Basic Training: Dive In! The Water's Fine!

Kyle Cassidy
July 2007

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Being immersed in water fascinates us because it changes our physical world, giving us another direction to travel the third dimension previously reserved to birds and butterflies. As Jacques Cousteau said to Time magazine in March of 1960: "Buoyed by water, [a human] can fly in any direction - up, down, sideways - by merely flipping his hand. Underwater, man becomes an archangel."

Water is also mysterious. It's hostile. We can't live in it. Its pressures are crushing. Its atmosphere is unbreathable. Beneath its surface are strange and marvelous creatures and the wreckage and remains of others who have dared to explore before us.

But how do you get your video camera down there? And to what end?

As video cameras get cheaper, and underwater housings as well, we're seeing lots more of them in the field, says Brad Hafford, Ph.D., a PADI certified diver who teaches Underwater Archeology at the University of Pennsylvania and has also spent time making underwater videos of Florida's manatees. Getting a camera underwater on an archeology dig used to be a big deal; now many digs have a dedicated videographer. Having videotape of a complicated and meticulous operation made more arduous by being underwater can be very useful. Most of the shallow wrecks have already been looted, says Dr. Hafford, so the wrecks that are being excavated are usually fairly deep, which means you don't have much time on the bottom. You're all business when you get down there, and that can save you time on the surface. Dr. Hafford continues: When archaeologists raised Henry VIII's flagship, the Mary Rose, beginning in 1982, they took more than seventy hours of video footage, which helped, in conjunction with notes and drawings, to reconstruct it on the surface.

For years, filmmakers have been capturing images beneath the surface of ponds and lakes with nothing more sophisticated than an old fish tank.

Set your camera down inside a empty ten- or twenty-gallon aquarium, weight it down with a couple of bricks and set it on the surface of a pond. This technique is especially useful for capturing the heads and shoulders of swimmers above the water, while also revealing the sea monster beneath that's about to pull one of them below. This will also work for videotaping someone diving into a pool. Do not get your camera wet.

While some professional models guard against splashing and rain, many consumer models do not. If you're in an environment where you suspect your camera may get some spray, wrap it in a towel first, exposing only the lens. If you think your camera may get more than a few drops of water, it's time to put it in something waterproof.

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