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Posts Tagged ‘Underwater’

Underwater Art Exhibit Debuts on Artificial Reef Off Key West

03 Aug

An underwater art exhibit has debuted on a former Air Force missile tracking ship sunk in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary seven miles south of Key West to become an artificial reef. Austrian art photographer Andreas Franke is exhibiting a dozen digitally composited images on the Gen. Hoyt S. Vandenberg that was scuttled in May 2009. The 4- by 5-foot photographs stretch along some 200 linear feet on the starboard side of the Vandenberg’s weather deck, 93 feet below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean. Franke photographed the wreck last year. He digitally added other elements to the images to create the artwork. One picture depicts a girl wielding a butterfly net to capture fish shown in an original underwater image of the wreck. In another, kick boxers compete adjacent to one of Vandenberg’s iconic tracking dishes. The 20-square-foot images are encased in plexiglass and mounted in stainless steel frames sealed with silicone. A project organizer said Sunday he hopes the exhibition will remain in place through the end of the year. Footage is courtesy of Way Down Video.
Video Rating: 4 / 5

DVD available at www.911inplanesite.com If A Picture Is Worth A Thousand Words, What Is A Video Worth? What “In Plane Site” accomplishes that no other video expose’ on September 11th has to date, is it exposes the viewer to a barrage of news clips from a majority of the mainstream news outlets. The official story of that day was told on live TV by reporters, policemen, firefighters, and other on-the-scene eyewitnesses, however, that footage was shown only once on live television broadcasts in the first hours of the attacks and then… it was never repeated. The stories changed, information was enigmatically omitted, and what can only be described as officially prescribed propaganda took the place of indisputable reality. THE PENTAGON: Some of the most damning evidence surrounding the attack on the Pentagon centers about substantial and incontrovertible video and photographic evidence which insights viewers to ask crucial and essential questions. After all, the laws of physics cannot be suspended or can they? One question many viewers ask is, “why was America and the rest of the world not shown the video footage and the photographs of the Pentagon, BEFORE the outer wall had collapsed?” Many people do not realize that the outer wall of the Pentagon did not collapse until 20 minutes after the initial impact of what we were told was a Boeing 757. Upon examining these photographs, one can clearly see a hole, which is only 16 feet in diameter. This begs the question: “How can a …
Video Rating: 4 / 5

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Posted in Photography Videos

AquaTech Underwater Housing

26 Sep

AquaTech Underwater Housing

Canon 5D Mark II

In a previous post I reviewed underwater point-and-shoot cameras. The cameras from Olympus and Panasonic were a lot of fun but lacked the control most serious photographers would want.

Point-and-shoots are easy to carry and easy to use and that portability comes at a price though, they have relatively slow shutter reaction, no detachable lenses, can’t shoot in RAW format… I could go on.

So how do you shoot underwater and still keep the control? Well the solution is simple – take the Canon 5D Mark II under water with a case from AquaTech. I decided to take one out for a test-drive!

It was a sunny weekday afternoon when UPS unexpectedly dropped off the underwater casing so I called Brynlee and asked her how well she could hold her breath, ”I can do it! But, can I keep my nose plugged?” she asked.

“Unfortunately you cannot touch your nose,” I explained.

There was a long pause, “I can do it!” she promised.

So off we went to shoot in an outdoor swimming pool and just try some things out.

When we showed up we realized the pool was extremely cloudy from a recent water treatment. The water was completely safe, just cloudy for another day or so. This technical problem is easily solved when you have control over your equipment and the AquaTech underwater casing allowed me to have access to nearly EVERY necessary button on my 5D Mark II while underwater. The water visibility was less than 6 feet, give or take, so the camera controls got a very good test since I had to change everything from shutter speed, aperture, ISO, auto-focus point and pretty much every other setting you can think of.

It was a weird experience changing these without actually toughing the camera and I realized something interesting…

I actually don’t consciously know how to change many of the settings use all the time. I actually couldn’t remember how to change the shutter speed… my hands just knew how to do it when I was holding my camera but at this second I wasn’t actually holding my camera directly so I had to stop, and think hard about how I normally changed the shutter-speed. After I got over that barrier the controls became much easier, but it gave me some food for thought about the necessity of really knowing your equipment. I think it’s a good sign when you know your equipment well enough that you work with it on a completely sub-conscious level… reserving the rest of your brain-power for the idea at hand.

I do have two (very, very small) complaints, one, you can’t manually focus and two the casing makes the camera a bit bulky but there is a very nice bonus – if you drop the camera, it floats!

Here are a handful of finished images from the shoot (retouched in Lightroom and Photoshop).

This was just a preliminary test but I am seriously, seriously tempted to add one of these to my permanent collection of equipment, I’ll be posting some additional results in the coming weeks! If you’re interested on current pricing and additional specs visit B&H Photo online.