Tuesday, July 1, 2014

An Underwater Camera Experiment

Last year I won an underwater photography contest in Maui. The top prize was a gift card that I was able to buy an underwater GoPro type camera. The last few days I have been sinking it, then retrieving it to see what swam by. The first three videos below were shot at a depth of 70'. The reef is actually quite colorful, but at that depth there is not enough sunlight for many of the colors to be visible.


In this video, I identified 40 different fish (as well as boat noise and dolphin squeaks):
0:02 Agile Chromis
0:05 Juvenile Bird Wrass
0:06 Goldring Surgeonfish
0:46 Yellow Tang
0:49 Whitebar Surgeonfish
1:24 Blue-Eye Damselfish
(2:10 Boat Noise)
3:18 Hawaiian Cleaner Wrass
3:37 Peacock Grouper
4:23 Female Yellowtail Coris
4:28 Hawaiian Sergeant
4:48 Chocolate Dip Chromis
5:17 Saddle Wrass
7:19 Multiband Butterflyfish
9:10 Threespot Chromis
9:32 Square-Spot Goatfish
9:56 Thompsons Butterflyfish
10:05 Lei Triggerfish
10:33 Blackside Hawkfish
11:13 Ornate Wrass (I think)
11:23 Blue Stripe Snapper
13:01 Fourline Wrass
13:19 Indo-Pacific Sergeant
13:50 Female Bird Wrass
14:00 Arc-Eye Hawkfish
16:32 Pink-Tail Triggerfish
18:30 Ornate Butterflyfish
19:46 Juvenile Yellowtail Coris 
20:42 Hawaiian Dascyllus
27:42 Brown Sugeonfish
32:01 Potters Angelfish
32:20 Palenose Parrotfish
32:45 Lined Butterflyfish
35:40 Convict Tangs
36:50 Bullethead Parrotfish
37:56 Male Bird Wrass
(38:30 Dolphins Noise)
39:07 Longnose Buterflyfish
39:19 Eightline Wrass
42:02 Blue Goatfish
42:40 Ornate Wrass

Here are a few more videos:


This video is of a different location and a depth of about 110 feet. The camera is facing down a slope and the rocks in the bottom of the shot are resting in about 150 feet depth. At 29:40 you can see me retrieving the camera.