˙˙00˙ ˙00˙01˙03˙01Underwater Photography˙00 ˙ ˙ ˙03˙02PUH / AGONY ˙02˙01˙01˙00˙ ˙01It might seem a little strange that this essay starts with the history of "normal" photography. The explanation is that I felt that such a chapter would increase the understanding for and insight in the world of snaps. The fact that it saves me a lot of explanations and references in the middle of the essay plays an important role too. The prefix "underwater-" is sometimes abbreviated to "UW-" by current praxis. As far as we know, man has always been fascinated by light. One has observed that light reflects and bounces on the surface of water and clean areas of metal, and that it fades textiles and colours human skin. Further on, we know that man has always tried to capture light in its different forms. Drawings and paintings are examples of attempts of light capturing, the clumsy attempts to confine light to boxes during the Middle Ages another. Neither drawings nor paintings were very exact or rapidly created, and one dreamt of being able to catch reality - or the moment, if you like - with lightning's rapidity and nature's own exactitude. In June 1826, the French officer Nicephore Niepce managed to take the first photo of the world. He had been experimenting with several chemical mixtures during a long period of time, and so, in late June, he perpetuated the view from the window of his working - room. The eight - hour - long time of exposure that he used was, however, somewhat long; a man named Louis Jacques Mande Daguerre did not hesitate to improve it. The method of Daguerre dominated the photographing world until about 1850. W. H. Fox Talbot disliked the fact that the method of Daguerre did not allow duplication, i.e. it did not leave a negative from which extra copies could be taken. In 1835, Talbot found out how pictures could be fixed in a solution of salt, and this method left a negative, i.e. it allowed several paper copies per negative. (If you do not recognize this reasoning, you've never crossed Rubicon; photography of today is based on the discoveries of Talbot.) During the following years, Talbot's devise developed; the method became faster and the quality of the photos better. Its real upswing arrived in 1889, when the roll of celluloid film first saw the light of day. The camera now became something of a toy of the bourgeoise, and the abysmally increasing hoard of amateur photographers showed that there was money to make. Consequently, large companies that produced and developed photographic equipment were established. The first real colour film appeared in the year 1906, and from W.W. 2 and on, the development ran forward with the steps of a giant. The photo technical equipment we see today is far beyond the mind of the normal man. Man has always been more or less depending on the sea; it offered not just food, but one could also collect shells, pearls, sponges and, for example, building materials (stones) from it. Of course nobody knew what the world below the surface really looked like. Most of us have, no doubt, seen a few of those monster - pictures that seamen and travellers drew during the Middle Ages. If you give it a thought, these pictures are quite natural; the sea and its inhabitants were unknown territory, and a large whale might very well have appeared as a malignant creature or underwater monster to a beholder. ("Monsters" are still spotted today, you know. . .) What we do know for sure is that one was very interested in the sea; several long expeditions set out to explore the sea as early as in the 12th century. As diving in the late 19th century was fairly well developed ("The History of Diving", Puh / Agony, Oepir Risti issue 4), it was possible for the individual to visit the bottom of the ocean and enjoy its beauty for a limited period of time. This went hand in hand with the fact that the camera in the eighteen nineties was of a comparatively small size ("The History of Photography", Puh / Agony, Oepir Risti issue 6)One man who realized this was Louis Boutan from France. He put a camera into a hermetically sealed box, and the first UW-camera of the world was a fact. In 1893, he took the first UW-snaps in history. Boutan soon began experimenting with with artificial light, i.e. what we today refer to as flashlight, from a magnesium lamp, and in 1899, he managed to take photos at the imposing depth of fifty metres. Boutan's photos were, of course, black and white, and of a modest quality, but he showed that it actually was possible to take photos when in water. Jules Verne's book "20 000 Leagues Under the Sea" was for the first time filmed in authentic milieu in 1913. Fourteen years later Lonley and Martin from the United States of America took the first UW - photographs in colour. In 1934, Dr. William Beebe managed to film the life on the ocean bed one thousand metres below the surface. It was, however, not until WW 2 that one fully realized the possibilities of UW - photography. Salvage, bottom explorations, espionage and UW - warfare, activities that had been very risky earlier, now became much easier because of different methods of UW - photography; large, heavy "machines" loaded with UW photo equipment were developed to carry out the mentioned tasks. Even though UW - photography was both very useful and well used, it was kept apart from the single diver; the cameras were all very big and in an ungainly fashion, and they were tremendously