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a web magazinea web magazineJune/July 2004Underwater PhotographyUnderwater Photography

Ikelite Canon 10-D Subal Canon G5 Subal Canon C1S Remote photography

Raki Raki Galapagos Freediving Basic digital Advanced digital Correcting lenses

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INON UKDigital solutions

Four strobes for thedigital enthusiast.Choose the features youneed including autoexposure and modellinglights.

Four macro lensesput extreme close upphotography within yourcapabilities. Available inscrew thread or fastmount bayonet fit.

Two wideangle lenses forshooting largesubjects.Optional domeport lets you useyour existinglens forsuperwide anglephotography.

Versatile arm systemputs precision lightingcontrol at your fingertips.EZ clamps hold strobesecurely in high current, yetprovide instant adjustmentfor creativity.

Official INON UK distributors:Ocean Optics

13 Northumberland Ave, London WC2N 5AQTel 020 7930 8408 Fax 020 78396148

E mail optics@oceanoptics.co.ukwww.oceanoptics.co.uk

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4 Editorial

5 Readers lives

6 News & Travel

13 New products

21 Raki Raki

by Jeff Mullins

Underwater PhotographyUnderwater Photographya web magazineJune/July 2004

e mail uwp@uwpmag.com

Contents

28 Galapagosconcern

by Sea Shepherd

31 Deep remote

with Alexander Mustard

36 Freediving photosby Sascha Schulz

Cover byAlexander Mustard

39 Basic digitalby Alexander Mustard

45 Correcting lensesby Peter Scoones

48 Digital SLR

by Peter Rowlands

52 Classifieds

54 Parting shotby Peter Rowlands

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EditorialSipadan to close

In May this year it was announced that all thedive operators on Sipadan have to dismantle theirdevelopments on the island and vacate by the end of2004. The aim of this is to try and help the islandand marine environment recover from decades ofconcentrated tourism and diving.

To anyone who has visited Sipadan recently Iunderstand this should hardly come as a surprise.Such intensive activity on so small an island wasbound to have a detrimental effect on the island andthe marine life.

What concerns me about this news is that thedive operators are not happy with the decision so Ican only assume that they would be willing to carryon attracting divers to the island until they havesucked out the very last drop of the island’sresources then there would be nothing left to attractdivers and their businesses would go bust.

This attitude is fairly typical in today’sbusiness led, profit motivated world but it doesn’tstop with just the dive operators. Some dive travelagents could be accused of piling in dive tourists tosuch fragile environments regardless of theconsequences until the ecosystem can take no moreand we, the travelling divers, are as guilty forcreating the demand to visit and dive such places.The result is that we are all, more or less, guilty.

I wish there was a solution where dive activityand natural resources could be balanced but I guessI’m asking for the impossible because there isalways a section of society who want to shoot thevery last elephant or eat the last shark fin.

The amazing internet

As I am sure you know, the beauty of UwP andthe internet is that there are no printing anddistribution costs which helps to keep it free butanother amazing thing about the internet is shownby how UwP19 has been finalised ready fordownloading.

My responsibilities are to put together eachIssue of UwP to as good a standard as possible frommy base (it’s more of a desk, really) near Londonand Deb Fugitt handles the website design andmarketing from Fort Worth, Texas. Everything wasgoing well with the production of UwP19 when Debgot an offer to do some research for a future projectin Indonesia. This meant she would be away at thetime UwP19 should be published but with the twinmiracles of a laptop computer and an Internet Cafein Tulamben we have been able to get UwP19 out toyou in time.

The other amazing thing about the internet andUwP is that the deadline for each issue is really onlya few minutes before the Issue is uploaded to theserver so to prove just that here is a photo of Deb inTulamben uploading the files for the website.

Now that I’ve got the photo I can add it to thispage and make the final pdf file of UwP19 (which islaid out in Adobe Pagemaker, since you asked).

With that done it takes a couple of minutes toupload to the server and be available worldwide atno charge!

Who said technology isn’t amazing?I realise that web site operators will be saying

to themselves “What’s the big deal? We arepeter@uwpmag.com

constantly updating our website from wherever weare in the world”. Well, yes I agree but UwP is a liketraditional magazine with good old fashioneddeadlines and when each issue is finished, that’s it.It doesn’t get changed, just like a traditionalmagazine.

The other benefit is that all Issues of UwP arestill available to download and the next Issue will bethe end of our 3rd year.

Where has the time gone?

5

Readers Lives

Want to have your say?

E mail peter@uwpmag.com

Any unwanted underwater photo equipment?

HiI am a photographer form Poland - north-east Europe - region Mazury-

near the Russian border.I am studying at The Academy of Fine Art in Gdansk - in the photography

departament. I love to take photos under ice in winter - this time is the best todive in Polish lakes because the water is clean (water visibility 5 to 15meters - Iknow that is not much but in Polish conditions it is very good). The thin ice isthe best background to take underwater landscapes with sunset - parts ofunderwater plants left in the ice. The underice mazury photography is veryspecific, because in winter light is very soft and in short lived.

I attach some samples of my work. I took all of underwater photos with aNikonos IVa with 35mm and Kodachrome 100 VS - and scanned them onaNikon Coolscan 4000 ED.

There is a very big problem to buy a underwater equipment in my country.It is very expensive for a student.

If you have any underwater equipment which is unnecessary to you or maybe broken, please send it to me. I will repair it and will be very happy. Newunderwater equipment is too expensive for a poor student. I will pay forshipping and any costs.

Plese visit my website - the english version will be soon....www.mazurypodlodem.prv.pl

Kind regards

LUKASZ OLUKE OGANOWSKIadmin@pletwal.comwww.mazurypodlodem.prv.pl

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News, Travel & EventsSouth Florida UPS

The South Florida UnderwaterPhotography Society is a non-profitorganization dedicated to thepromotion of underwater photographythrough its membership. The SouthFlorida Underwater PhotographySociety was created in 1980. SFUPSwas created as a means and place forfellow underwater photographers tomeet and talk with other underwaterphotographers to exchange and shareideas by discussing them. Theywould listen to lectures fromprofessional underwaterphotographers, organize interestingdives with photographic opportunitiesand promote the sport in general. Atthe time, there were only a few bookson the subject so people were learningabout underwater photography by trialand lots of errors. It was and still isword of mouth that has allowedSFUPS grow into what it is today.

SFUPS has been meeting at itscurrent location for 10 years nowwhich has grown into a monthlymeeting place where all who share thecommon interest of underwaterphotography are exploring andlearning from one another for the sakeof capturing better underwater images.

Monthly meetings consist of

guest speakers; slide presentations,intra-club slide competitions andexchanges of information relating toscuba diving and all aspects ofunderwater imaging. Each month acolorful newsletter is sent out byemail, which provides articles andphotos of the previous month’s intra-club contest winners. We alsoorganize dive trips both local andexotic with the photographer in mind.At year’s end at our holiday party, theperson with the highest pointsaccumulated from the contests andclub participationis awarded as ourphotographer of the year.

Everyone is invited to attend themeetings to learn more aboutunderwater photography and to meetothers who share the same interest.

SFUPS meets the secondTuesday of Each Month, exceptDecember, at the Holiday Inn atCalder Racetrack/Pro Player Stadium21486 NW 27th Avenue Just South ofthe Broward/Dade County Line7:30pm

Why did SFUPS get such alarge feature? They printed offour flyer to promote UwP! Seeour web site for details.

www.uwpmag.com

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Special Expedition toWolf & Darwin,Galapagos Islands16th-27th November 2004

Scuba Safaris are pleased toannounce that they have chartered theGalapagos Aggressor for a 7-nightcruise to Wolf & Darwin Island inNovember 2004.

Because they have chartered theentire vessel a very generous discountis available to all who join this trip.

The cost is £2695 per person intwin share which includes returneconomy class airfares from Londonto Galapagos Islands. All transfers. 2nights' hotel accommodation at theFour Points Sheraton on a bed &breakfast basis, 7 nights twin sharecabin aboard Galapagos Aggressorincluding all meals & drinks (exceptdinner on the final night of the cruise)5 days unlimited diving, tanks,weights & airfills.

For further details visitwww.scuba-safaris.com

2 Week Wreckfest atBikini AtollMay 6th-25th 2006

Always fancied doing TWOweeks at Bikini Atoll? Well, now'syour chance! Scuba Safaris arearranging a two week special trip inMay 2006 that will allow 24 dives onBikini's fabulous wrecks.

The cost is £4455 per person intwin share which includes all airfaresin economy class. All transfers. 2nights Honolulu & 1 night Majurohotel accommodation on a room onlybasis. All meals at Bikini Atoll. 24decompression dives at Bikini Atoll.Tanks, weights, airfills, Nitrox decomix & divemaster services.

For further details visitwww.scuba-safaris.com

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DIVEQUESTATOL Protected 2937 Telephone: 01254-826322

e-mail divers@divequest.co.uk website: www.divequest.co.uk

DIVEQUESTThe Ultimate in Diving

BahamasTurks & CaicosTobago, DominicaBonaire, VenezuelaLittle Cayman, Cozumel, BelizeHonduras, South Africa &MozambiqueThailand, Sipadan, MabulLayang LayangDerawan & SangalakiBali, Komodo, Wakatobi,Manado, Kungkungan Bay

Plus Underwater Photography Group Trips and Courses with leading

photographers: Martin Edge, Linda Dunk, Malcolm Hey,

Charles Hood, Gavin Anderson and Alex Mustard.

Palau, Yap, TrukBikini AtollAustralia's Coral SeaPapua New Guinea, SolomonsFrench PolynesiaFiji, Hawaii,Sea of CortezRevillagigedo IslandsCocos & Malpelo IslandsThe GalapagosWrecks of Palau

The Ultimate inUnderwater Photography Adventures

Photo

by P

at

Mor r

iss e

y

BLUE SHARKS ANDKELP FORESTS

The Channel Islands of SouthernCalifornia with Charles HoodSaturday 11th September - Sunday19th 2004 (9 days)

Charles Hood, the accomplishedunderwater photographer andjournalist, will return to the ChannelIslands to lead this tour, which is hischoice for the most unusualphotographic opportunities andexciting shark encounters. Charleswill be on hand for informalphotographic discussion and critique,but non-photographers are equallywelcome. Not only is this unique tripalmost impossible to arrange on anindividual basis, but travelling withCharles means that the group iscompletely in control of its owndiving management and will certainlybenefit from Charles’s knowledge andexperience.

The trip consists of 6 days divingincluding both boat diving aroundCatalina itself and all day shark divingtrips out into the Pacific Ocean. Nightdiving will be available (at extra cost).Nitrox, both 32% and 36%, isavailable for a supplementary charge,payable locally.

The cost is £1863 .For moredetails visit www.divequest.co.uk

WAKATOBIPHOTOQUEST6th October - 20th October 2004

Leader: Martin Edge

Martin Edge is widelyacknowledged as one of our leadingunderwater photographers and isprobably the finest teacher ofunderwater photography skills.

Martin’s expeditions combine thestimulus of diving with a group oflike-minded people with continuousinput from Martin himself in superbdiving locations.

During the trip, under theexperienced leadership of Martin andwith the support of Sylvia, you canexpect to learn both macro and wide-angle techniques including workingwith shallow water and sunlight,framing the shot, composition andindeed any topic that turns up.

With E-6 processing available ona daily basis at Wakatobi, mistakescan be rectified, techniques developedand skills honed.

www.divequest.co.uk

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Calling all underwater image

makers - send in your entries to AsiaPacific ‘s most prestigious underwaterimaging competitions.

Cash and Product prizes fromEPSON, NIKON, SEACAM, SONY,IKELITE, OceanNEnvironment,DIVE GEAR USA, ECO-SYS,Minahasa Lagoon Resort, MurexResort, Lembeh Resort, PulauSipadan Resort, Lankayan Resort,Redang Kalong Resort, Seraya Resort,Yos Diving Bali, Berjaya Resorts,Berjaya Time Square.

