD710 close to the wall.
The dive during the weekend was an educational dive for the Open Water certification. As one of the students just had a tattoo and another had a cold, it was a ‘two instructors on one student’ dive. No chance that we would mis something .
Unfortunately, the (fresh water) lake where we did the training this weekend was rather murky. Normally, there is brownish water here due to the peat soil, but this time in addition to that, there was already a lot of algae in the water. Visibility got a bit better below 7 meters (under the thermocline), but still, estimating the visibility at one meter was rather optimistic.
During a normal dive, I would strongly prefer a narrow light beam, as under these conditions, the reflection of the light on the particles in the water would basically blind you. However, as this was a training dive and we could use a dive platform to do the exercises, I changed the settings of the OrcaTorch ZD710 from a narrow beam as used to reach the platform, to the wide beam to provide some light on the student. That really worked well (and I must admit: to my surprise), as the wide beam provided light on the candidate as a whole and not only on a small part of the candidate when using a narrow beam.
After we did the exercises, we decided to make a short dive, for which I again changed the beam from wide to narrow. Very practical to have this option incorporated in just one dive light! And under water, I did not notice the projection of the four leds as mentioned above water on the wall.
What can I say more? The ZD710 appears to be a good and trustworthy addition to the OrcaTorch dive lights family! I will certainly take that along for the dives over the next weeks and see how it performs during other educational as well as recreational dives.
Oh, and by the way; the student did well !
Author: Frank Lamé is in his free time a Master Instructor and part of his dives are educational dives. When overseas, Frank always dives together with his video camera, capturing the marine life (www.youtube.com/user/franklame). A number of his videos have been broadcasted, among which by the BBC.
