Visibility

[kmo]

How do you define visibility? Is it the distance over which you can see and identify fish, your partners orange snorkel tip, the reef, or the blurry outines of things?
It seems like a stupid question, but people are always talking about how many metres of vis they had and I'm never sure if I'm picturing it right.

Thanks,
Cam

 

[sickbugs]

i guess different people have different opinions on it, i define it as the distance i can see clearly, best vis ive had was about 100 feet, i could see my float 50 feet behind me, my partner was about 10 feet behind my float, and wayyyy off in the distance i could see the stringer hanging off of his float, with a 50 foot floatline. so yea.. i couldnt very clearly see the stringer, even tho i could see the outline of it, so i rounded the vis off to 100 feet

 

[jimqpublic]

Sickbugs-
That's just cruel. On a bad day in LA we don't have that much visibility through the air, let alone water.

I've wondered about the definition too. My initial take is that it's the distance you can identify familiar objects but not make out detail. So, you can make out a diver but not tell who it is, make out a fish by shape but not see colors, etc.

 

[freediver7]

How do you define visibility, Is a great question.
To me visibility is the rage at which I can differentiate game from non-game. My dive buddy from a grouper. I have passed up many shots because I thought a white sea bass was a harbor seal. It looked like a large gray object swimming on the outer edge of visibility.