Deadline Registration: 1 July 2004

The Premier Awards

David Doubilet - Award ofExcellence

Stan Waterman - Award of Excellence

Celebrate the Sea Underwater ImageMaker Scholarship

Celebrate the Sea Underwater ImageMaker Photographer of the Year

OceanNEnvironment's / AsianGeographic Environment Award

Check at www.celebratethesea.com oremail cts@oneocean.com for anapplication form.

Celebrate the Sea Marine Imagery Festival29 July - 1 August, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

CELEBRATE THE SEA& WETPIXEL.COMDIGITAL PORTFOLIOCompetition

Underwater photographers -novice or professionals: this is thechance to enter the most prestigiousunderwater DIGITAL imagerycompetition in th world. Held inassociation with the Antibes FestivalMondial de I'lmage Sous Marine,WETPIXEL.Com and Celebrate theSea Imagery Festival Kuala Lumpur2004, the cash, equipment and holidayprizes are value to over USD $60,000.

Winning entries may also beselected as front cover photo forScuba Diver Australasia. The resultswill be announce at a GALA AWARDCeremony on 31 July 2004 in KualaLumpur.

Entry is easy Email:digital@oneocean.com for entry form.Or download entry form atwww.Celebratethesea.com orwww.Wetpixel.com

CELEBRATE THE SEA -Beneath SoutheastAsian Shoot-OutCompetition

The Shoot-Out competition is now inits second year and is the richest of

its kind in the world, with prizestotalling over USD 60 000 in cash,

equipment and holidays. Images mustbe captured between 1 January and 2July 2004 at one of the participatingresorts in South East Asia.

Check at www.celebratethesea.comfor information.

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Next 27th October – 1stNovember will be celebrated the 8th

edition of the underwater photographycompetition “Open InternacionalFotosub Isla de El Hierro”.

This is an international opencompetition that celebrates since 1996in the Marine Reserve located in thesmall island of El Hierro (CanaryIslands), one of the most appreciateddiving zones for European divers.

It is organised by the TouristBoard of El Hierro Island and CarlosMinguell (twice World Champion ofUnderwater Photography) is in chargeof the Technical Direction since 1998.

The “Open InternacionalFotosub Isla de El Hierro” consistsof two days of competition, with atotal of 4 dives in the best divingpoints. A collection of six slides(freely selected by the participant,without any obligatory categories) ispresented by each participant. A Jurycomposed by prestigious andexperienced underwaterphotographers gives the results on thelast day. There are big prizes for thebest collections and also other specialprizes to spectacular imagesrepresentatives of the uniqueness ofthe El Hierro waters and marine life.This year there will be a total of

18000 Euros of cash prizes.The number of participants is

limited to 28. For any enquiries aboutthe competition, please, write to theTechnical Direction Department:openfotosub@ocean-photos.com. Theinformation about the 8th OpenInternacional Fotosub Isla de ElHierro is available at http://www.openfotosub.com.

8th Open Internacional FotosubIsla de El Hierro

The Blue Dolphin ofMalta 2004International UnderwaterPhotographic Competition

The Federation of UnderwaterActivities – Malta (F.U.A.M)welcomes you to the Maltese Islandsand invites you to participate in the11th edition of the Blue Dolphin ofMalta international underwaterphotographic competition. Thisedition is being held on the beautifulsister island of Gozo from the 9th to14th November 2004.

For five days, competitors andtheir models, judges and journalistsfrom various countries, are meeting torespectively share and exchange, thepleasures and knowledge of capturingthe beauty and wonders of theMediterranean Sea. All will onceagain dive into Maltese Islands’ clearblue waters and shoot on film – tocapture not to kill - the beauty, colourand grace of the blue!

The Blue Dolphin of Maltabecame, and still is a very importantand renowned event throughout theinternational diving community.

The Blue Dolphin of Malta is anexcellent opportunity to discover thebeauty of the Mediterranean Sea andthe marine environment in general.The waters around Gozo are famousfor their clear blue waters, cave and

deep diving.Each competitor will compete

over two days (six hours), to present aset of three slides. The slides mustinclude one macro or close up (allsubjects except fish), one fish (macroor close up) and one wide angle(ambient).

A Disposable Cameracompetition is being included again toattract more divers to this specialityand encourage them to discoverunderwater photography. Finally, forthe first time, a Digital underwaterphotography competition is beingorganized for all those digitalenthusiasts.

The 11th Blue Dolphin of MaltaInternational UnderwaterPhotographic Competition isorganised by FUAM in collaborationwith Malta Tourism Authority (MTA),Malta Olympic Committee, ourofficial carrier Air Malta, MaltaMaritime Authority (MMA), FUJI andSt Andrews Dive Cove. Many thanksto all the other sponsors and otherpartners; without them there will beno Blue Dolphin of Malta.

For further information pleasevisit our website www.fuam.org orcontact FUAM on fuam@digigate.netor tel. 00356 99424275 or fax 0035621578167

11

Digital Shootout Fiji 2004

Around 50 people attended this years shootoutin Taveuni, Fiji from May 6th to 15th sponsored byWetpixel, Backscatter, Light & Motion, Adobe andOptiquatics and hosted at the Garden Island Resort.

There was a competition at the end of the tripand the standard of images was very high.

The " traditional " categories allow for theadjustment of brightness, contrast, color, andsharpness. Cropping, cloning, and other digitalmanipulation is not allowed in the traditionalcategories. This restriction on digital manipulationwill enable folks who aren't as savvyat digital manipulation to competeon more-or-less even ground withthose who are more experienced. "Unrestricted " categories have nosuch rules regarding manipulation.

Backscatter, Light & Motion,Adobe, and the Garden Island Resorthere in Fiji all donated significantprizes, including copies of AdobePhotoshop CS and Premiere Pro,gift certificates for credit atBackscatter, Light & Motionhousings for Olympus and Nikoncameras, and a 7-day trip for twoback to the Garden Island Resort!

Details of all the entrants are athttp://wetpixel.com/features/

shootout2004 Unrestricted Wide - 1st Place: PeterMooney

Unrestricted Macro - 1st Place:Marc Hannigan

Traditional Wide - 1st Place: KenBailey

Traditional Macro - 1st Place: Ken BaileyBest of show - Greg Bang

12

Underwater Housings

for

Nikon CoolPix ����True TTL with

Ikelite Substrobes

Olympus C�����True TTL with

Ikelite DS Substrobes

Canon Powershot Pro �

Sony DSC�F���

FFeatures:

• Clear Molded Polycarbonate• Corrosion Free• Interchangeable Port System• Clear View of Info Window• Clear View of LCD screen• Most Camera Functions Available• Weighted for Neutral Buoyancy• Quick�Release Strobe Mounts• Rubber Hand Grips• External Connector for Substrobes• Super�eye Magnifier for Enhanced

Viewing with a Dive Mask�• Weight ���lbs� (��k)• Dimensions ��"L x ���"W x ���"H

(�cm x ��cm x ��cm)

To extend the capabilities of thedigital SLR cameras Ikelite hasdesigned a new underwater housing�This housing is injection molded ofclear polycarbonate for strength�visual access to the camera� lcdscreens and camera controls� Theergonomic design places camerafunctionality at your fingertips forthe ultimate in creative control� Theinterchangeable port system accom�modates a wide variety of lensesfrom super�wide angle to super�macro� The rubber handles offerexcellent grip and a quick releasesystem for Ikelite's new SA���� Armsystem� An external Ikelite connectoris provided to connect single or dualIkelite Substrobes�

For

Canon EOS Rebel

Canon EOS 300D

Canon EOS 10D

Canon EOS D60

Nikon D70

Nikon D100

Digital SLR Housing

Digital SLR Housings

u s a

Underwater Systems� W rd Street

Indianapolis� IN ����� ���� ���

Ikelite also offers afull line of housingsfor Non�SLR digitalcameras� Beginner�amateur� or pro�

simply get an Ikelite housing foryour favorite digital camera�Choose from Canon� Nikon�Olympus or Sony� Ikelitemakes housings for severalcamera models from each ofthese manufacturers�

Ikelite supports their underwaterdigital housings with a full line ofaccessories� Choose from trays

with single or dual handle andquick release of strobes� The DS�

Substrobe is ideal for cameras withzoom lenses or choose the DS�� foruse with wide�angle lenses� ManyNikon and Olympus models offer

true TTL lighting exposure� or use ourEV�Controller that gives �� power

settings in �/� stop increments forcomplete manual lighting control�

Ikelite also offers a choice in versatilearm systems to meet your needs andbudget�

New digital cameras are beingintroduced at a rapid pace� For the latestinformation on new digital housing modelsvisit our web site�

www�ikelite�com

88megapixels

13

Compact newdSLR housingsystem is veryrealistically priced,features fullcapabilities, andoperates safely to200 feet depth.

All ports fromour SLR systemscan be utilized,allowing use ofmost macro, wideangle, and zoomlenses. This systemallows you to see that the port issealed.

The housing "O" ring seal is amasterpiece in fail-safe simplicitycompared to designs that requirestuffing the "O" ring into a groove.You can see that the "O" ring issealed.

The heavy duty thick wallhousing is molded of corrosion freeclear polycarbonate. The ReleaseHandle system allows easy attachmentand removal of SubStrobe mountingarms at the touch of a button. Twoscrews remove the handle and trayassembly for traveling.

The housing size and weightprovides neutral buoyancy and superbhandling underwater. Camerainstallation is quick and simple. Thedependable controls are convenientlyplaced at your fingertips, and keptwater tight with Ikelite pioneeredQuad-Ring seal glands proven to bethe most reliable method for sealingcontrols.

The Ikelite Super-Eye magnifierprovided with the housing offersenhanced viewing while wearing adiving mask.

For further details visitwww.ikelite.com

Ikelite Canon 10-D Digital SLR Housing

This small 3oz battery testertests your batteries under load. Itcomputes the remaining powercapacity using a 2-second pulse loadtest.

You'll have the confidence ofknowing if your charging in a foreigncountry has charged your batteries tofull capacity or how much power isleft in your alkaline batteries.

Will test AA, AAA, C, D, NIMHor NiCd, alkaline, and 3 v photolithium, or 9v. It runs on 4 AAAbatteries.

This is a must have for your toolbox at home or abroad and it costs just$29.50 plus shipping.

For further details visitwww.ulcs.com

ULCS Multi-Batterytester now available

Fantasea CP-3.7Housing for Coolpix3700Due to Launch in June/July

The CP-3.7 is purpose designedfor the Nikon Coolpix 3700 camera.

There are 4 camera functioncontrol buttons including: Zoom/WideAngle, Review,

The maximum operating depth is40meters/130 ft.

Other Fantasea products include:Protective Bag, Dry Bag, HousingTray Double, Housing Tray, Flex Arm36, Flex Arm 24, Wide Angle/MacroLens set. Digital Photo Light, EpoqueDigital Slave Flash

For further information visitwww.fantasea.com

New products

Features:

���� ��� www�ikelite�com

14

Subal C1S housing forthe Canon EOS-1DS

Subal is pleased tooffer for the first time everan aluminum housing for afull format digital SLR-camera; the professionalCanon EOS-1DS. The SubalC1S housing is designedwith attention to detailwithout compromise toquality and fuctionality. Thecamera is mounted onmounting saddle for precisecamera positioning. Theunique Subal Quicklocklatching system makes it virtuallyimpossible to lock the back housingplate if the o- ring is not placedcorrectly in the o-ring channel.

Threaded holes on the base andin the top shoe allows mounting oftrays, aiming lights or otheraccessories. Generous shading of theLCD-monitor provides a bright andclear image. An excellent viewfinderoptic provides full frame viewing.

All Subal ports with bayonetmount are compatible with the SubalC1S.

