Water cameras? An experiment in progress. A while back I had an epiphany: my old Fuji camera isn't worth the cost of two disposable water cameras and development. So if I can take underwater pictures with it in a sealed bag, I can save money and have some fun.

The results have been.... mixed. The first time I used a sandwich bag and a quart freezer bag, on the theory that it would fit better and offer better protection. But the results are too cloudy to be really worth it. Here's some action shots:

And here's some nature shots. There was a serious stormcloud heading our way that day:

This was, I'm sorry to say, the best of the pictures I got that day. One bright spot, though: the bagging worked perfectly in terms of waterproofing. So, the next time I tried using two sandwich bags, to cut down on the plastic clouding. This time there was a little leakage into the outer bag, and it clearly affected the picture quality (and made me nervous about experimenting with a single layer). Still, an improvement.
First, the wonderfully dramatic anemones, and some very fuzzy looking small fish:
So much for the underwater close-ups. Here's some medium-distance shots. The coral's underwater, a few feet away. The mussels were out of the water, macro shot.

Next, some outdoor pictures. It was a very, very low tide that day, by the way: normally we can't even get to the spot that I'm standing on outside the sea wall, and most of that sand is water.

Finally, some of the all-important family shots.

The leakage into the outer bag is causing a lot of the blurring here. I've gotten a lot better about remembering to pull the bag so that it's tight over the lens.

So, if this is going to work, I need bags that won't leak. Or just one bag that really won't leak.  ¶ Tuesday, June 05, 2007