expensive. The French company La Spirotechnique wanted to change this, and they asked Jean de Wouters d'Oplinter to construct a UW - camera that would work like a normal camera even though being hermetic, be extremely durable and be cheap "within the limits of reason". d'Oplinter consulted his friend the well known diver and UW - filmer Jacques Yves Cousteau, and together they discussed the thesis "the perfect underwater camera". Cousteau was something of a pioneer when it came to the UW - area; he had spent an awful lot of years documentation the ocean. He had, however, been limited to huge, abysmally heavy cameras, and the idea of a small, light camera appeared very nice in his eyes. d'Oplinter achieved his task, and in 1960, he got patent on his camera, the "Calypso Phot". UW - photography had reached the individual. During the following years, one could equal the development of Calypso Phot to the development of UW - photography. In the year 1963, the Japanese camera company bought the patent of the Calypso Phot, and, wearing the name of Nikonos, the camera became a tremendous success all over the world. As time went by, the Nikonos concept was improved, and two (or was it three?) years ago, the Nikonos V RS struck us all with the speed of refraction. It supported a lot of things I can't translate nor explain, so let's just say that it is of a very high quality and has an awful lot of finesse. Finally, the development as such is very well pictured by its origin, Boutan. . . "˙02. . .I laid the way. Now it is up to others to follow it and reach its end˙01" (Louis Boutan, 1900, my own translation) I guess most of us know that it is quite easy to take photos above water. Basically, you just aim at a person and pull the button; you don't have to worry much about colour separation, sight or refraction. The first thing a green UW - photographer learns is that he or she has to take several new factors into account. First, light in general behaves differently once entered water; when a photo is taken above the surface, the light travels through air into the air inside the camera (lens, that is). Below the surface, the light rays travels through water into the air of the camera (no camera has water ˙inside˙ ˙00 its housing, you know), and when light passes the interface between two different media (here substances or materials in which light can travel), the rays of light diverge a little from their original course. This phenomenon is commonly referred to as light refraction, and it is controlled by the laws of mathematics (. . .laws of ˙physics˙ ˙00, some say. This is, of course, incorrect as physics is defined as being something that cannot be used in reality. Water and physics, however, mix well; water is the only part of our world where physics is applicable.) As we are moving on the amateur level, it is enough to know that when under water, all objects appear 25 percent larger and 25 percent closer that they really are. ( (sin alpha - one) / (n - one) equals (sin alpha - two) / (n - two); the law of light refraction) Because the light rays are refracted as they pass from the water to the air inside the camera housing, the camera sees objects closer that what they really are, ass does a diver wearing a mask. As the camera, precisely as the eye, is "tricked", this refraction has no negative effect when applied to UW - photography; what the diver sees in the aim of the camera is also what is perpetuated on the roll of film inside his camera. ("what you see is what you get"). Some cameras, however, have automatic distance - measuring, and as their chips (no Motorola there), that do a misreading of (up to) 25 percent, are not conditioned for under water usage, those cameras take rotten photos. The second thing that the amateur UW - photographer rapidly gets to know is the way the colours of the light behave as soon as they have entered water. Ordinary light (daylight, Sonny boy) consists of all colours of the rainbow. Together, they give a "white" (check out DPaint if you doubt the correctness of the last statement (Oepir Risti supports your leaving the magazine without quitting, you know)) Whilst on the shore, the mentioned fact does not matter at all to a beholder; a yellow cabin is yellow no matter if you behold it from five or five hundred metres. The special character of water, however, absorbs the colours of light one by one. The deeper (or longer) the light rays proceed in water, the more colours are absorbed from the original light. Red is the first one to go down (simply disappear, that is); already at the depth of five metres, every bit of red is absorbed, resulting in that a beholder situated at the very same depth can't spot any red colours at all, and in the circumstance that a ball, which, above water, is red immense, at this depth appears but greyish / bluish. Orange and yellow disappear ten metres from the surface, and when visiting depths greater than about twenty five metres, the reigning light consists of but green and blue colours. This is, consequently, why there, i.e. at the depth of twenty five metres (and deeper, of course), always seems to be a green - blue "dawn". This problem of light absorption is, nevertheless, easily remedied by the usage of a flash light or other artificial light. (Anything to add, Doser?) In the sharp, dense light of the flashlight, all objects regain, for a fraction of a second, their original ("natural") colour, and the otherwise somewhat foggy world below shows, for a short moment, itself in all its beauty. The third thing a green UW - photographer ought to pay attention to is the fact that the water in which he (or she!) swims is full of small particles (algae, small pieces of mud and chemical substances). Even though one does not notice them when "just" swimming, they may very well appear as heavy fog when one uses flashlight. (If you have taken flashlight - snaps when snow or rain falls outdoors, you ought to have a pretty good picture of what I mean. (Every drop of rain and every snowflake reflect the light of the flashlight directly into the camera again, and the result is not nice to look at.)) The solution to this problem is achieved if the flashlight is placed so that the (artificial) light enters the image from either(or both) of its sides. At the same time, one has to swim very carefully; an incautious move with your fin can sweep up a tremendous cloud of bottom mud and, thereby, preclude photography for several hours ahead. When talking UW - photo equipment, one usually divides it into three main groups, namely the camera, the source of artificial light and the film. One must not preclude any of these three main concepts if one wishes to take nice snaps. I'd say that the first thing you come to think of when somebody say UW - photo equipment is the camera. Camera for UW - usage face two "demands" that their land - living colleagues don't have to achieve; if a camera successfully is to be used in water, it must support both water itself and a higher pressure than what is normal (one point zero thirteen Bar, to be exact). Camera manufacturers all over the world have solved this in two different ways, and we have already read about both of them: Boutan's camera, that was an ordinary camera in a special housing, and that of d'Oplinter, a camera that was waterproof without being housed. The advantage of buying a housing to your favourite camera is, not too surprising, that you can bring your favourite camera with you into the depths of the sea; inside the housing, the air pressure is normal and no water can enter. The bad thing about it is that housings tend to be abysmally expensive; a camera often has several buttons and wheels, and all of those are to be controlled from outside the shell. The result is often a housing with wonderful proves of smart technicians but with a price high enough to prevent 42 issue three from being released. The diver is also likely to find housings heavy, unwieldy and / or cumbrous. The other type of camera, d'Oplinter's version, is far more popular. The inventor himself quickly realized that his shell - less camera could as well be used under water as when in deserts and in moist jungles and on polar expeditions. His type of camera is therefore referred to as the amphibie camera, and it dominates the UW - camera - top - two of today. The second part of the equipment is the flashlight, i.e. the artificial light, and we have already seen what important role it plays. There are both housed and special UW - flashlights, and if they differ in quality, well, that'd be something I've never noticed. The fastidious photographer is, of course, not pleased yet; he has to have a so called slave flashlight too. Such an item is usually smaller than an ordinary flashlight, and it is automatically turned on when another source of light reveals itself. By using slave flashlight, you can "add" some nice shadows, nuances and tonings to your photos, but I'd say that hardly is something for me, the amateur. The third part, the roll of film, has been the topic of running metres of books. While on land, many people think that one type of film equals another, it is very important to choose the right type of film when leaving the surface behind; different visibilities, distances and colours "demand" different types of film in order to picture its full value. Generally speaking, you could say that positive films (i.e. dia slides) is to prefer to negative film (paper prints). Further on, films that are not so photosensitive (and, consequently, more fine - grained, i.e. "eye for small details and nuances") are usually used when taking close - up snaps, by which is meant photos from a small range. Films that are more photosensitive are, thus, often used when taking "scenery photos". The film manufacturers have released a tremendous number of different films, each of which is said to possess one little quality that makes it worth buying. A famous Swedish UW - photograph puts with following sentence this paragraph to an end: "In situations where Fuji Velvia is too insensitive, for example when taking wide-angle photos in UW-milieus much before or a little after twelve o'clock, one can with success use a more sensitive film, such as Fujichrome 100." Finally, I must mention that there are, precisely as for "normal" photography, a whole lot of expansion details on the scene. Objects such as exposure metres, light filters and special camera rings may very well prove necessary when competing in the UW photo world championship, but hardly for the normal diver. The most common field of application for UW - photography is, without any doubt, taking snaps for the fun of it. It is, in fact, very creative and exciting to take photographs under the water, and by bringing "pieces of the ocean" up onto land, the diver can show others what marvels that hide in