There are ontrols for: On/off,Shutter release, Manual Focus/Zoom,Front and Rear main Dial,LensRelease, LCD-light, Exposure comp,AE lock, focus Area Selector,Mode,

AF-Mode, Exposure MeteringSystem, Protect, Menu, Select,Display,delete, Quality, WhiteBalance

2 x flash socket are provided(other options include : Nikonos,Ikelite, Subtronic S6 sockets. Pleasenote that TTLmode is only availablewith S6 socket and Canon digital flashstrobe)

The housing dimensions are :260mm x 230mm x 155mm (B x H xD), w/o handle and port and it weighs:approx. 2.7 kg with a maximum depthrating of 70 meters (210 feet)

For further details visitwww.subal.com

Precision cast housings ofcorrosion resistant aluminum

web site: www.jonah.co.krDealer

InquiriesWelcome

email: korean@ postech.edu

for Canon 10D and Nikon D100 Digital Cameras

Jonah C10D

for Canon

10D camera

Jonah Housings

Jonah ND100

for Nikon

D100 camera

15

Hard to believe, butOcean Optics is nearlythirty years old. When wecame onto the scene, theNikonos 111 was state ofthe art and it didn't evenhave a built in light meter.

Now the state of theart is represented by digital

SLRs with multi metering,autofocus, instant playback and able to

shoot hundreds of frames per dive.And, as always, we've played our part in ensuring our clients can

choose from the best equipment available. Equipment made to thehighest specifications to meet the demands of working in the toughestenvironment on earth.

Such equipment may not come cheap. But if you measure value in terms ofperformance and reliability, as we do, then it's an investment in your own success asan underwater photographer.

How do we know how to select the best equipment from an ever widening choice?Nearly thirty years of experience.Ocean Optics. Specialists in Underwater Photography.

Invest in success

Ocean

Optics

13 Northumberland Avenue

London WC2N 5AQ

Tel 020 7930 8408

Fax 020 7839 6148

optics@oceanoptics.co.uk

www.oceanoptics.co.uk

Subal C1S housingfor Canon EOS-1DS

16

The combination of the CanonPowerShot G5 and the Subal CG5continues Subal’s drive to offerunderwater digital photography to asemi-pro caliber. Generous shadingof the LCD-monitor provides a brightand clear image.

Subal CG5 housing for Canon PowerShot G5

MANUFACTURERS OF THE MOST VERSATILE,

LIGHTEST WEIGHT & MOST FLEXIBLE ARMS AVAILABLE

VISIT OUR WEBSITE: WWW.ULCS.COM

FIND A DEALER NEAR YOU OR

WRITE TO US: INFO@ULCS.COM

Now you have yourOlympus, Canon, or Sony digitalhousing, how do you hold onto itunderwater? Ultralight makes atray and handle to accomplishthis.

Would you like to use astrobe or spotting light adapterwith your new digital housing?Now you can, Ultralight makesarms and spotting lightadapters to attach to the handle.

Maybe you would like tohave two strobes, their tray makesinto a double tray with the quickaddition of two pieces.

Do you have Ikelite strobesand manual controllers and needto be able to attach those items toyour housing. Ultralight makesadapters for the manualcontrollers that have a ball on theend so you can then add arms.

There are controls for On/off,Shutter release, Command dial, Modedial, Flash/Index, Exposure MeteringSystem, Macro/Jump, Manual Focus,Manual Focus, Omni Selector, Set,Menu, AE-Lock/Delete, Function,Display

The dimensions are: 170mm x145mm x 105mm (B x H x D), w/ohandle and port. The weight is approx.1.3 kg with the flat port and it is depthrated to 70 meters (210 feet).

For further details visitwww.subal.com

Digital VideoHOUSINGSDigital VideoHOUSINGS

Digital Still CameraHOUSINGSDigital Still CameraHOUSINGS

Ocean Images

& Equinox Housings

For Sony, Canon

& Panasonic

Camcorders.

The Olympus &

Canon Housings

Slave & TTL Flash

Packages &

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www.oceanbrite.com

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4943 Pretty Doe LanePaso Robles, CA 93446

17

Sea & SeaDX-3100 Aquapixrecall

Sea & Sea have been informedby their R&D department of thepossibility of cracks appearing in thebattery compartment door or/and inthe USB compartment door of theDX-3100 Aquapix amphibious camerathat may lead to water leakage.

Although they have onlyreceived a limited number of thesereports, even the remotest possibilityof this condition appearing hasprompted them to take affirmative andpositive action and therefore wewould like to request that you returnyour DX-3100 Aquapix to the Sea &Sea dealer where it was purchased, orto an official Sea&Sea distributor fortesting and any necessary upgrading ifwithin these corresponding serialnumbers.

Corresponding Serial Numbersare : 030200001-030204016

Sea&Sea would like to apologizefor any inconvenience this may causeyou, and will make every effort toship back your camera as soon as itcan in cooperation with Sea&Seaofficial distributor in your region.

For more information visitwww.seaandsea.com

L&M Tetra 5060

The Tetra5060 is acompact fullfeaturedhousing thatprovides access

to most camera controls in a userfriendly layout. Housing providesaccess to the LCD screen for instantfeedback and accurate subjectcomposition.

The Tetra 5060 measures in at:5.625" w x 3.625" h x 3.25" d andweighs in at: 3.5 lbs.

Tetra 5060 housing MSRP is$1599

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We began our descentfrom the dive boat to ashallow reef-top only eightmetres below. This shallowreef was actually the top of ahuge coral-encrustedpinnacle, rising vertically outof much deeper water. As wearrived, a pair of mackerelswooped in and beganattacking a massive school offusiliers that were shelteringaround the top of thepinnacle, scattering the schoolin nervous fright.

Waiting for our divecompanions to descend, webegan exploring the shallowedge of the reef and quicklyrealised how rich thispinnacle was. A riot ofcoloured soft corals in brightpink, fiery-orange and blood-red lined the edge. Orangebasslet fish danced above thesoft corals and a big grand-daddy lionfish hoveredgracefully along the edge. Allthis and we had only just leftthe surface!

This dive at ‘Golden

Dreams’ was to be one of ourfavourites and is just one ofdozens of sites that are dottedaround the reefs offshorefrom the north coast of VitiLevu in the Fiji Islands. VitiLevu is Fiji’s largest islandand is where the capital Suvais located. We decided to diveoff the northern coast aroundthe district of Raki Raki as wehad heard that the reefs herehad pristine soft corals andmarine life. Plus the area isonly a two and a half hourdrive by car from theInternational Airport at Nadi.

Raki Raki is a rural areawith cane farming as its mainindustry, though many of thenative Fijians are fishermen.Within a few kilometres ofshore are a handful of islandssurrounded by a maze of coralreefs, eroded with caves andswim-throughs. Furtheroffshore in the Vatu-I-RaPassage are reefs andpinnacles that offer Worldclass diving. The offshorereefs have traditionally been

Raki RakiFiji’s Soft Coral ParadiseBy Jeff Mullins

The reef crest at ‘Golden Dreams’ is a riot of colours, here a lionfish meanders through a field ofsoft corals. Canon AE1P, Sigma28mm, Tussey T300 dome port,AquaSea 140 strobe & Slave,Velvia, f11 @ 1/60th.

(Right) The Cookie Monsterwas found in a small cave at‘Mellow Yellow’ No touch-upshere, this is exactly how I foundit. Canon AE1P, Canon 50mmmacro, Tussey T300 flat port,Aqua Sea 140 & Slave, Velvia,f13.5 @1/60th.

22

accessible only from a few live-aboard dive vessels that ply thesewaters, but are now able to be divedfrom day trips operating from RakiRaki.

The largest of the offshoreislands is Nananu-I-Ra; here a fewchalet accommodations are locatedright on the beaches around the island.Two dive operators service the area,offering day trips out to the reefs. RaDivers visit only the inshore siteswithin 30 minutes of Nananu-I-Ra

Island. While Bamboo Reef Diverstravel out to the open water reefs inVatu-I-Ra Passage, around one hoursboat journey from the island - plus theinshore sites as well. The really goodnews here is that diving is still in itsinfancy, new sites are still beingdiscovered, so the area hasn’t beendived to death!

Among the dozen or so dive sitesthe inshore area has to offer, all hadinteresting and varied reef profiles.Huge rocky reefs with vertical walls

Oni Beach at Nananu I Ra Island is a kilometre of uninhabited tropicalparadise.

The jetty area on Nananu I Ra island has a nice beach with twoaccommodations nearby. Canon T-70, Sigma 15mm lens, in natural light, 50Velvia f8@ 1/125th.(Right) This tiny juvenile lionfish was found hovering among the shallows at‘Golden Dreams’. Canon AE1P, Canon 50mm macro, Tussey T300 flat port,Aqua Sea 140 & Slave, Velvia, f16 @1/60th.

23

and eroded with caves, holes andledges gives a feeling of exploringrather than just finning above the reef.Among our favourites reefs were -

Dream-Maker a collection ofhuge bommies sitting very close toeach other, some reaching up from25m to only 6m below the surface.Many of the bommies have swim-throughs, small caves and big ledgesthat are lined with gorgonian fans, softcorals and sea whips. Fish life consistsmostly of smaller colourful species,though we did see white-tip reefsharks and a huge puffer fish here.

Golden Dreams {where this

article begins} is a large area ofinterconnected bommies, with varyingdepths from 9m down to 25m. It soonbecomes apparent where the namecomes from; the sides of three bigbommies are covered in golden softcorals. The balance of the bommies,plus the ridges and reefs thatinterconnect them, are coated instunning soft corals in the deeperareas and huge plate corals in theshallower sections. We saw Lionfishon every dive here (including one tinypale-yellow coloured juvenile) andhordes of basslet fish in the shallows.Coral Trout, sweetlips and snappers

were always around.The Maze is just that, a virtual

maze of big reefs and bommies thathave a mixture of gullies, caves,holes, canyons and ledges. Depthsvaried from 8m down to 23m and itcould be easy to get lost here, butwhat a place to get lost! Some of Fiji’sbest soft corals line the walls andledges and it seemed the prettiestcorals were just below the boatmooring. We saw a large school ofsweetlips, lobsters and some terrificnudibranchs here.

Breathtaker is located adjacentto Golden Dreams, and is a group of

bommies reaching up from a longridge of reef that finishes abruptly at asteep wall falling to beyond 100m.This wall is the best place to seesharks around Raki Raki, white-tipsare always found here, along withalmost guaranteed sightings ofwhalers and black-tips. We also sawmoray eels, schooling snapper,barracuda, mackerel and some greatanemone fish.

Marama Totoka (BeautifulLady) has some shallow reefs withstunning soft corals and swarms ofanthias covering the tops of mostbommies in only 6-8m deep. The

(Left) The gorgonia ledge at a ‘Dua Tali’ a dive site everyone wanted to diveagain, hence the Fijian name meaning ‘Once More’. Nikonos III & 15mm,Aqua Sea 140 & Slave, Provia, f5.6 @ 1/60th.(Above)The shallow reef-tops are often covered with anemones andAnemonefish. Canon AE1P, Sigma 90mm macro, Tussey T300 extended flatport, Aqua Sea 140 & Slave, Velvia, f16 @ 1/60th.

24

bommies come out of 12-15m of water, though thereis some deeper water on the outer extremities of thebommies, where we explored ledges and smallcaves.

The reefs further offshore from Raki Raki inthe Vatu-I-Ra Passage offer some beautiful divesites. These are all open ocean dives on pinnaclesthat rise from phenomenal depths, we visited in aperiod of strong south-easterly winds but were stillable to dive some of the best sites in fantasticunderwater conditions. The best that we saw were -

Black Magic Mountain is a solitary pinnaclestarting at 7 metres with almost vertical walls. Oneside has a ridge leading away at 27 metres, butaround the rest of the small pinnacle, the bottomwas out of sight. The entire reef was covered in softcorals and gorgonian fans, pelagic fish action wasnon-stop, a huge school of surgeonfish and fusiliershung just off the reef. Trevally arrived in bursts,

sending the fusiliers into panic on each pass. Aschool of barracuda hovered at the edge of the ridge,and on the reef were coral cod, sweetlips, plusthousands of basslets surrounded the soft corals -what a dive!

