DIVER TESTS – Atomic Venom Frameless Mask

IN USEMy first impression of this mask was that the seal was a bit on the chunky side. The thicker Gel Silicon seemed a far cry from mask-skirts I had previously used, some of which had employed a thin tapered or feathered edge. This seal and the Gel Silicon itself were very different. The best I can do is to compare it to kid’s Play-Doh. It feels very mouldable and soft, yet it’s extremely elastic, quickly returning to its natural position after being stretched or compressed. I took the Venom Frameless to Stoney Cove during a rare foray up North. Under water, the Gel Silicon seemed to fill in all the little gaps on my craggy old face, maintaining an amazingly watertight seal, so much so that I had to consciously inhale a little through my nose or physically lift the edge of the skirt to expel excess pressure on an ascent from the 30m-deep Hydro-box. The seal didn’t let a single drop of water in and felt extremely comfortable against my face. During my second dive I loosened the head-strap to the extent that the mask felt as if it would fall off, but the seal around my face remained intact. The silicon used in constructing the main body was actually very soft but retained it’s rigidity throughout the dives, and didn’t collapse or compress at depth when I was a bit slow to equalise the internal pressure.Back in my studio I put the mask through the same field-of-view trial as employed in the group tests. Standing in front of a wall-mounted matrix, I recorded the amount I could see through the single lens at a set distance. The results were then compared to the original model, with the Frameless mask producing a wider view by a single digit all-round. This was no surprise, because the lack of a frame actually puts the lens closer to the wearer’s eye-line, and this also gives the mask a lower volume than its predecessor. To put the results into context, the Venom Frameless provided a FOV that would have been in the top two of the 22 masks tested in May.