the wet world. Accordingly, even those who, for some reason, can't live the ocean themselves can take part of the beauty of it. I'm sure this leads to insight of the conviction that one must take good care of the sea and what's in it. Further on, we have the documentive effect of photography. With the help of photos, one can execute species - determination, something that can prove very useful as such determinations can be extremely difficult when, for example, in a batysphere some ten thousand metres down. With the help of square - photographing, i.e. to take a snap at the very same place every month of the year, one can, quite easily, see the way the "water quality" and (plant-) life change. Having performed such observations, one tries to find out whether they are derivatives of different kind of pollution or not. Documentation of animal species that are under threat of extinction have actually lead to so much writings in the press that one sometimes has managed to save the actual species. In other cases, photographic documentation of extinct species serves as proof of man, the predator that was not hungry. We have already seen that UW - photography during the Second World War was used when performing more or less martial activities; espionage, UW - warfare and salvages gained much from photos and film recordings. Marine archaeologists, who, as you probably know, are into similar activities except for the martial purpose, have in UW - photography found a reliable ally. When the Santa Maria, a ship that went to bottom 17th century, was discovered off the coast of Florida in 1980, extensive UW - photography was used to discover all parts of the by a storm wrecked ship. In September 1994, the Estiona sank. Only a few days later, the whole world could behold the partly damaged hull of the ship. This was thanks to the Sea Owl II, an unmanned UW - ship loaded with cameras. The front bow, which one believed to be the real cause of the accident, was gone, but after a couple of days, the Sea Owl II found that too. Even if this method of using UW - photography takes place in the shadow of something horrible, its results offered support to many people (they say that the worst thing is to not know what really happened, that is is the uncertainty that is the hardest thing to accept.). UW - photography does, however, not only have "serious" fields of application. Nowadays, the so called "active holidays" are very popular; instead of the beach- and sunlife, one is to go diving, climb mountains or rent off-pist jeeps. Advertisements for these kind of vacations, the increasing offer of commercial divers' educations and the economy of today's youth, all these factors make UW - photography an activity that's on the march. The important thing is to possess knowledge; who said that the best pictures were taken by the most sophisticated cameras? In the end, it is the man behind the mask who decided the way the photo is to turn out; no camera in the world can compensate for a worthless photographer. (Guess I'd better add "yet".) I have earlier mentioned the fact that OW - photography is fairly expensive. It is no secret that ordinary, "OW - photo equipment", is expensive, and if you want to replace that OW with an UW, you have to add even more money. This depends as well on the fact that UW - equipment is tougher to as on the circumstance that both those who manufacture the mentioned equipment and the divers' scene have realized that they can make big money here; the products will be sold even if they are subjects to exorbitant prices. The customer has no choice as there are only very few companies that deal in UW - photo equipment. Thus, I'd say that the lack of competition plus the knowledge that the customers will pay what's asked have lead to the high prices of today. Well, you say, just how expensive is it? I opened the nearest divers' magazine and found an advertisement for the Motor Marine II, a popular UW - camera. The following was stated. . . (all prices in Swedish Crowns, SEK; one US dollar is about seven or eight SEK, and one DMark is some five point twelve SKR.) Motor Marine II 5900 2 Closeup lenses 2690 2 Fisheye lenses 6105 Optical Searcher 1600 plus lens holder Flashlight 4400 YS 50 TTL - II Flashlight arm 560 ˙02 total 21 255 ˙01Now, it'd be a shame to say that sounds cheap! UW - photography is today developed to almost perfection. One does not need special education to take UW - snaps as the cameras of today allow the not - that - good photographer to take snaps that one can enjoy. It is, consequently, very difficult to say anything about the future of this activity. I dare, however, to make two predicaments: first, the development towards the idiot proof camera will go on. (Technique will be able to correct the mistakes of the man (or woman) behind the camera.) Second, I do not think that anybody can take us much further when it comes to, for example, film quality; the skillful UW - photographer of today captures easily even the smallest detail, nuance and colour. The only thing I can say with certainty, or at least certainty defined as based upon the tremendously rapidly increasing number of UW - photographers, is that this fantastic activity is here to stay. ˙01 ˙02˙03AS FOR FACT AND STATEMENTS, I DID MY VERY BEST WHEN WRITING THIS ARTICLE. IF A FACT IS WRONG OR TOO OLD, I AM TRULY SORRY FOR THAT. ˙ ˙02COPYRIGHT 1995 BY PUH / AGONY, ALIAS HENRIK NILSSON.