G-6 was a heart pounding drift around adouble-topped pinnacle with a shallow channelthrough the middle. The current here keeps the fishlife very active. Grey reef sharks hover over thesand beyond 30 metres, while big schools of fishparaded past. The reef has a series of ledges from 8metres down to 25 metres on one face and verticalto 40 metres on another side. Soft corals wereeverywhere and one big overhang was ‘dripping’with the bright yellow Siphonogorgia soft coral.

Garden of Eden had a reef just a meter belowthe surface, this dropped vertically to between 10-18metres where the bottom sloped out to deeper water.The wall has a series of large crevices running into

the reef face, these can be entered carefully to viewhuge gorgonian fans and soft corals. The deeperslope has beautiful small bommies where soft coralsare surrounded by thousands of basslets. We alsosaw parrotfish, scorpion fish and a group of waloothat cruised past checking us over.

Mellow Yellow is a shallow bommie connectedat about 18 metres to a deeper bommie, both ofthem are coated with a bright yellow soft coral. Thisreef had lots of interesting macro life; dragonnudibranchs, a small anemone with a dozenanemone fish darting around, scorpion fish, paintedoysters, angelfish, leaf fish and lots of coral cod in

(Left) The shallow reef-crests are a mass ofcolourful soft coralssurrounded by basslets.Nikonos III & 15mm,Aqua Sea 140 & Slave,Provia, f13.5 @ 1/60th.

(Right) Groups of ClingGobies inhabited mostgorgonia fans on theoffshore reefs. CanonAE1P, Sigma 90mmmacro, Tussey T300extended flat port, AquaSea 140 & Slave, Velvia,f22 @ 1/60th.

25

the crevices.Pot Luck is adjacent to Garden

of Eden and is the corner of the samereef. We loved this place as it hadvery little current, but buzzed withlife. Lots of ledges and mini caves toexplore, and ridges loaded withgorgonians and soft corals all in fullbloom. We swam around the cornerinto a howling current, turned aroundand just hung-back around the areawhere all the action was - without thecurrent. Finds here included ghostpipefish, big sweetlips being cleaned,a turtle, beautiful gobies, nudibranchs,leaf fish plus all the usual reef fishmeandering around.

On our non-diving days we wentbeachcombing and exploringmangroves along the shore or justwalked around the island. Day tripsare available to the mainland to visitwaterfalls; traditional Fijian villagesor the once-a-week market onSaturday’s at Raki Raki township ishighly recommended.

One of the greatest attractions wefound in Fiji was the native Fijiansthemselves. We had heard manyaccounts from visitors to Fiji beforeour inaugural dive trip. Yet onecomment in particular stood out,because everyone we spoke to told usthe same thing - The Fijian people aregreat, you’ll find them so warm andfriendly. Well we certainly weren’tdisappointed, after two trips here weconcluded that the Fijian people were

the friendliest we had ever met, mostof them treating us like old friendsafter only meeting them for a fewdays or even hours.

The best time of year to visit isfrom May through to November,when rainfall is least and sunny daysprevail. Underwater visibility is oftenover 30 metres on the offshore sites,while inshore is between 10-20metres. Diving is possible in the rainyseason (December to April), but

underwater visibilitycan be restricted,particularly on theinshore sites.

Dive Operatorsin the Raki Raki area are;

Bamboo Reef Divers - are basedat Bamboo Beach Resort on Nananu-I-Ra Island. e-mailinfo@bambooreefdivers.com or webaddress iswww.bambooreefdivers.com

Ra Divers - are located atWananavu Beach Resort. e-mailradivers@is.com.fj or web address iswww.radivers.com

Places to Stay;On Nananu-I-Ra Island;Bethams Beach Cottages and

(Above) The reef-top at the ‘Pinnacles’ has many varietiesof anemonefish. Canon AE1P, Sigma 90mm macro, TusseyT300 extended flat port, Aqua Sea 140 & Slave, Velvia, f19@ 1/60th.(Right) The vertical walls of Black Magic Mountain arehome to schooling surgeonfish, fusiliers and basslets.Nikonos III & 15mm, Aqua Sea 140 & Slave, Provia, F5.6@ 60th.

26

Resort) opened in March 2004 undernew American ownership with its owndive operation (see above).

On the Mainland;Wananavu Beach Resort is

located on the mainland, on apeninsula just across the water fromNananu-I-Ra Island. Though theresort has full facilities with nicerooms, great food and a pool - sadlythe beach is unattractive mud.

Jeff Mullins

Jeff is a freelance photo-journalist residing in Perth, WesternAustralia. Jeff’s first article waspublished in 1979, in Skindiving inAustralia magazine. His works havesince been published widely in otherdive related magazines including;Ocean Realm, Sportdiving, AsianDiver, Scuba Diver, Discover Diving,GEO, Dive Log Australasia, plusvarious airline in- flight magazines,newspapers and travel publications.

Jeff self-published his first bookDive Western Australia, in 1993. Hisbook credits include Australia DownUnder, Dive Australia, Atlas ofAustralian Dive Sites & Top DiveSites of Australia.

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McDonalds Nananu Beach Cottagesare both self-contained chaletaccommodations, right on a beautifulbeach. Both have a small restaurantand shop to purchase food andessentials, plus they arrange boattransfers to and from the mainland.They also have back-packerdormitories. Web Address forBethams is http://www.bethams.com.fj/.

A resort high on the island’shilltop was being refurbished duringour last visit, Bamboo Beach Resort(formerly the Mokusigas Island

The offshore reefs have been eroded by wave action, forming caves andledges, where soft corals corals thrive. Nikonos III & 15mm, Aqua Sea 140 &Slave, Provia, f8 @ 1/60th.

27

Pieced together after much research and told for the first time in thisautobiography is the astounding story of what is regarded as the greatestachievement in the history of marine salvage - the raising of the German Fleet atScapa Flow.

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The Sea Shepherd conservationresearch ship Farley Mowat arrived inPuerto Ayora, Galapagos on themorning of May 6, 2004. As the shipwas clearing Customs andImmigration, a fishing boat passedclose by, escorted by Park rangers. Onthe deck were a number of recentlyslaughtered Galapagos sharks.

It was a timely arrival. It was theeve of a threatened strike byfishermen that promised moreviolence against the National Park.The fishermen who have already laidwaste to entire areas of sea cucumbersdemanded an extended season tofurther exploit the surviving numbersof the species.

At one dollar an animal, and withthe demand climbing from the Asianmarket, the sea cucumber has beenunder intense pressure fromexploitation for many years. As thenumbers decrease, the demand and theprice increase.

The Galapagos National Park isvery much aware of how dangerouslythreatened the sea cucumber is. Eachyear, hundreds of thousands of thesesmall creatures are confiscated frompoachers, unfortunately all dead.

Concern in the GalapagosA report from Sea Shepherd

Captain Paul Watson

In preparation for the strike, therangers had strung up barbed wirebarricades at the Park office entranceson Santa Cruz and Isabela Islands.

Eighty fishermen marchedthrough the streets of Puerto Ayora onthe morning of May 7th , brandishingsigns and loudly screaming throughmegaphones for the government togive them what they wanted.

And what they wanted was totake more than the biologistsconsidered ecologically safe to take.In fact the biologists had warned thatnone was too many!

The decision was to be made atnoon on the mainland in Ecuador.

Out at anchor, the crew of theFarley Mowat saw a large Ecuadoriantuna seiner, the Rocio enter the bay, itcame straight towards us. Her shapewas familiar, similar to the dolphinkilling tuna seiners we have longclashed with in the Eastern TropicalPacific.

She circled, took aim at us andthen dropped her anchor as close asshe could. Her crew were jeering andwhen spying our femalecrewmembers began to make obscene

Out at anchor, the crew of the Farley Mowat saw a large Ecuadorian tunaseiner, the Rocio enter the bay, it came straight towards us. Her shape wasfamiliar, similar to the dolphinkilling tuna seiners we have longclashed with in the EasternTropical Pacific.Photo right ©2000-2004Bonnie Pelnar

29

gestures.According to the Park rangers,

the tuna seiners were claiming amedical emergency although wewitnessed no one being removed toshore for medical care. One of therangers confided in me his suspicionthat they were in the Bay to supportthe strikers.

At noon, the strike did notmaterialize. The government in Quitohad capitulated to the fishermen’sdemands without resistance and had

allocated to them the extension andthe quota they were demanding. Fortyfive days to loot four million pepinos(sea cucumbers) from the sea. Despitethis there was grumbling among thefishermen that they should havedemanded more.

On the conservation side thefeeling is that none is too many. Onthe exploitation side the position isthat four million is not enough. Thisalone illustrates the vast chasmbetween nature defenders and nature

destroyers. And for those who say thatI reveal my bias when I call thefishermen destroyers, I say come tothe Galapagos and see for yourselfhow subsistence has been replaced bysystematic plundering of the seabedsfor pepinos and ruthless looting of themarine reserve for shark fins.

Both sharks and sea cucumbersare being exterminated to satisfy theinsatiable demand for shark fin soupand sea cucumber delicacies in Asia.

The tuna seiner left AdmiraltyBay later in the afternoon but notbefore our crew witnessed themsmuggling a boatload of large fishashore in the daylight within full viewof the Port Captain’s office.

As the sun set in the evening ofMay 7th, I contemplated the changesthat I have seen in these islands sincewe first began our project in 2000.

Four years ago, the town ofPuerto Ayora was quiet, prices werelow, there was one internet cafe, and apolicy that a car could only be broughtto the island if an old car wasremoved. Marine iguanas sunnedthemselves on the sidewalk, bluefooted boobies dove into the Bay bythe score, lava lizards and red crabsscurried excitedly over the shorerocks, frigate birds circled the town onthermals.

The first telephone was installedas recently as 1993. Today the U.S.company, Bell South is well

established with pay phones, internetaccess and cell phones.

I have watched each year as thetown has grown with migrants fromthe mainland arriving every day.There are three times as many carsand trucks and four wheel all terrainvehicles roar down the street and intothe bush. Whereas TAME airlinesonce flew to the island every threedays, there are three TAME flightsfrom and to the mainland every day. Asecond airline AeroGAL has alsobegun operations to the mainland.There is no problem finding aninternet cafe, restaurants and hotelsare plentiful, and the menus boast ofseafood cornucopias ranging indiversity from shellfish, lobsters,grouper, tuna, barracuda and shark.The hillsides of the islands breedcattle and goats to provide therestaurants with meat.

Last year, a record of 95,000tourists visited the Galapagos. Thenumber is expected to be greater thisyear.

We are witnessing theHawaiianization of the Galapagos.

A society is evolving that hasfour distinct divisions. There are thosewho are here to protect the Park andthe Marine Reserve and to pursue theobjectives of science. This includesthe Park rangers, the scientists at the

As the ship was clearing Customs andImmigration, a fishing boat passedclose by, escorted by Park rangers.On the deck were a number of recentlyslaughtered Galapagos sharks.

A Park Ranger examining confiscatedsea cucumbers. (Sea cucumbers arerelated to sea urchins and starfish.)

30

Darwin Research Center and representatives of non-profit organizations like the Sea ShepherdConservation Society and WildAid.

The second group are those who are employedin the tourist industry. This includes licensed guides,scuba diving, guided tours, eco-tourism boats,restaurants, hotels and internet cafes. Amongst theguides there are two categories. The first are theguides who are involved because of their love andtheir passion for nature. The second category arerelatively new guides from the mainland who seeprofit as their first priority.

The third group are the fishermen. This groupcan be divided into the original subsistencefishermen and the much larger group of recentlyarrived migrants from the mainland of Ecuador who

see the islands as a temporary place to plunderbefore returning to South America. It is thesefishermen who are causing the most damage to theresident species and it is this group that isspearheading the destruction of the Galapagos.

The fourth group is the Ecuadorian military.Most of the rest of the world if they think of

the Galapagos at all envision a natural paradisepopulated with giant tortoises, magnificent iguanasand unique species of birds. Many express surprisewhen informed that between 20,000 and 30,000people now live in the islands, that there are a half amillion feral goats on Isabela Island, that the babytortoises must be captured and raised at the Parkstation until they are large enough to be returned tothe wild when the rats can no longer threaten them.

