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"DIGITAL" reigns supreme in the world of modern underwater photography. Or does it? I use both a digital and a film camera and both offer professional-quality results. The wet film process and digital imaging will live together side by side for many years yet, just as they do in the movie industry.
Why? Because although digital imaging offers much in terms of reduced material costs and convenient image-processing, a frame of film can still contain far more information than any computer file derived from the image on a tiny silicone chip.
If you're after what director Ridley Scott calls "filmic quality" to your shots, you still need to shoot on film.
Sea & Sea, the Japanese giant of the underwater photographic equipment world, knows this. Its vast colour catalogue of products for 2004 is split between three amphibious film cameras and five submarine housings for film SLRs, and one amphibious digital camera and six submarine housings for digital cameras.
On the other hand, Nikon has lost interest in the underwater film-user altogether and has finally stopped producing the Nikonos V system 35mm film camera. So Sea & Sea has taken the initiative and stepped into this breach with the Motormarine III.
Alas, the only mistake it made was with its name. This camera should appeal to the traditional Nikonos user, but the name will forever be associated with less serious cameras. The current user of the familiar yellow Motormarine II is nowadays more likely to go over to a digital camera set-up than stay with film.
The Motormarine III is a 35mm film camera with a 20mm six-element focusing lens as standard and either aperture-priority automatic, semi-automatic or manual exposure control. It uses a standard five-pin Nikonos-style synch connection, which means that it can be used with a wide range of underwater flashguns Ðnot only those made by Sea & Sea Ð and it has a motorised film-advance. It is depth-rated to 60m.
As part of its system, four supplementary wide-angle conversion lenses are available as optional extras. These are the 16mm w/a and 12.5mm fisheye, and two supplementary macro lenses (1:2 and 1:3).
It offers a range of five shutter speeds to 1/250sec selected by push-button, a dial that makes strobe bracketing simple to achieve, and a built-in targeting light that automatically turns off just before the picture is exposed.
An LCD panel has a built-in light which turns on for 10 seconds when the shutter-release is depressed slightly, and makes operating the camera in the dark relatively easy.
Like the Motormarine II, this is a viewfinder-camera in that the user looks through a separate eyepiece rather than directly through the lens, as with an SLR. The viewfinder displays three coloured lights to indicate underexposure (red), flash ready (yellow), and correct flash auto-exposure (green). The camera runs on two AA batteries.
There are a lot of family resemblances with the Motormarine II. It is bigger and a bit bulkier but its grey body is made of the same kind of plastic, and when you look inside it to load the film, it all looks very familiar.
Plastic is a sensible material, as it is impervious to the ravages of salt water, but those who expect to get an anodised cast-aluminium body at this price will be disappointed.
I tried the camera with the Sea & Sea YS60 TTL flashgun. This is an interesting item of kit in that it can be used in TTL mode where a camera allows it, but it also has a range of auto settings to enable it to be used with a number of different digital camera set-ups as well as the Motormarine III.
It promises to give correct exposure at f/5.6 with ISO100 film in the flash-to-subject range of 30cm to almost 2m.
The Motormarine III's 20mm lens fitted as standard seems like a good idea, because it is wide-angle in comparison to the standard 35mm lens that was supplied with the Nikonos.
The two supplementary wide-angle lenses give a really wide-angle effect under water and, as any experienced underwater photographer will tell you, this is the secret of clear, sharp pictures. By getting as close to your subject as possible, you reduce the amount of water in the way, and it's the non-optically clear water that destroys image quality.
Wide-angle lenses allow you to do that. Close-ups are even easier. These supplementary wide-angle lenses are designed to be mounted and dismounted from the camera while you're under water.
To get an aperture-priority automatic mode, you simply hold in the shutter-speed selection button for more than two seconds. The camera will try to give you the right shutter-speed to go with the lens aperture you have selected.
If it cannot, because the aperture is too small for the slowest shutter-speed, the red light will show in the viewfinder when you depress the shutter-release slightly.
I was slightly disappointed at first that the lens focus had only two positions - close-up and far. However, once I got my head round the fact that these are two positions for the hyperfocal distances at the widest lens apertures, I stopped worrying about what I first saw as a lack of precision.
It may not have the ease of use of a state-of-the-art 35mm SLR in a housing, but the Motormarine III still gives the user the chance to take top-quality shots for less of a financial outlay than the former would entail.
Taking successful pictures with this camera needs a lot more attention to detail than with a modern compact digital camera, too, but should you be lucky enough to photograph something that makes a saleable image, you will avoid the frustration of having nothing but a low-resolution jpg to offer.
The basic Motormarine III costs £467, or £667 complete with YS60 TTL flash. A 15mm wide-angle lens costs £154 and macro lenses £96 and £115.
Sea & Sea 01803663012, www.sea-sea.com
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+ A good-quality system camera that uses film
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- Not completely exposure-automatic
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"So, Mr Bantin, I see that you wear glasses." So said the cross-examining lawyer at the inquest. He was trying to destroy my testimony as a material witness. "Were you wearing your glasses during the dive?"
