When we started talking about the first dolphin bycatch campaign last year it was decided very quickly that we needed plenty of background images of wild dolphins - specifically common dolphins in European waters. While we regularly see dolphins bowriding or surfing alongside the ship and can easily photograph and film that activity it seemed obvious to me as a diver that the place to see dolphins is where they spend most of their time - underwater.

For last year's campaign I hired underwater housing for one of my very high resolution three chip camera heads thinking it would be a relatively simple task to hang it over the side of the ship on a pole and film the dolphins. In reality after five weeks of building ever more elaborate camera mounts we came up with a system that was starting to give the type of images I wanted just as the campaign came to an end. This was not an easy game to play...

So with the benefit of hindsight, this year's camera system was designed well in advance and was planned to be able to take digital stills as well as video. Consequently the housing we have this year is four times the size of the last one to enable me to put a 14 million pixel digital SLR camera into it.

The housing is custom built out of aluminium with a 2.5cm thick plexiglas port on the front and is depth rated to 200 metres. In this situation we only use the housing at two metres depth but with such a big housing the drag and pressure caused by the ship moving through the water at 10 knots is probably exerting several tons of force on both the housing and its mounting system - so overkill is the order of the day.

The mounting system is made from 10cm diameter steel tubing which in turn is supported by steel cables and welded to the deck of the ship. The whole housing can be rotated through 360 degrees remotely from the deck and a 12mm thick multicore umbilical cable sends power to the cameras and pictures back to monitors and recorders on the deck (pictured).

So far this year we've had the usual round of teething troubles but succeeded in getting some good underwater video. Take a look at this underwater dolphin video clip.

If you're using a dial up internet connection, view this version of the video clip.

The dolphins seem to like the eddys produced around the housing at speed and happily play around it giving us a fantastic view of their underwater acrobatics.

We've just switched the system over to the stills camera system and now just await the elusive combination of clear water and playful dolphins... Watch this space.

Gavin, Videographer

Hi Gavin,

I might be teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, but I have a suggestion as to how you might be able to stop the pair trawling without endangering your crew so much.

I believe it wouldnt be too difficult to make something like those boards that trawlers use to keep nets open. You could rig a board to a line with a hook - float the board and hook in front of a pair trawled net so that when the net is hooked, the board pulls the net down under the water. It should be safer than trying to cut off the floats on the net.

Just my 2p worth. I realise that since you are a camera man I may not be sending this suggestion to the most appropriate person, but I can't see on the site who else I could contact.

Good luck,

John Pedersen

Amazing website - hope to see more of the same ;o)

Hi Gavin

Good to see equipment is up, running and what's more "watertight"

Looking forward to seeing the stills and lets hope you are able to get THE SHOT.

Regards to all and take care