They would be surprised also at the number ofdead iguanas lying dead after attacks by domesticdogs and cats, at the number of chickens runningaround competing with wild birds for food and thenumber of small birds lying dead on the roadswhere hundreds are struck down every day by cars,trucks and buses.

And they would be horrified to witness thenumber of shark fins routinely confiscated frompoachers, of Galapagos seals mutilated for theirgenitalia to be sold to the Asian markets, of deadhammerhead and Galapagos sharks decomposing onthe bottom of dive sites after having their finsripped off while still alive and then tossed back intothe deep to die a slow death.

The Galapagos are in serious trouble and underheavy assault by those who see these enchantedisles as nothing more than a place to be exploitedfor profit.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society hasbeen working to support the efforts of the

Galapagos National Park for four years now. Ourcontribution of the fast patrol vessel Sirenian hasled to the intervention and capture of numerousillegal fishing activities.

The Sirenian is supported by the patrol vesselGuadalupe River and a third vessel the SierraNegro is being built to reinforce the enforcementfleet.

But we need to do more. The Parks needmaterials, equipment, law enforcement instructionand of course - money.

The Galapagos National Park and theGalapagos Marine Reserve are World Heritage sitesand the responsibility for the protection of theseincredible islands must be an international effort.

The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society ispledged to continue to devote time and funding tothe Galapagos. It is our line in the sand. If wecannot save the Galapagos, how can we save therest of the world’s threatened places?

SeaShepherdConservationSocietywelcomesyoursupport.

To learn how to support ourconservation work, please visit:www.seashepherd.org/donate.shtml .

Many express surprise when informed that between20,000 and 30,000 people now live in the islands.The first telephone was installed as recently as1993. Today the U.S. company, Bell South is wellestablished with pay phones, internet access andcell phones.

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On average, the ocean is 3800metres deep. It covers 71% of theearth’s surface and 88% of it is deeperthan 1000m. I’ve never been able tocomprehend such a volume of water,such a volume of habitat. As a diver Irarely take photos deeper than 30m,that’s less than 1% of the averagedepth. Technical divers are a bit moreadventurous than I am and they maytake pictures as deep as about 100m,which is not even 1% of the maximumdepth of the ocean. It’s fair to say thatdiving photographers are only justscratching the surface.

We humans are visual creatures,40% of the sensory inputs to ourcortex are from our eyes. We alsohave an inexorable curiosity about theworld around us. So just havingimages from the top 1% of the oceanis fundamentally unsatisfying! Marinescientists have been bringing backimages from the deep for many years,but they have always been scarce.Submersibles are expensive and timeaboard is always short, which rarelygives time to create high qualityimages when science is the priority.

Remotely OperatedPhotographyBy Alexander Mustard and Daniel Jones

Lowered, towed and fixed camerasystems are preset and fire autonomouslyand are excellent for time lapsesequences. However, these systems offerno chance for intervention by thephotographer, and basically rely onchance to create an interesting image.The real change for deep seaphotography came with the proliferationof remotely operated vehicles or ROVsthat offer real time control of both thevehicle and the underwater camerasystem and can work right around theclock.

As the Oil and Gas Industry hasexplored further offshore, they haveinvested in a large ROV fleet for bothexploration and routine maintenance.The lengthy trip that ROVs make to andfrom the surface uses valuable time, so ina normal working day many of thesevehicles sit idle on the seabed betweenjobs. A new scientific project, SERPENT,hosted at Southampton OceanographyCentre, has been set up with partners inthe offshore industry to make the bestscientific use of this ROV standby time.The SERPENT project has also enabledthe scientists to bring back some really An ROV being launched. North of Scotland.

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exciting new images from the deepocean.

Technologically the realbreakthrough for ROV photographycame with digital cameras. The LCDscreen frees the photographer fromactually having to be down therelooking through an optical viewfinder.There is no reason why the LCDscreen needs to be down there withthe camera. Instead the previewimages are passed to the surface via afibre optic line in the umbilical cable

that attaches the ROV to the surface.The umbilical can be up to 10km longfor deep water work. The cameracontrol commands can then bereturned to the camera back down theumbilical.

ROV photographic equipment isstill fairly bespoke, so here we willdescribe the ROV and cameraconfiguration that we used on thelatest SERPENT mission in 600m ofwater in the Faroe-Shetland Channel.The study area was on the east bank

of the Channel, 180km north ofScotland, UK. The seabed here isscattered with ice rafted material:gravel, sand and boulders dropped ofthe underside of icebergs as theymelted. This material was mostprobably deposited here during thelast ice age, since there are noicebergs these days! The watertemperature at the seabed is very coldthough, ranging from -1.9 to +1 C.

The camera equipment is

This eelpout lives in very cold deep water (-2-5 C) and feeds on brittle stars. Itgrows up to 75cm long and was photographed at 600m depth. North ofScotland. Kongsberg oe14-208 camera. 14.4mm lens. 1/250th @ f4.5.

A discarded barrel attracts a ling, an Echinus urchin and a basket star.Photographed at 350m depth. North of Scotland. Kongsberg oe14-108 camera.No other details available.

actually pretty much the same asshallow water kit. The main differenceis the housing, which needs to be ableto withstand the great pressure, butobviously does not need buttons,levers and dials for manual control.Typical of most deep oceaninstrumentation, the housing is ametal cylinder, with connectors at oneend and a glass window at the other.The camera we used was KongsbergSimrad’s new oe14-208 digital colour

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still camera housed in a 3000m ratedtitanium housing. The camera is basedon a normal digital camera, but isbuilt into the housing to use the spacemost efficiently. It has 5 megapixels,a 4 x optical zoom, and is capable ofshooting over 200 images betweendownloads.

Controlling the camera is veryeasy with the Kongsberg GUI(Graphic User Interface) run on alaptop. The GUI gives us access to allthe camera’s controls, without any

noticeable delay. Lighting wasprovided by a single Kongsberg oe11-242 flash housed in another 3000mrated titanium housing. The flashpower output is controlled from theGUI in 1/3 of a stop increments up toa maximum of +2 and down to aminimum of -2 stops. In practice itwas often easier to adjust the camera’saperture to ensure a good exposurethan the flash. There is no ambientlight at these depths, so the shutterspeed is pretty irrelevant and is set to

the fastest synchronisation speed.Both the camera and flash are

mounted on a hydraulic pan and tiltunit on the ROV that controls theirposition and aiming. However sinceboth are on the same unit, the flashcannot be positioned independentlyfrom the camera. Anothershortcoming of this system is that thecamera is about 70cm above theseabed, which means it is not possibleto get eye level shots of benthiccritters. The pan and tilt unit is

The next stage of the SERPENT project will be to take still images of moreunusual species in deep water. This rattail was filmed on video at 3000m depth.Gulf of Mexico.

Kongsberg camera system on the pan and tilt arm. The camera housing is topright, and the flash tube is bottom left. Also mounted on the arm are colourvideo camera (top left), a low light video (bottom right) and a pair of videolights (right at the bottom),

operated by joystick, but beinghydraulic the fine movement can befrustratingly jerky especially when thelens is zoomed in for close-up shots.Surprising as it sounds, it is ofteneasier to reposition the ROV by a fewcentimetres with its thrusters than tomake fine movements with the panand tilt! The ROV and the skill of itspilots are obviously crucial to gettinggood images. One of the mostimportant skills of an underwaterphotographer is having the stealth of a

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In addition to stealth, thebehemoth sized ROV causeshydrodynamic problems such as abow wave and wash from thethrusters, that can transform themuddy seabed into a blizzard inseconds. We usually approachsubjects into the current, so thatsediment disturbed by the downthrusting of the ROV does not wash

into the frame. Repositioningthe vehicle in this way foreach subject is not alwayseasy and it can take severalminutes for the visibility toclear enough for photography.

The main aim of thisscientific photography is toidentify the species living inthese areas and to learn abouttheir ecology and behaviourfrom our observations. Wecan also collect quantitativedata by using the images asquadrats or by making videotransects, which complementany experimental work we aredoing. The SERPENT projecthas already achieved manyfirst time observations ofanimal behaviour in the deepsea. Creating the bestpossible images is importantbecause clear, sharp, correctlyexposed images reveal muchmore information. Strong

images are also a great benefit forpublicising our science. The greatsize and depth of the ocean offers avast volume of water as potentialhabitat for life. In comparison to thethin veneer of terrestrial life the oceanrepresents more than 99.5% of theinhabitable space for life on ourplanet. And this is the 99.5% that weknow least well. Lil Borgeson andJack Spiers, in the Skin Diver

Handbook published in 1960, pointout how ingrained our unfamiliaritywith the ocean is;

“Our language reflects theuneasy awe we feel towards theunknown world which covers most ofthe planet. When something is beyondour understanding we say it is ‘toodeep’ or that ‘we just can’t fathomit’.” As ROVs bring back moreimages they are helping us get toknow the deep ocean that bit better.

Alexander Mustardand Daniel Jones.

www.serpentproject.com

We would like to thank theROV crew on the Jack BatesTony Church, Chris Combe,Rob Dunn & Duncan Millerand Tony Kastropil on theDiscoverer Deep Seas,Transocean, Subsea 7, TOTALE&P UK PLC, Dr Ian Hudson,the SERPENT Project andSouthampton OceanographyCentre.

Northern shrimp and brittlestars climb up on sponges to get into the current to feed.Photographed 600m depth. North of Scotland. Kongsberg oe14-208 camera. 23mmlens.

hunter. A slow and careful approach isessential to get close enough to asubject to get a good image withoutscaring it off. Next time you spook afish with a rushed approachunderwater imagine what it would belike trying to creep up on it insomething the size of a car! Producinggood images from an ROV areprobably more reliant on the pilot’sskills than the photographer’s.

35

36

Most people learn to snorkelbefore they take up Scuba diving, yetrelatively few explore the fullpotential of breath-hold diving.Freediving is exactly that, a divingexperience free from constrictiveharnesses, tanks and decompressiontables. There is of course the smallproblem of having to holds one’sbreath in order to get down to playwith the fish.

Perhaps the biggest differencebetween photography carried out onscuba, and that done whilst freediving,is the time constraint imposed uponthe photographer by his own physicallimits. It simply isn’t possible to waitfor 15 minutes to get that perfect shot.The freediver must take the first shotoffered, regardless of his bodyposition or picture composition. Evenwith 1-2 minutes bottom time it is

“Look Mum! No bubbles”by Sascha Schulz

All photos weretaken using anOlympus C5050Zwith PT-015housing, no externalstrobes.

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extremely unusual for myselfto take more than 3-4 photoson a single dive. Yet over a 3-4 hour period that can equateto well over a hundredphotos. What is lost to timeconstraint can be regained bythe sheer volume of photospossible. In the scubacommunity the commonsaying is “plan the dive, anddive the plan”. In sharpcontrast, a freediver canwander from the shallows to

the deep walls and back againwithout worrying aboutsurface intervals ordecompression. The degree offreedom that entails meansthe photographer can chosehis locations, and quicklyabandon an area that provesunfavorable to photography.

Buoyancy is anotherissue of importance to thefreediver. At best the neutralbuoyancy region is about 2mworth of the water column,

yet photo opportunities commonly rangefrom 1m down to 20m. In the shallows asteady shot becomes particularlychallenging, as waves and swell conspireagainst the diver. At depth the problemlessens, but lying on a coral reef, forexample, creates other problems. A goodportion of the dive can be spent figuringout how to get into position for a shot. Ilike to stay away from the subject andplan the approach, shot framing andlighting before descending. This equates

38

to a more focused dive and ultimately a betterquality photo in the bag. Yet even the best planneddive can go horribly awry when the subject refusesto co-operate. The Blotched Hawkfish photo wastaken whilst I was upside down, with my legs firmlywrapped around a pylon to counter the surgingswell. Whilst this may seem extreme, a scuba diverwould have had no chance of staying in the positionrequired for the shot due to the extra weight of thescuba equipment.

