Dial color, actual diving and other choices

[overrider]

Hello everybody!
I have a few questions about Doxas and automatic watches : what better than this forum to ask?

First of all, is there any relevant difference in dial color effectivness while reading the time underwater, or is there any difference while reading the time at night?
Which dial color is more popular?

The other thing I was asking myself is: how many divers do take their automatic watch underwater?

What is the point in making a watch that is water proof at 1000m? Is the aging of watches so strong that it is given for granted that a 200m diver won't actually last and performand therefore you need 1000 or more depth resistance in order just to do a 30m dive?

Is a watch such as the Seiko Orange Monster trustworthy with his 200m resistance for 30m dives? Or you need much tougher divers with at least 1000m resistance?

I really love Doxas and it's one of the first things I'll surely buy after my studies

I didn't find a civil war between orange doxa fans and black doxa fans...i was kind of expecting that

[subkrawler]

Orange is most popular, because that's what DOXA is famous for. Underwater, it's more about the contrast between the dial and hands, than actual color. Sharkhunters with all white hands offer excellent contrast, as there's no color change underwater with an increase in depth. Caribbeans with all white hands, as well as Divingstars are color stable as well. The worst is the orange dial, as the orange color darkens and changes to an olive green color the deeper you go. The contrast isn't that great with the black hands. An oddity is the Searambler. The brushed silver dial gathers and reflects ambient light, and contrasts very well with the orange and black hands. At night, the color doesn't matter since you rely on the lume to read the time.

There are plenty of DOXA owners who dive with their watches. I'd wager to say that you'll find more DOXA owners using their watches underwater than any other brand. If you want to see plenty of DOXA watches in action, check out the Searaider, and the Underwater Wrist Shots subforums at the top of this forum. BTW, welcome to the DOXA forum.

[Rusty_Shakleford]

Well put Subkrawler.

I would also add that the depth rating arms race amongst all of the brands is a bit silly but most companies have to participate to stay competitive amongst uninformed consumers. Obviously a human cannot dive to 1000 meters but if hypothetical company A offers a watch with that rating and company B does not, many potential customers will assume that company A's watches are tougher. That may or may not be the case but company B cannot afford to risk a loss of sales based on this assumption. I honestly believe that the Seiko Orange Monster you mentioned will have no issues on a 30m dive.

This is not unlike people who buy cars whose top speed is faster than they will ever drive...

Good luck on your studies. We will look forward to your joining the ranks of proud Doxa owners.

RS

[Doug507]

I agree with all of the above and have taken my Sharkhunter AND my Orange Monster on 100' dives. They are both great divers.

[Jason71]

Subkrawler hit the nail on the head. It is all about contrast. I took this picture in shallow water. You can see that the bezel numbers on the Military Sharkhunter much better than the Pro. The hands show-up pretty good on the Pro because it is shallow and there is quite a bit of ambient light. However, deeper diving and the hands start to lose contrast with the dial. The Military sharkhunter has pretty good contrast, but the orange minute hand on the black dial is not as good as a white minute hand would be.

With all this said..........both of these watches perform REALLY well underwater. No worries.

[overrider]

Thanks a lot for the info guys, what really impresses me is that the orange color seems to work the worst underwater... I read somewhere that Doxa did some research and it's because of that research that they picked orange as their signature color, because of its properties underwater!

If you tell me that Black + white is the best visibility color scheme you can get than Sharkhunters should perform better than Professionals!

It appears that yellow is the color that fades the last, but again, since it's all about contrast, having a yellow dial with black hands is wors contrast than having black dial with white hands once the fluorescent paint start working...

I guess the whole orange/yellow thing works at very shallow depths, if you dive just as deep as 60ft orange gets green and black dials with white hands start to take the lead in performance.

La vista e l'assorbimento dei colori in acqua

check this animation, at a certain depth everything turns dark blu Therefore Sharkhunters > Professionals!

[sealawyer]

Consider this: During the "heyday" of the Calypso, their divers used Sharkhunters.

I think what made orange so popular was that it looks pretty good in depths on or above 30 feet. However, as light fades I think the contrast aspects become more important. People are traveling to far greater depths than in the days when the orange face was first offered.

I have a Caribbean 5000T and I find that the blue background works much better with the silver hands than the orange as it grows darker (at least from my perspective).

[subkrawler]

Thanks a lot for the info guys, what really impresses me is that the orange color seems to work the worst underwater... I read somewhere that Doxa did some research and it's because of that research that they picked orange as their signature color, because of its properties underwater!

If you tell me that Black + white is the best visibility color scheme you can get than Sharkhunters should perform better than Professionals!

It appears that yellow is the color that fades the last, but again, since it's all about contrast, having a yellow dial with black hands is wors contrast than having black dial with white hands once the fluorescent paint start working...

I guess the whole orange/yellow thing works at very shallow depths, if you dive just as deep as 60ft orange gets green and black dials with white hands start to take the lead in performance.

La vista e l'assorbimento dei colori in acqua

check this animation, at a certain depth everything turns dark blu Therefore Sharkhunters > Professionals!

DOXA did test the orange dial, but it was tested shallow (33ft/10meters) in Lake Neuchatel, Switzerland. In those shallow, and less than optimal conditions, the researchers found that (to them), orange was most legible. In deeper ocean conditions, it's just not the same.

Yellow isn't as bad as you're interpreting it to be. It's actually quite good, and very close to that of the Sharkhunters, and Caribbeans. The yellow is a light color, and stays light at depth, so the contrast between the dial and hands is excellent. It would be very similar to a white dial, with black hands.

Interesting animation, and theoretically it's true, but it isn't accurate for the legibility of watch dials underwater. Once again it's contrast, not color.

[domino]

I have to disagree that the orange dial is much worse at depth - I taken mine to 100 feet or so, and it lost the orange and turned olive green, but still retained a lot of contrast, I thought - possibly because of the big white lume stripe on the minute hand. Also, significant darkening of the dial is really only noticeable below about 60 feet - above that, it still is a light dial with dark hands. I think the Sharkhunters with white hands are best - the orange minute hand is worse.

Of course, in most cases at depth (below 70', say) it gets darker, and the lume becomes a factor. Also, you might be using lights and that changes everything, too. Also remember that everything is magnified underwater (by about 33% typically) - I find my watches easier to read while diving that while sitting here typing.

I guess fluorescent colors would be best at depth, as they retain their true color at depth - but I'm not sure I want to wear a fluorescent watch!

[David Woo]

I didn't find a civil war between orange doxa fans and black doxa fans...i was kind of expecting that

We just all get along.