Liquid world

Mad Scientist Kirstin with the camera.
Photo by Kharis Schrage.

I am sitting on my couch. My hair is wet, and I am listening to the rain fall outside. The oppressive humidity that hung in the air for the last two months has broken. Water vapor now gives way to aqueous projectiles. It seems my entire world is liquid. 

Earlier today, I swam in a liquid world at Hathaway Pond. Hathaway is a freshwater pond near my house, and I use it for dive training, testing new gear, and sometimes just getting away. Today's mission at the pond was two-fold: I wanted to get in a good dive, but I also needed to test out my lab's new underwater camera system. 

This thing is massive. The camera itself is just a normal DSLR, but by the time you add a waterproof housing, dome lens, strobes, and a viewfinder, the system can get unwieldy. Given how heavy it was in air, I was expecting it to be negatively buoyant in the water. When we first donned our dive gear and stepped into the liquid, I thought the camera would sink - but it didn't! The system is perfectly neutral, which was a pleasant surprise. 

My grad student and I spent the better part of the day messing with the camera and testing it out in the water. We can actually adjust settings on the camera using levers and wheels on the housing, so we tried a number of different combinations until we found the optimal methodology. 

This camera system is destined for much greater things than a local freshwater pond in the upcoming months. I won't give away the location now, but we will be undertaking a research project this fall that requires numerous, high-quality underwater photos. In the meantime, I'm actually quite proud of the images we recorded in the pond. The water was murky today and filled with pea-green plankton. It creates an eerie effect on the photos from this liquid world. 

My grad student, Kharis, being silly.

Yes, that is a Storm Trooper. People sink all sorts of random things in the pond.

There's a wall of mirrors at 20 ft depth so you can check your trim underwater.

This little garden cherub holds down a line that guides divers through the pond.

There's a sunken boat at about 30 ft deep in the pond.

My favorite species in Hathaway Pond is this bright green freshwater sponge called Spongilla lacustris. Photo by Kharis Schrage.

Algae growing on tree branches that have fallen into the pond. Photo by Kharis Schrage.

 

Close-up shot of one of the dive platforms. Photo by Kharis Schrage.

I was excited to see the photographic evidence showed me in proper trim! Photo by Kharis Schrage.

The bright green patch is Spongilla lacustris, a freshwater sponge. Photo by Kharis Schrage.