At greater depths, from 10m downwards, theambient light is low enough that a strobe is almostmandatory. But a strobe arm and strobe both addsweight and reduces the hydrodynamics of a diver,two things certain to make a smooth ascent a lotharder for a freediver. The extra weight issue can beresolved by adjusting one’s weightbelt, but thecumbersome strobe arms are another matter. I preferto dive without strobes, instead using slower shutterspeeds and paying more attention to the naturallighting opportunities to make up for the handicap.

Many times I have dived the same sites as agroup of scuba divers, and ended up with vastly

different photographic opportunities. Missing out onsome of the more difficult to approach subject isquickly compensated for by the opportunity tophotograph inquisitive pelagic species. Manyspecies of fish, particularly pelagics, will approachdivers floating on the surface, whilst those belownever even see them.

The advent of cheaper digital cameras hasmade freedive photography more attractive. Havingstarted my photographic career using a Nikonos 4AI was often disappointed in the quality of shots andusually kept one or two shots per roll of film. Therelative expense of each photo made the experienceless enjoyable too. I now shoot an Olympus C5050digital camera and have watched my skills improvein leaps and bounds. The ability to judge each shotsmerits the instance it is taken, and the seeminglyendless memory capacity of my 1Gb mini drive,means that I can take photos of a subject untilsatisfied with the quality. This also means thatexperimenting with different shutter speeds,apertures and shooting modes is inexpensive and

rewarding. Any freediver wanting to take hisphotography to the next level should consider adigital camera first, a film camera second.

A note of warning to finish upon: Freediving isa dangerous sport. Anyone wishing to undertakephotography, whilst freediving, should be aware ofhazards such as Shallow Water Blackout. No photois worth your life, so take the time to informyourself and always dive with a buddy.

Sascha Schulz

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Like most people, I have a lovehate relationship with technology.Technology allows me to do thingsthat wouldn’t have dreamed possible afew years ago. I am currently inGrand Cayman and while I’ve beenhere I’ve been able to plug my laptopinto the phone line in my hotel roomand download UWP 18. Frankly, Ithink its very cool to be able to pickup the magazine while I’m away andhave time to read it and put the latesttips into practice. If only my othermagazine subscriptions followed meround the world! Anyway, I thoughtthat Deb Fugitt’s pike blennyreflection photo on the cover wasfantastic and took a moment to send aquick email to the Editor to tell him.So where’s the bad side of thetechnology? Well, Peter has a quickand devious mind and moments latermy computer was flashing up that Ihad mail. Clearly keen to stop meenjoying my vacation, the Ed had asuggestion for an article. Here is anextract from his email “I think ourreaders would be interested in seeingshots taken with the most basicequipment. Some complain that’s it’s

To keep the technology basic, wechose not to add an external flash orany of the supplementary lenses thatare available, using the camera in itsmost basic form. The whole thing istiny, small enough to slip into a BCpocket when either of us was shootingwith other cameras. We also thought itwould be unfair if we took the camerarepeatedly to the most exotic divesites in Cayman, diving endlesslyuntil we had perfect shots. So wedecided to use it only when we wereshore diving, and in total made 5dives and one snorkel trip! Oh, andwe only dived it on Fridays - Giles’s

Back to BasicsBy Alexander Mustardwith Giles Shaxted

Giles with the little Olympus! The camera is tiny compared with the twin strobed

all very well for your contributorswith their expensive equipment...”.So that is what this article is about.Going back to basics, in terms of thetechnology of underwaterphotography, and asking the question“Do we really need the mostexpensive and advanced technology tocapture a range of pleasingunderwater images?”

The plot

Fortunately, I happened to havethe ideal tool with me: an OlympusC220 digital compact camera and PT-013 housing. This is about as simpleas UW digital gets! The box lists its

fantastic features: 2 megapixels and3x times optical zoom and that’s it!The camera was donated to YUP - theYoung Underwater Photographers’Group (www.yup.digideep.com) byOcean Optics and is shared betweenthe members. I had brought it toGrand Cayman so that fellow YUPmember Giles Shaxted could try itout. Giles, who has previously workedas the photo-pro at the well knowndive centre Fisheye, and has beenshooting digital underwater sincebefore I knew what a megapixel was,seemed an ideal accomplice for thisproject.

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day off! Finally, we decidedto limit our use of Photoshopin preparing the pictures yousee here to auto-levels, minorbackscatter removal andsharpening after resizing.

The evaluation

Both of us are used tocameras that offer much moreflexibility and control, so wewere sure that ourphotography with the C220was going to be limited by its

fish has swum away beforeactually taking a picture.Clearly this was going tocause problems with movingsubjects. That said, we feltthe best evaluation was to tryto take all the different sortsof images that we would havedone using our more usualmounts; the sorts of imagesthat any owner of this sort ofcamera would want to take.Below is a list of the 5 typesof shots we decided to try,starting with the easiest,technically speaking, and

finishing with what weconsidered nigh-onimpossible:

1) Close-up, flash-litimage of a slow movingsubject

2) a fish imageilluminated with a balance offlash and ambient light

3) a wide angle scene4) a moving animal

behavioural image5) a split level shot

Macro shooting is usually handled very well in fully automaticmode. The large, well shaded LCD screen makes it easy toaccurately select an interesting composition. Olympus C220.5mm lens. 1/100th @ f13. Automatic (GS).

The night-time flash mode was used here to lengthen theexposure time and balance the ambient light with the flash-fillon the Scorpionfish. Olympus C220. 5mm lens. 1/25th @ f8.Automatic (AM).

technology. Its lens covers astandard mid-range, ideal onland, but neither wide enoughfor scenery nor tight enoughfor macro underwater. And itsflash, coming from within thehousing, is ideally placed forlighting up backscatter andnot powerful enough toilluminate large subjects. Theother major limitation ofmany digital compacts isshutter delay - a seeminglyendless period of time thatstarts when you press theshutter, and waits until the

Close-ups with

flash

Sitting on the benchesoutside the Dive-Tech shop atTurtle Reef, before our firstdive, we decided to start byplaying to the camera’sstrengths and shoot close-upslit with the camera’s flash.Small camera to subjectdistances would reducebackscatter and allow theinternal flash to illuminate thesubject, and the single lightsource (the flash) would beeasily controlled by thecamera’s metering. We startedusing the classic approach ofshooting from as close to thesubject as possible (with theclose-up function turned on)often with the lens zoomedout to get the subject in theframe. This worked well.Sometimes, at such closedistances the flash wouldoverexpose the subject,despite its auto control. Theexposure can be compensatedthrough the menus, but this isa bit fiddly to do for each newsubject and we mostly usedtwo other approaches. Thefirst was to increase the flash

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to subject distance, by moving back a bit andzooming the lens in to get the same shot. Thesecond approach, that I favoured, was to slide myfinger across the flash a bit, cutting off some of thelight. I know that sounds crude but it worked reallywell and can be done very quickly. Despite what Ihave said above, the camera performed much betterthan we expected and from our first shots thepictures were correctly exposed and well lit. Thelens was not really capable of true macro, smallestarea the camera could photograph was about thesize of a postcard, but I am sure that asupplementary lens would solve this.

Balanced light fish

photography

After a long photo-dive it was very pleasant toget out of the water, have a shower and warm up inthe suntrap behind the dive shop. Soaking up therays, we decided that although we could continuewith the close-up technique and produce a largenumber of pleasing pictures we had to forge on andnext on our list was fish photography. This, we felt,would be a high priority for most photographers. Alot of fish photography can be done with the macrotechnique, but to make things a bit tougher wewanted balanced light fish pictures - flash lit shotswith blue backgrounds that show the fish as theylook underwater. Achieving balanced light is an areawhere we thought we would expose the limitationsof a predominantly automatic camera that does notprovide the differential manual control of ambientlight and flash exposure. In UWP 18 I wrote thatwe either need wide apertures or long exposures to

Again a long exposure, produced in auto usingnight-time flash mode, has produced a pleasing bluebackground with this French Angelfish. OlympusC220. 5mm lens. 1/15th @ f8. Automatic (AM).

get nice blue backgrounds in all but brightest,shallow water. The easiest way to get bluebackgrounds with the Oly was to shoot slightlyupwards increasing the amount of natural lightcoming into the camera, and to lengthen theexposure using the night scene flash mode. This is aslow flash synch mode, where the camera slows theexposure time down to correctly exposure theambient light. Slow moving fish like scorpionfish

were now easy. The problem with most fish is thatthey swim, and this makes them much more trickyto shoot with a camera with significant shutterdelay. Half pressing the shutter as you are framingthe shot cuts the delay in half, but it is stillconsiderable and there are no miracle cures.Therefore fishy images need to be planned; I guessit is a bit more like shooting a Nikonos for fishphotography than zapping free swimming fish withthe rapid autofocus of a modern SLR.

Picking the right subject is the key to success:territorial fish tend not to move about too

much. Alternatively, look for fish that are busydoing something. The French Angel, pictured, wasbusy stuffing its face with a sponge. So while noteverything is possible with shutter delay, get theright fish at the right time, use night flash mode andfish shots with blue backgrounds become point andshoot simple.

Wide angle scenery

A big bowl of pasta later we relocated toSunset House for afternoon and evening dives.Discussing our progress over a chilled beverage, weknew wide angle was always going to be a toughchallenge without a wide angle lens! In order to fitthe entire subject into the frame we would need toback away. But this would cause two problems.First the extra water between the camera and thesubject would reduce the clarity of our images. Andsecond the longer light path would mean we had nohope of lighting the subject with the internal flash ofthe camera. Indeed, shooting through so muchwater, and with such a small distance between lensand flash seemed a perfect recipe for backscatter. Itwas clear that the only pleasing scenic images we

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The key to getting split-second behaviour shots,such as these barred hamlets mating, is to observethe activity, without taking photos, until you canpredict what is going to happen and be ready for theshot. Olympus C220. 5mm lens. 1/100th @ f13.Automatic (GS).

could get would be with available light.In shallow water (less than 5m) we found that

the auto-white balance of the camera allowed us toproduce reasonably colourful shots. We could haveadded coloured filters to help us take colouredimages deeper than this, but we felt that filters were

not basic equipment and chose not to use them.Instead, deeper, we concentrated on monochromeimages. Underwater images can look particularlystriking in black and white, especially when you usethe direction of the available light advantageouslywhen composing the shot. In generally lightunderwater downwells from above. Often a slightlydownward camera angle makes best use of ambientlight to achieve even illumination of the subject.The Olympus has both Black and White and Sepia-toned monochrome modes, but if these features arenot available their effect can be easily achievedafterwards in Photoshop.

Behaviour

One of the projects I was working on in GrandCayman was photographing reef fish spawning,particularly that most Caribbean group of fish theHamlets. I was keen to get as much time with thefish as possible so I did a deal with Giles: if hewould waste a couple of Friday nights watching fishinstead of hitting the apres SCUBA, I would comeout for a beer later in my trip. Seemed like a gooddeal to me! Not many people have watched hamletsspawn, so Giles spent most of the first dive gettingfamiliar with the behaviour while I shot on myD100. When we returned a week later, Giles knewexactly what to expect and was able to show me thecracking shot of the barred hamlets in a spawningembrace that you see here, before I had even seenone pair spawn!

Rather like fish photography, capturing “themoment” of behaviour takes patience and carefulobservation. The shutter delay of the camera makes

The internal flash is only going to light upbackscatter and not the main subject, so for wideangle it is best to shoot with only available light.Shooting in black and white is a good way todisguise the lack of colour! Olympus C220. 5mmlens. 1/60th @ f2.8. Flash Off (GS).

the whole process even harder and makes beingfamiliar with the sequence of natural events isessential to getting the shot. But I think that theimage Giles produced of the hamlets shows whatcan be achieved.

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You can not know your camera too well. Giles knewthat the Olympus could take half frame shots andused this feature to produce a split level image inthe camera. Olympus C220. 5mm lens. 1/80th @ f8.Flash off (GS).

