Underwater....

I'm considering going on my fifth submarine ride soon, maybe next month.

Last time, I only had my iPhone with me (original model), so I had really minimal photos:

View attachment 150918 Atlantis Submarine by Deirdre Saoirse Moen, on Flickr

Because it's a submarine, I don't need a housing. I was considering taking both cameras, keeping one lens on each.

Question is: what would help me get the best shots? Not just lens-wise, but anything else I should have along?

 

Atlantis Submarines does the submarine adventures in a bunch of places and they have their own purpose-built passenger subs. I did one of their early rides in the Bahamas about 20 years ago (they no longer operate there), then Grand Cayman, Oahu, and Maui. I love it -- it's really interesting to see what's down there. Oahu's kind of depressing because the harbor was dredged years ago, but with Grand Cayman, we went to the edge of the continental shelf and watched the sand fall off.

On a safety thing, they're battery operated with positive pressure, so if they lose power, they'll bob back up to the surface. They can go down to 150 feet, but the one on Maui only went to 134 as that's how deep it was there.

It's a low-light environment with literally no red, so colors come out somewhat strange. I was thinking of taking a polarizing filter with me, but that may make things worse rather than better. Still, worth a try, right?

View attachment 150933 Atlantis Submarine by Deirdre Saoirse Moen, on Flickr

 

There's also the vibration of the submarine. It's not huge, but long exposures are really out.

I was thinking of the 20mm pancake of course, and maybe a 45-50mm, but then I was thinking maybe I wanted something more like 85-100mm. Dunno.

I was planning on going to the Monterey Bay Aquarium before then, possibly this weekend. I haven't used my GF1 there yet, and, as you say, it is the closest practice environment.

 

Now that I've been thinking about underwater, I'm reminded how much I used to love snorkeling. Haven't been in ages.

It seems that buying a good point and shoot with an underwater housing is approaching the cost of getting an MFT underwater housing, so why not just go that route?

I have an E-PL1 and a GF1, so I need to decide which I'm going to use for this. Catch is, the EPL-1 housing from Olympus assumes the kit lens, which I've sold....