"No."
"Then how could you see anything?"
"I was wearing my mask."
A mask may alter your vision while under water, but I find that I can still see clearly, and certainly a lot better than without it. But there is one problem associated with vision through a mask under water, and that is caused by refraction as the light passes from a dense medium, the water, to the less dense medium of the air within it.
Most divers will know that the refraction of light between the water and the air in the conventional flat-lens mask gives a magnifying effect. It makes things look either bigger or closer, and it also causes tunnel-vision.
That's to say, you lose your normal wide angle-of-view. Mind you, we all quickly get used to the drawbacks of using a conventional mask. We grow accustomed to seeing things bigger and we learn to move our heads around to see what we're missing on the periphery of our vision.
Underwater photographers, who use wide-angle lenses, put them behind special dome-shaped ports which put that angle-of-view back to normal. The Hydro Optix Mega -4.5d mask works in exactly the same way. Instead of flat lenses, this mask has two domed lenses.
A good idea, eh? You'd think so, but sadly it isn't!
Let's go back to what all underwater photographers who use dome ports understand well. The dome port works by producing a virtual image that is optically very close. This means that with most camera lenses you need to fit a supplementary close-focus plus-dioptre lens to get sharp focus.
Now, my four-year-old may be able to watch TV comfortably with her nose pressed to the screen, but I can't. I can't focus as close as I would like and, as the years go by, that position gets worse. So unless you are already naturally myopic and wear specs with lenses like the bottom of bottles, or have an unusually large range of focus with your eyes, like that of a young child, you will not be able to focus on the view you get with a Mega -4.5d mask.
The solution is simple, say the men from Hydro Optix. Get special close-focus contact lenses.
Now, I might have gone along with this mask if it were possible to clip a pair of glasses inside it, but I was told that the reduced angle of view so enforced negated the reason for using the mask in the first place. But you can't just go to
Woolworths and buy contact lenses. They need to be prescribed. It's not just a matter of getting a set that lets you see the eye-test chart properly, either.
There are also people who don't get on with contact lenses. I use a conventional mask with prescription lenses, so the idea of getting contact lenses just so that I could use the mask doesn't appeal. I can't imagine those with otherwise perfect eyesight relishing the idea either.
And then, what do you do, special contact lenses in place, when you climb the ladder of the boat and pull your mask off? The Mega -4.5d mask works, with your special contact lenses, only under water. On the deck of the boat, with the lenses in place, you'll find yourself as blind as a bat.
The men at Hydro Optix have an answer for that too. They supply a nifty pair of afore-described bottle-bottom specs (or a monocle) in a minus-dioptre rating to slip on to counter the effects of the plus-dioptre contact lenses!
Please! I have enough trouble looking for where I safely stowed my normal specs before I went diving, but at least I have the option of wearing my mask with its prescription lenses while I look for them. If I needed to find this other pair of specs before I could see anything, there's a good chance I might fall over the side before I did.
So, first, I can't imagine anyone who unfamiliar with using contact lenses getting fitted just to be able to use this mask. Second, the moment you find yourself reduced to disabling blindness as you leave the water, and as you search for where you left your monocle, you will lose interest in any of the visionary benefits you might have discovered during the dive.
Having rubbished this product, I now stand by for the legions of myopic divers who normally wear strong negative-dioptre specs, and the tiny number of divers with such elastic suspensory ligaments that they never knew that contact lenses were needed, to write to me in protest.
If you are not already in need of strong negative dioptre lenses (minus 4 to 5) for normal vision, don't bother. I'm sorry to say that the hassle of using this product is just too much.
This is a product looking to cure a problem that in fact barely exists.
The Hydro Optix Mega -4.5d mask with surface eye-wear will set you back around £190.
Hydro Optix, www.HydroOptix.com
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+ Gives a normal angle-of-view under water
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- Adds two other big problems
- Expensive
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Christopher Cartwright spends his time recording wildlife footage on video for potential sale to TV producers. He works mainly with sharks and for this has found the long dive duration possible with the Buddy Inspiration closed-circuit rebreather invaluable. I met him while he was working in French Polynesia.
I too was intending to use an Inspiration, and had arrived equipped with the latest version of Kevin Gurr's VR3 computer to use alongside it.
The VR3 is unlike any other diving computer I have seen. It looks like something salvaged from the command centre of a battleship. It is well-loved by one group of technical divers but disliked by another, those who have found it to be unreliable.
It certainly looks like the only computer a diver would ever need, with options for either open- or closed-circuit use, and the possibility of switching through 10 different gases including those with helium in the mix, throughout the most complex technical open-circuit dive.
Christopher, seeing that I had the latest VR3 with the improved cover for its battery compartment, told me some horror stories about his own.
"I had been diving, recording shark action, in Tikehau and I had been at 27m for 197 minutes," he said. "I had noted that my CNS oxygen limit was getting near to maximum, which meant that it was time for me to end the dive. Then the display froze. It was just like Windows 98!"