Split levels

On the second Friday morning we decided tosnorkel at the Wreck of the Pallas to make use of theshallow water to take some colourful available lightwide angle. The Pallas is a cracking snorkel, whereyou walk up the beach and then drift down through

the waist deep lagoon through coral gardens andwreckage with the mild current. About half an hourinto the snorkel, Giles stuck his head out of thewater and told me he could do a split level with theOlympus. I knew he was talking rubbish. Splitlevels are just one of those shots that requirespecific technology - a large dome port and a wideangle lens. The Olympus had neither. But Giles hadother ideas, and having studied the instructions heillustrated probably the most important lesson ofusing any camera: to really get to know thetechnology. The Olympus has a curious feature thatthey call “2 IN 1” that allows you to combine twohalf frame images, taken successively, in one frame.With careful use of this feature Giles created thesplit level shot of the Pallas, that you see here, incamera. If we had allowed ourselves to make moreuse of Photoshop, it would be the work of momentsto hide the line between the two halves of the frame.One advantage of this technique is that because youtake the two half of the frame separately you caneasily solve the problems of the different exposuresand focus required for above and below the surfaceand also the magnification effect of the water. Avictory for imagination and application overtechnology!

Conclusion

Technology has always dominated underwaterphotography, and probably always will. It is nocoincidence that the pathfinders of Britishunderwater photography contained a largeproportion of engineers who build their owntechnology before it was commercially available.And I’m sure that the same was true around the

The authors (Giles left and Alex right) enjoy a bitof après SCUBA. Note how we again used the night-time flash mode to capture the background lights ofthe disco!!

world. Few would argue that for certain shots youneed certain equipment. But both of us were amazedby the range of images we could produce in just acouple of days with the little Oly. I am not goingtrade in my DSLR, or anything, but never beforehas the most basic technology available forunderwater photography been so capable. Now is agreat time to be starting underwater photography.

Alexander Mustardand

Giles Saxted

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One of the main advantages ofusing a land camera in an underwaterhousing is the wide choice of lensesyou can use but this advantage canbecome a problem as the lenses aredesigned for use on land rather thanunderwater. One solution is a domeport which helps to eliminate most ofthe optical problems but the domemust be considered as one element ofa two element lens system in order toget the full focusing range of yourlens.

This is something most housingmanufacturers do not emphasiseenough and it can lead to anunderwater photographer not gettingthe best performance from the lens/port combination.

Assuming that we want to get thebest quality underwater photographs itis neccessary to keep the water inbetween you and the subject to aminimum. It is the water whichproduces colour loss, definitionreduction and overall clarity/contrastloss in our photographs so by keepingit to a minimum we can maximise thequality of the resulting underwaterimage.

Wide angle lenses

The most effective way to keepthe water distance to a minimum is touse a wide angle lens but if they areused behind a flat port there are

certain optical problems which affectthe quality of the image. These arecaused by refraction at the air waterinterface because water is denser thanair. For simplicity purposes weassume that the thickness of the port issmall relative to the lens/subjectdistance so the refractive effect of theport material (glass, plexiglasss,perspex) is ignored.

Flat ports

When using a lens behind a flatport there are a number ofdisadvantages. The first is a reductionin lens angle. There is an effectivereduction in angle of approximately 1/3rd making a 28mm become a 35mm,20mm become a 24mm and so on.

The second problem is a loss ofedge definition. This is known as‘chromatic abberation’ (most severe atthe edges) caused by distortion to thered and blue images which give theappearance of colour fringes andoverall image softness towards theedge of the frame (not to be confusedwith ‘out of focus’).

The third problem is the loss ofgeometric quality. Pincushiondistortion will render straight lines ascurved. This is not neccessarily amajor problem as there are very fewstraight lines underwater.

The fourth problem is a reductionin focusing range resulting in the lensnot being able to focus as close as itwould on land. This may not be amajor problem with wider anglelenses which have a greater depth offield but it is best to retain the fullland performance of your lensunderwater.

Dome ports

A simple way of compensatingfor the effects of a flat port are to usea hemispherical dome as the port. Ifcorrectly set up, a dome system cangreatly improve the photographicperformance.

A dome port can restore lensangle, minimise chromatic abberationand restore (and even improve) focus

range and depth of field, as well ascorrecting pincushion distortion.

Since the dome, when used incontact with water, becomes anegative power lens, the camera lenswill not perform the same as on landand a positive supplementary lens isneeded to compensate for the negativeeffect of the dome.

Correcting lensesfor underwater useBy Peter Scoones and Peter Rowlands

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Supplementary lenses

The power of this supplementary lens willdepend on the curvature of the dome and, to a lesserextent, it’s position in relation to the land lens.

The dome correction port is unfortunately notperfect and there are two main defects.

The first is curvature of field. This has theeffect of rendering the subject in the centre of thepicture being in focus while those at the edge are

out of focus. Thisis most severe

with wideangle lensesbehind smalldiameterdomes and itmay be sosevere that

the edges cannot be brought

into focus, whatever aperture is used.Using a positive supplementary lens of the

correct power attached to the front of the land lens

will reduce this defect but will not entirely flattenthe curvature of field. Using a small aperture willreduce the out of focus effect of curvature byincreasing depth of field.

Reflections

The second defect is one of reflections.Internal reflections on the inside of the dome oftentake the form of an inverted image of the surface orbright object (eg the sun) outside the picture area.Great care should be taken to provide an efficientlenshood and masking the unused parts of the domesurface will help. Reflecting surfaces inside thedome should also be blacked out i.e. lens markingsand any chromed camera/lens parts.

For optimum results the dome/supplementarylens/camera lens positioning is important. Thehousing design may limit this possibility but let’slook at the combination in a perfect world.

Assuming that the wall thickness of the domeis substantially the same over its entire surface, theinternal diameter of the dome needs to bedetermined. From that information the power of the

positive supplementary lens can be calculated.The formula is as follows: f = 2d or 4r where

f=focal length of the dome, d=diameter andr=radius. So for a dome with a 20cm diameter, it’sfocal length will be 2x20=f40cm (or 400mm) and itwill have a negative power. To compensate for thatnegative power a positive supplementary lens of

f40cm is needed.These

supplementary(close up) lensesare oftenexpressed indiopters. To

find the powerin diopters,

divide the focallength in cms into

100. i.e a lens f40cms will be 100/40=2.5 dioptres.Fortunately most quality housing

manufacturers let you know what strength of dioptreis needed for their domes and all you have to do ispurchase this and screw it onto the front of yourland lens.

Lens positioning

The water/dome/supplementary lens will be a-focal (at optimum) when the supplementary lens ispositioned at the centre of curvature of the dome (instrict theory this is not absolutely correct but isaccurate enough in practice). It is important that theoptical axis of the dome and the supplementary areaccurately lined up and ideally should be fixed withthe camera’s lens located as close as possible to thesupplementary.

47

In practice, when wide angle lenses are usedwith small focus travel the supplentary lens can befitted to the filter threads of the camera lens and inthis case it should be arranged so that thesupplementary lens is in the correct position inrelation to the dome when the lens is set at infinity.

In order to retain the full focusing range ofyour lens underwater, the lens must be able to focuson the virtual image of infinity when the land lens isset to infinity (this is an important point which mostmanufacturers don’t point out). The optical effect ofa dome underwater is to move the image of infinityto a virtual position 4x the radius of the dome fromthe supplementary dioptre lens. In practice this ismuch closer than infinity would be on land so adioptre lens needs to be fitted to the front of thecamera lens to counteract for the power of thedome.Some manufacturers say that as long as yourlens can focus on the virtual image of infinity (i.e.with the land lens focused at minimum focus orthereabouts) then all will be well. Strictly speakingthis is not true. It means you will be able to focus oninfinity underwater but how much closer you canfocus will depend on the close focusing capabilities

of your lens. Check this out with the manufacturer/supplier to make sure.

As we have seen with fixed focal length lensesbehind domes, the dioptre/dome positioning mustremain fixed in relation to eachother and as long asthe zoom lens being used is not the ‘push pull’design (which would move back and forward toomuch), then a zoom lens can be used behind a domeport.

Reality

All of the above is theoretically fact but inreality it may not always be possible to obtaintheoretical perfection. For example, the dome youare using may not be a perfect hemisphere or thelens position in relation to the dome may not becorrect.

In these cases the following alterations willtake place.

If the dome section is not a full hemispherewith the lens being too far into the hemisphere ofthe dome (because to provide a full hemispherewould not be practical within the housing design)the resulting position of the lens will reduce itsangle of coverage and you will need a slightlystronger dioptre lens to focus on virtual infinity.

This is a typical situation with most modernmanufacturers as they try to produce more and morecompact designs and only use a smaller section ofthe dome rather than the full hemisphere. Howeverthese manufacturers usually provide a fullhemisphere dome which corrects the limitation at agreater cost in terms of both size and finance.

If the dome is hemispherical but the land lensis set back from the centre this will result in an

increase in angle and introduction of poorergeometric correction as well the need for a slightlyless powerful dioptre lens. However, this situation isunlikely to occur in most housings designs.

So there you have it! For some reason thetheories of domes have never been fully describedso we hope this has helped.

If, after you read this, you become paranoidabout dome curvature/lens position relationships,don’t get too concerned as the practical limitationsof housing design will almost invariably result insome form of compromise between perfectpositioning and the practical size of the end productand lastly, a slightly wrong dome curvature/lensposition is nearly always far more acceptable than aflat port!

Peter Scoonespjscoones@aol.com

Peter has been designing, building and usinghousings for over 45 years in both the

amateur and commercial world. He hasworked as a BBC cameraman for over 20

years on series such as ReefWatch, SeaTrekand more recently The Blue Planet. He has

developed new cameras such as the“Polecam” to get new shots underwater and

has just completed the production of twoHigh definition video housings for the BBC

which are being used to film their latestunderwater series.

Peter Rowlandspeter@uwpmag.com

Peter Rowlands is Peter Rowlands

48

Digital SLR (single lens reflex)cameras are now becoming muchmore popular as their prices fall,specifications increase and accessorylenses become available to make themperform like a traditional SLR filmcamera.

They offer several distinctadvantages over the entry level digitalcameras which were discussed in thelast issue of UwP and now thathousings are becoming readilyavailable these digital SLR cameras(DSLR from now on to save mytyping finger) are offering a realalternative to film cameras.

The main advantage is that thereis no significant shutter delay. Thatmeans when you press the shutter youget the shot immediately. With entrylevel cameras the shutter delay can beat least a second although this can bereduced by half pressing the shutterrelease button to let the cameraperform most of its function and,when you finally fully press, theshutter the delay is much reduced butis still evident.

The shutter delay was the main

reason why I decided to ‘invest’ in aNikon D100. Initially with myOlympus C40 entry level camera Iwas prepared to put up with the delaybecause I was learning about digitalphotography and I didn’t take shots offast moving subjects. As I becamemore familiar with the technology, theshots I wanted to take were beinglimited by the shutter delay so I wentfor the D100 but still kept the C40 asa backup.

The decision to upgrade is notcheap! There’s the camera andhousing as well as additional lensesneeded to build a system to rival filmcameras but the pivotal point for mewas the introduction of the 10.5mmfull frame fisheye lens. This, for thefirst time, gave the equivalentperformance of the 16mm lens on35mm film.

The reason Nikon produced thisnew lens is because the image sensorin a DSLR camera is smaller than the24mm x 36mm size of a film frame.The main reason for the smaller chipsize is economy. “Full frame” chipcameras have been around for some

time but at a much higher price and Iwill not be discussing these camerasin this article because I am hoping tocommission an article for the nextissue on the reasons for going up tofull frame.

The Nikon D100 and most otherDSLR cameras retained their originallens mount so that existing lensescould be used but because the chipsize was smaller the angle ofcoverage/focal length was reduced/increased by a factor of 1.5. For sportsphotographers on land this was mannafrom heaven. It meant their 300mmtelephoto suddenly became a 450mmwith the added benefit of no increasein the maximum aperture. No wonder

Back to basicsDigital SLR underwaterby Peter Rowlands

A move up from entry level to digital SLR photography is quite a leap in termsof finance, size and weight but it does allow you to take almost any photo youwant underwater because it is a true system camera.The arrival of the 10.5mm full frame fisheye and 12-24mm wide angle zoomhelped restore the full lens range for underwater use.

