Capturing underwater microbial bioluminesence

[indigo_dc]

Off to the Cayman Islands in a few weeks and will be, at the very least, snorkelling in a bay teeming with microbes that bioluminesce (??) when fish/people swim around.

Trying to capture some decent shots of this and nothing on Google is helping, it all seems to be about fish luminescence! It's at night so will be extremely low light (of course!) therefore long shutter speeds - thinking it's going to be more like "luminescence trails" rather than anything approaching what the eye sees! Still, I've got hopes the video will catch something too.

Just wondered if anyone had experience, tips/tricks or advice for capturing this? I even wondered about a night dive sitting on the bottom at 3m with a tripod(!) but guessing the tripod wouldn't last too long back topside after a dunk in a warm, oxygenated ocean...

 

[bvanant]

I think video for this is mostly hopeless unless you are creating the luminescence yourself. There are tons of UW tripods, out there but I think your best bet is a still camera on the tripod with a 20 second or so exposure at ISO 1600. Wave your arms around in front of the camera and you will get some photons to the sensor.
Bill