I asked him what he did next. "Luckily, I knew the dive well and I was diving with air as a diluent. It was all very familiar, so I did the stops I knew that I would normally do. Everything seemed to work out OK."
Did he still use the VR3? "It's the only computer I own, so I still use it, but it freezes all the time now. It also stops without warning that the battery is low. For example, the other day it froze on me while I was 60m deep in the Tiputa Pass in Rangiroa. I simply can't rely on it to complete a long dive."
In the light of this account, I decided to use the VR3 alongside another computer. However, I first had to familiarise myself with this very complicated item.
I had downloaded the latest version of the manual and, with some long evenings aboard the Tahiti Aggressor ahead, was confident that I would have time to be thoroughly familiar with the VR3 before the cruise was over, and before changing over to my own Inspiration closed-circuit rebreather. I was to dive in the meantime with open-circuit scuba and another computer.
The first evening aboard, I sat down with the VR3, handbook at the ready. It was set for a date in the last century, so I decided to change it. My first failure. I couldn't get the instrument to remember the new date until I had tried many, many times.
The VR3 is set up with two buttons. You push one or the other or both, either a long push or a quick push, to get the desired result. After several rotations of the display (long pushes on two buttons) I managed to get it to confirm that it was already set to CCR use and with a ppO2 of 1.3 bar. But this moment of triumph was short-lived. The left button released itself from the unit and fired itself across the saloon, closely followed by its spring.
So, game over. No VR3 for me to use on that trip. I didn't bother to ask to borrow Christopher's either! I sent mine back to Kevin Gurr at Delta P Technology as soon I returned to the UK.
Kevin sent me back the latest version, complete with the port for a CCR fourth-cell on one side. He also sent me the tool needed to open the battery compartment. Lucky I had it! I found that I needed to take out the battery and start again before I was able to get it to remember the current date and time.
I started by asking other VR3 users in the UK to help me set it up, and was astounded that so few of them knew how to use their own. Invariably they had a friend with the knowledge. So I set off again on a dive trip with the daunting prospect of wading through the instructions.
The VR3 uses the same modified Buhlmann ZH-L16 algorithm as ProPlanner, Kevin's well-used software for planning technical dives using a PC. It promises to provide every bit of information a diver could possibly need. As such, it is necessarily complex.
I went to the Cortez Club at La Paz as one of four divers using Prism Topaz closed-circuit rebreathers. I asked fellow Prism-diver Andy, who had his own VR3, to set mine up for me. He confessed that he had bought his secondhand and already configured for use with a CCR with a ppO2 of 1.3 bar. He could read it but didn't know how to set it up.
I did several long dives (with a Buddy Nexus on my wrist) looking over his shoulder at his VR3 while my own sat unused back on shore.
The VR3 I had was not configured for CCR, but I had a PIN number to enter into its memory that would allow me to do that.
I had to bite the bullet. Entering this hexadecimal number, composed of both figures and letters of the alphabet, enabled me to start getting inside the mind of the inventor, whoever Kevin's backroom-boy is.
A "short push on both" in fact turned out to be a quick push on the left followed, without break, by a quick push on the right.
Once I had this knack, it made all the difference. I was finally ready to use this VR3, still complete with its buttons, and with air as a diluent to a fixed ppO2 of 1.3 bar, but only after a remarkable 90 minutes of button-pushing.
I got the impression that this computer will do anything you want once you find out how to make it work. That might take some people a long time. It did me.
The display under water looked straightforward enough, with depth and time, no-stop time, stop depth, stop time and total ascent time all clearly displayed.
When you reach a stop, there is an animated graphic of a little diver on a line which indicates the zone in which it is safe to ascend during continuous decompression. If you pass a stop ceiling, a down arrow gives you 60 seconds, counted down, to get back to the right depth.
The VR3 requires deep stops, which are quite convenient on a multi-level dive on a coral reef but might take some nerve, as total deco-time begins to mount, while hanging on a shotline. Of course, to see all this I had to use the computer in open-circuit mode. My CCR dives were all no-stop. So, more button-pushing.
By my third dive trip, this time an open-circuit expedition to the Red Sea, I seemed to have got the hang of it. However, on several occasions a clock display with the current time appeared.
I confess that I don't know what made this suddenly show up. There seems to be layer upon layer of information lurking within this computer!
I know that I have hardly scratched the surface of what this instrument can do. The owner will need to wade through the poorly written instruction manual to find out. I guess that this is aimed at those for whom using the kit is the principal reason for going diving. If you need a computer to monitor a dive for which there is another purpose, such as filming wildlife, you might well not have the patience to bother getting to grips with setting it up.
But writing as one who made it through the long dark tunnel of learning about the VR3, I can now say that it's excellent!
The VR3 can cost up to £1000, according to the specification made accessible. As you pay more, you get the hexadecimal PIN number supplied to access what you need.
Delta P Technology 01202 624478, www.vr3.co.uk
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+ For computer enthusiasts
+ The only computer you will ever need
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- Daunting to set up for use
- Not for technophobes or the impatient
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