49

they embraced the digital ageso swiftly.

Underwater, however, isa different matter because,when photographing largeobjects such as wrecks wewant to shoot with the widestangle lens possible to keepthe amount of water betweencamera and subject to aminimum. The advent of theDSLR camera with a 1.5increase in focal lengtheffectively robbed us of a fullframe fisheye because thetraditional 16mm lens became

a 24mm. As soon as I saw the10.5mm lens it confirmed tome that Nikon werecommitted to thedevelopment of the DLSR asa true system camera. The10.5mm came after the 12-24mm lens which wasanother new lens giving theequivalent of an 18-36mm on35mm.

With these two lenses inplace, my 60mm and 105mmmacro lenses were stilluseable and one could arguehad actually been made more

useful because they becameapproximately 90mm and150mm respectively.

The other advantage of aDSLR which should beobvious by now is that theycan take interchangeablelenses so you can have thecapability to shoot virtuallyany subject you want.

Another advantage of aDSLR camera over an entrylevel one should be theavailability of TTL flashmetering but here we get intosome black magic country.

For decades Nikonoscompatible TTL flashgunshave been the norm and haveserved us well on bothNikonos and housed camerasystems. It therefore came asa bit of a shock to learn thatthe D100 was only TTLcompatible with a new rangeof Nikon land flashguns andthat the Nikonos flashes couldnot only not give TTL butmay actually damage theelectronics in the camera! Thebrainwashed among usaccepted this move forward

The electronics in DSLR cameras are capable of adjustingcolour balance over a greater range compared to entry levelcameras. Add the ability to shoot and work fast in RAW formatand you have total control of your underwater images.

D-TTL flash exposures are really only available with the Nikon land flashguns seen here withtheir Subal housing but I prefe to shoot manually with an Inon Z-220

but then Fuji came out with aDSLR which worked in totalharmony with Nikonos TTLflashguns so why couldn’tNikon have done that?!

As I explained in theEditorial in the last Issue ofUwP I am actually happy tobe back working with manualflash exposures but if you feelthat TTL flash is an importantfeature then look verycarefully at the specificationof the camera you areconsidering.

50

The final advantage of a DSLR isundoubtedly the processing power ofthe electronics. Most entry levelcameras take time to process an imageonce the shutter has been pressed. Themost common image file format isJPG which compresses the file byremoving unneeded data withoutaffecting the image qualitysignificantly. This reduces the timetaken to process a shot but your abilityto manipulate the shot at a later datewill be severely limited.

If you want to have total controlover your image quality you will needto shoot and save your files in RAWformat. This produces an image whichis unprocessed and has had no dataremoved. Naturally these files are

much bigger than a JPG so anentry level camera might takeup to 20 seconds to storethem. During this time youcannot take another picture. ADSLR camera has theelectronic capacity to savethese larger files and still letyou take more shots. Thenumber of extra shots you

can take is not limitless unfortunately.The camera lets you take more shotsbecause it is using its “buffer”memory to hold the files whilst theyare being saved to the memory card.The D100 lets you take around fourimages in quick succession then youwon’t be able to take any more shotsfor approximately 20 seconds whilethe files are saved to disk. In myexperience I have never “overrun” thebuffer but I can imagine times when Iwould i.e. humpbacks and sharkswhere photo opportunities are limitedto very brief swimpasts.

The ability to fire the motordriveon a 35mm SLR camera with nobuffer problem is a major advantagein these situations but that is where

the advantage definitely ends becauseyou will only have 36 shots. With aDSLR you can have an almostlimitless number of shots because youcan simply buy a larger capacitymemory card. I believe the maximumcapacity of a Compactflash card is4gig so if a 1 gig card will holdapproximately 100 images, a 4 gigwill give you up to 400 images!35mm film users stick that in yourpipe and smoke it.

The DSLR is not, however,perfect. Entry level cameras are muchlighter, cheaper and less bulky andthey have a nice large LED screen toview which shows the exact imageyou are about to get (shutter delaypermitting). DSLRs on the otherhandare more expensive and bulkier andthey have traditional flipping mirrorsso you will only see the final imageonce you have pressed the shutter. Inpractice this is not a big deal as yourimage appears almost instantly on theLCD screen on the back of thecamera.

For underwater use the DSLRoptical viewfinders are not ideal. Theyare designed for use on land whereyou can get your eye very close to theviewfinder. Underwater with a maskmakes the viewing image muchsmaller and makes manual focusingvery tricky but the capability of themodern autofocus systems makesmanual focusing, certainly for me, a

With Compact flash memorycards available up to 4gigabytes, this gives youaround 400 RAW formatimages.

thing of the past.Whenever I ‘invest’ in a new

camera system my partner Debbiealways gives me a knowing lookwhen I try to justify my purchase bysaying “And this system is all I’ll everneed”. She’s heard it too often(especially with computers!) but foronce I really do believe that the DSLRformat camera provides all I need nowand for the future.

As a result, I will not be writingthe next article because I’m notthinking of upgrading to a full sizechipDSLR (FSCDSLR!). Theproblem is that I will have toproofread it and I might start to seelimitations in my DSLR!

Time will tell.

Peter Rowlandspeter@uwpmag.com

51

Guidelines for contributors

The response to UwP has been nothing short of fantastic. We are looking for interesting, well illustrated articles about underwaterphotography. We are looking for work from existing names but would also like to discover some of the new talent out there and that couldbe you!

The type of articles we’re looking for fall into five main categories:

Uw photo techniques -

Locations -

Subjects -

Equipment reviews -

Personalities -

If you have an idea for an article,contact me first before putting pen to paper.

E mail peter@uwpmag.com

How to submit articles

To keep UwP simple and financially viable, we can only accept submissions by e mail and they need to be done in the followingway:

1. The text should be saved as a TEXT file and attached to the e mail2. Images must be attached to the e mail and they need to be 144dpiSize - Maximum length 15cm i.e. horizontal pictures would be 15 cm wide and verticals would be 15cm.File type - Save your image as a JPG file and set the compression to “Medium” quality. This should result in images no larger than about120k which can be transmitted quickly. If we want larger sizes we will contact you.3. Captions - Each and every image MUST have full photographic details including camera, housing, lens, lighting, film, aperture,shutter speed and exposure mode. These must also be copied and pasted into the body of the e mail.

Interviews/features about leading underwater photographers

Detailed appraisals of the latest equipment

Anything from whale sharks to nudibranchs in full detail

Balanced light, composition, etc

Photo friendly dive sites, countries or liveaboards

52

Book a advertin UwPYou can sell or buy yourequipment for a flat fee of just£15 (or £25 with aneyecatching photo) payable byVisa, Mastercard or cheque.Your advert can be up to 50words but the more words thesmaller the text size.We recommend that you use email as your contact addressand indicate which country youare from.E mail the text of your advertto classifieds@uwpmag.com

You can include your creditcard number and expiry dateor fax it to 020 8399 5709 orsend a cheque (must be drawn

on a UK bank) payable to:

PR Productions,13 Langley Avenue,Surbiton,Surrey KT6 6QN, UK

Classifieds

A photo makesyour advert muchmore effective. Thisspace is yours for just£25 including a smalljpg photoclassifieds@uwpmag.com

Did you look atthis advert first?

FOR SALENEXUS D100 HOUSING withD100 BODY ( inc. battery,charger , cables, manual etc ) +1GB CARD . Both in almostperfect condition . £2300 Poundsinc. air freight . 60mm lens andAF port also available.contact Roger oninfo@scubazoo.com

For sale1 x Hasselblad 503 CX as new mint condition , with waist level veiwfinder

1 x PME 45 metering veiwfinder to fit the Hasselblad 503 as new

1 x 80mm T star new model F 2:8 , 150mm Tstar and 250 mm lens.

2 x 12 exp film backs All in superb condition as new .

Anyone interested in a large 6 x 6 format system in immaculate condition

please contact Brad Kidd bradkidd@mweb.co.za

FOR SALENikon 20-35mm f2.8 "D"zoom AF lens with shade inmint condition. Price $550plus shipping.

Nikon 14mm f2.8 "D" lens,like new. $950 plus shipping

terry@ulcs.com

SAVE £1500.00!!!!"Titan" Housing for Olympus E20 DigitalSLR. The complete system includes 2 x Sea &Sea YS90 strobes, arms, macro wet lens, focuslight, all in Pelican carry case. Refer to Light& Motion web site for full spec. This camerasystem is 18 months old, excellent condition and is simply amazing. Costnew in excess of £4200.00 - now £2750.00. Camera can be sold as well fora better all in one deal.Call David - 07769 726976 david@mknow.co.uk

For saleNik V+ 35mm lens £450, Ocean

Optics Close up lens and

Extension Tube set £50 each, Sea

& Sea SWL 16 mm wide lens with

viewfinder £120. Complete

package £600. Items located in

Gloucester, UK. 01452 812313 or

handleys@compuserve.com

53

FOR SALEUnderwater camera

system for saleincluding F100SUBAL housing, portfor Nikkor AF60/2.8,Nikonos 105 Strobes,Nikon F100 camerabody, Nikon AF60/ 2.8micro lens, focusinglights, case, etc. Asking£1,700. Fulldocumentationprovided. One carefullady diver.mcshearwood@ntu.edu.sg

FOR SALEUnderwater camera

system for saleincluding F90 SUBALhousing, port forNikkor AF105/2.8,Nikonos 104 & 105Strobes, Nikon F90camera body, NikonAF105/2.8 micro lens,focusing lights, case,etc. Asking £1,500.

Full documentationprovided.mcshearwood@ntu.edu.sg

FOR SALESubal Miniflex housing for F90x/N90x Mk 1 forsale with base plate and spare o rings approx 20dives since last service £820Flat Automatic focus port for 105mm £50Aperture gears, 24-50 Zoom Gear and one F90xbody also availableMse.home@virgin.net

For sale

Subal D100 Housing (for Nikon

D100) and SB 80 DX housing (for

Nikon SB80DX). As new. £1,750

sterling. Subal Fisheye port £300.

Subal autofocus macro port £100.

Subal SB28 tube housing £250.

D100 body and SB80DX flashgun

£900 (mint boxed as new).

Payment by wire transfer or by

paypal online.

Email : rattey@fiberline.tt

fuam@digigate.netwww.fuam.org

Photo: Simon Theuma Model: Anna Bassily

Venue:The Island of

GOZO

54

Parting shotMany, many years ago I was on a

trip to Eilat in Israel in the days whenfilm was film and shorediving wassimple.

The week had gone well with nofloods and some nice exposuresconfirmed by my trusty traveling E6processing kit. It was the last dive ofthe trip and we didn’t choose our sitevery well at all. It was quite a sandy,rubbly location with small patches ofcoral outcrops which didn’t excite myphoto imagination that much.

I was using a Nikonos V with aSea and Sea 12mm full frame fisheyelens and Ektachrome 100 film. It wasa lovely compact outfit.

The overall scenery was a mutedsandy brown so rather than shoothorizontally and waste film I decidedto put the camera under corals withthe camera set to “A” aperture priorityand the lens aperture at F16 formaximum depth of field.

There wasn’t enough room forme to get my eye behind theviewfinder so I held the camera atarms length and used my thumb topress the shutter release. I lined up thecamera as well as I could, took a shotand pulled the camera out from underthe coral to wind the film on.

I only took one shot of this coralbut repeated the technique under other

pieces and eventually finished the filmand therefore the dive.

Back in London I took the film toan E6 processor and was amazed, acouple of hours later, to see this shotjumping out at me from the lightbox.

When I leant forward with aLupe to my eye I was amazed withthe graphic simplicity, the lucky

positioning of Snell’s window and thefinal icing on the cake with the centralstarburst.

Now I know where “point andshoot” photography comes from!

Peter Rowlandspeter@uwpmag.com

Do you have a niceshot with a shortstory behind it?If so e mail me andyours could be thenext “Parting shot”.