Just "to whet the appetite" some curiosities on the fascinating history of the photo of the uw environment.

The underwater photography is only a hundred years old, but in this relatively brief period many things have changed. In reality the idea, the desire, to immortalize the submerged environment was already in the mind of the fans toward the half of the XIX century, when the photos were still realized impressing photosensitive substances smeared on plates of glass with low sensibility, weary times of laying and extremely bulky equipments.
The first who really tried to make underwater photos was William Bauer, a lance-corporal of the German army, class 1822; for war demands he planned and he conducted a submarine, that unfortunately in 1851 was destroyed for a wrong manoeuvre. In 1855 however he tries again and he builds a new submarine (for the chronicle, it’s called "Diable marin") and for the first time he brings uw a complete photographic equipment: car, tripod, plates of glass, dark room, photosensitive material. Unfortunately for him the equipments are revealed insufficient and nothing comes out of it, but a first footstep has been moved on.
The first true leap ahead in the development of the scuba diver photographic tecnique will be achieved however only after 1878,a year when the production of the first dry plates to high sensibility begins: cameras start to be endowed with fast bolts (to the place of the cover objective to remove and to put again) the plate is replaced in automatic way inside the camera and above all the cameras are produced in series and of reduced dimensions.
Luis Boutan,a French biologist, will be able to take advantage of these developments of the technology ;he was a man of vast interests: scientist, diver, traveller, and above all curious and audacious.
In 1882 he decides to photograph the bottoms of Banyuls-sur-Mer: it purchases a compact (a Detective, projected to the use of Scotland Yard) camera and he is about to the construction of a diving suit: in copper, with three portholes and gaskets in caoutchouc.

But still it does not work: the images are distorted, confused, little legible. He tries then with a great format (13x18). The diving-suit he gets is very bulky, it can work only lying on the bottom and it needs an afloat ball to be moved; for the illumination he builds a bulb to whose inside they burn magnesium and oxygen, mounted on a barrel containing the necessary air to the combustion. Also finding serious problems with these "flash", that exploded (they had neither protection nor outlet for the gases combusted!), his attempt is successful, its first photos are published on the newspapers and they arouse great amazement. The road had been open, others will have then to improve the technique.

Boutan with a big housing

his flash light

And it won't take long time: it was in fact already a student of Boutan, Etienne Peau, who introduced the first changes and improvements: he will learn in fact to improve the visibility applying in front of the objective a cylinder full of distilled water and above all to manage the bulbs containing magnesium adding a pipe that carried to the outside the residual gases of the combustion.

So far only the first meters under the surface could be photographed.
It was H. Hartman to try the first experiences of photo in depth, using a complex machinery of his invention, provided with a motorized camera for releases in succession, and with a cylinder containing someof the lights. This equipmentl doesn't require therefore the operator's presence, allowing to reach a depth for that epoch non attainable.
The charm of the photography in depth in the meantime has conquered other fans that are looking for more and more daring solutions.
It was John Ernest Williamson to bring the first notable images home, using a different mean: he goes down in fact, with his photographic equipment, inside a watertight sphere, endowed with a great porthole, connected to the surface from a pipe. The photos are soon published by the newspaper where he was employed as a reporter and the success is so great that Williamson will found a society devoted to the underwater photography, and with the same mean he will shoot the first film of "20000 leagues under the seas."

Williamson's sphere

The first color underwater photos are realized instead by the ichthyologist W.H. Longley. He goes down in the water with a diver equipment, breathing through a cable connected to a pomp operated by hand in surface. The camera used is a commercial compact, for which he had built the cover and the plates used that were the first in color, , the Autocromes, of French production. Also for him serious problems of illumination: the plates have a sensibility of 1 din (something that like 0.75 ISOs.). The solution of Longley is simple: he drags behind in surface a raft on which he burns half a kilo magnesium: the explosion provokes such a light to illuminate the bottom. Not badly for a SMBsurface marker buoy! We are in 1926 and his photos are so amazing to be published on the National Geographic Magazine, (number of January 1927, pagg. 56/60)

The first coloured uw picture published on the National Geographic Magazine in 1927

The phothosub will become however more popular thanks to the invention, between 1946 and the '48, of the legendary Rolleimarin, byHans Hass. Already in 1944 Hans published a book containing amazing underwater photos, realized at the Carabis with a camera Robot, provided with a diving-suit he had made. In the book ("Between sharks and corals") it appears for the first time a photo that documents the first meeting brought closer between a man and a shark. Needless to say that the book was a great success, and the study and the photo of the sharks remained then one of the great passions of Hass.
In the same period others already make underwater (Pilgrims and Cousteau among the others) photo, the great worth of Hass is not in fact in having realized those images, but in having projected and built the Rolleimarin, the first watertight custody built in series, for the Rolleiflex biottica 6x6.
The Rolleimarin, simple and ergonomic, knows the maximum period of glory up to the years 60: it was simply considered "the" professional underwater camera, and still today, after more than fifty years of honorable service, some photographers continue to use it.

The Rolleimarin IV

In the years '50 the technology applied to the photo makes giant steps: the practice of the photo becomes more popular thanks to the invention of the color films and the new compact cameras.
In such a climate the Belgian engineer Jean De Wouters of Oplinter will plan the first amphibious camera.
De Wouters belonged to the first consignment of the Calypso of Cousteau, in 1949, in Corsica and Red Sea, collaborating to the construction of the first snorkel. During the consignment Cousteau confessed him his dream to be able to possess a small camera, simple and strong, of non superior dimensions to the common terrestrial cameras , that can function underwater, that uses a common film from 35 mms, with commands insensitive to the pressure and little expensive.
So, in 1951, the Calypso Phot was born: it was the first amphibious format 24x36, endowed with the first gaskets or-ring and of light bulb flash, watertight up to well 30 mt.

the Calypso Phot

With this camera the underwater photo becomes really available for a great number of scuba divers.
Subsequently The Nikon will purchase the brevet and realizes the famous Nikonoses, the first ones with openable back and endowed with electronic flash. In the years versions have been developed different from it, from those completely mechanics as the Calypso Nikkor and the Nikonos II and III, to those more sophisticated, equipped with autofocus, automatic control of the exposure, flash TTL, up to the recent reflexes SR.

Nikonos II

Nikonos V

Since its birth this camera has revealed perfect for every condition of resumption, versatile, practice, reliable and affordable for many people.

We have by now reached our times, the great adventure of the uw photography is well afar from being concluded, new innovative solutions have quickly followed in the last years.
Today's production of custodies and amphibious cameras, both handicraft and industrial, is vast and of high-level. The underwater photo is more and more popular and some houses produce small compact covered cameras, of the type "point and shoot, that, not pretending professional qualities, having offer to the simple fans the possibility to draw near to the fascinating kingdom of the underwater images realizing dignified photos without excessive costs and without the necessity of a particular knowledge.
Close to these simple models and of few pretensions we find extremely sophisticated cameras, endowed with all the necessary automatisms and not, covers of every manner and material, electronic flash with exceptional performances, accessories more and more evolved and complete .

All these equipments have in common a thing: they allow whoever feels like trying , to venture in that extraordinary territory that is the underwater photo, perhaps difficult, but always rich of satisfactions. The protagonist, from the simple images as a souvenir, to those more sophisticated and perfect, is always the sea, with its fascinating creatures, its magic lights, that unique environment that every scuba diver loves.

And it is to the men that we have remembered here (and to many others that we have not mentioned), to their efforts, to their imagination, that we owe the possibility to be able to photograph this fantastic submarine world.