Posted by Steve Barsky on June 18, 2001 at 07:45:01:
If you’re considering getting started in digital underwater photography, you might be interested in the following story and photos:
Rick Tubridy has been an engineer and diver with United Space Alliance for the past 19 years. United Space Alliance is NASA's prime contractor for the Space Shuttle Program. The company provides many services to the space agency, including assisting with astronaut training, shuttle processing and launch operations, and recovering and rebuilding the solid rocket boosters.
As part of Rick's job, he routinely dives during the recovery of the boosters. In the past, the company has tried to document their work using amphibious 35mm cameras, but the results were not always satisfactory. As he describes it, their photos were nothing but "black and blue."
Shortly before a recent shuttle launch, Rick purchased a Light and Motion Tetra housing for his Olympus C3030Z still digital camera. Although he had purchased the camera for his personal use, Rick took the camera out into the clear waters of the Gulf Stream where the boosters splash down to document his company's work. It was his first dive with the camera and all of his photos were shot with ambient light, at depths down to 100 feet and beyond.
According to Rick, the results with the digital camera were excellent and the photos were circulated via email at Kennedy, Johnson, and Marshall space centers. The photos are aiding engineers in a redesign of the diver-operated-plug used on the solid rocket boosters to improve diver safety during the recovery of these shuttle components.
Rick also took the camera on his vacation to Roatan where he shot over 500 photos with the Tetra, using a SB105 strobe in the manual mode for fill-in flash. He got more than a few "keepers," and was able to instantly review his results with the LCD screen on the camera.
To view Rick’s photos, go to http://www.uwimaging.com/users/Nasa/Nasa.htm