In our ongoing series S.U.P.E.R. (Scubaverse’s Underwater Photography Equipment Reviews), Scubaverse.com’s underwater photography editors Nick and Caroline Robertson Brown review new underwater photography equipment, general diving equipment, and some older favourites too. 

For the eighteenth instalment of S.U.P.E.R., Nick and Caroline take a look at the CB70 Square Grouper from Cinebags.

We discovered Cinebags at DEMA 2016 and were instantly impressed with what we saw. They encouraged us to take one home with us to try out for ourselves, and with two trips – to Fiji and Sharm – coming up, along with several testing days in a U.K. quarry, this would be perfect timing to put this rugged bag through its paces.

The Cinebags CB70 is a large bag that has been designed to carry your full underwater camera setup, including lighting, as well as all the spares and bits and bobs you might want to take on a day of diving with your camera. We put Nick’s D800 in a Nauticam housing, with its glass dome port, arms, 2 INON Z-240 strobes and a couple of video lights in the main compartment of the bag, and it fitted with no problem at all! The bag is made out of heavy duty pvc tarpaulin material and is well padded. It really gives you peace of mind when you pop it on a boat, and you know it is in its own protective bag. No-one can brush their camera against yours on the camera table and you do not have to worry about accidentally knocking it as you walk to the dive boat. It makes carrying your underwater photography gear to the boat or shore much easier, using the tough yet comfortable handles or shoulder strap.

One of the features that we loved about this bag is all the extra little pockets, both on the inside of the lid, and on the outside of the bag. We put camera care equipment, like spares, grease, lens clothes on the inside pockets, and then our sun cream, sunglasses (or woolly hats and hand warmers) and other bits and bobs in the mesh pockets on the exterior. There are even cargo loops on the top of the lid to help keep all your gear in one place. The bag collapses down neatly, and the shoulder strap can be removed, so that it is easy to pack when you are heading home.

Another fantastic feature of this bag is that it is watertight. This means that whenever you have the CB70 with you, you also have your own personal camera rinse tank. Rather than adding your camera to the mass of others in the general rinse tank, risking damage to it and any lighting, you can simply grab a hose and ensure that your camera is kept safe in a padded rinse tank of its own. Even better, at diving locations where a rinse tank is difficult to access, you can put this under a shower or add water from any source when you return from your dive.

We have found the bag to be extremely useful on both overseas trips and whilst diving here at home. Not only does it keep your precious equipment safe whilst travelling to and from the dive site, walking, on a boat or in the car, when you are about to go diving, it is a great way to keep all your accessories in one place as you are about to get into the water too. Our lens hoods, towel, dive lights and anything we might not be taking on a particular dive gets tucked away in this versatile bag.

Cinebags also make a matching range of port pouches to keep all your glass safe whilst you travel too. The only sadness that I have about the Cinebags CB70 Square Grouper, is that we do not have two – so we are still arguing on who gets to use it each morning!

For more information visit www.cinebagsunderwater.com

For more from Nick and Caroline, visit www.frogfishphotography.com.