Strike wrote:

> Mate! Not wishing to rain on your parade, but the U.S. Divers Company - that
> became the US distributor of the Aqualung - was founded in 1942.  (It still
> makes a good story though!) :-)

OK, I stand corrected.

It might be another fable, but didn't this American distributor think,
I forget the exact number but it was below ten, as the total limit to
the Aqualung?

> > Incidentally, Aqualung also made and marketed the Calypso camera, the
> > direct ancestor of the Nikonos (I to V - not the RS). Seems as if he
> > was none too ready and willing to disabuse people who thought that he
> > had invented it himself when it was actually designed by the Belgian
> > aircraft engineer Jean de Wouters d'Oplinter.
>
> Now that, I didn't know!  :-)

Matter of fact I first learned of this back in, oh, 1991 I think,
without bothering to go to the magazines in the bookshelf behind me.

I was a subscriber to the quarterly German UWF (Unterwasser Foto -
Film und Video) which was quite the best diving magazine I have EVER
had the pleasure of reading, from every point of view: production,
graphics, editorial skills. Okay, I am very biased towards
photography. Unfortunately it died probably because its cost per
production was excessive. Me? I would have paid double to see it kept
going. Roger, BTW, who doesn't speak German leave alone read it, also
subscribed simply because of those wonderful values. I now have every
copy, including Roger's, and have every intention of keeping them.
Mind, you're welcome to have a "lend" should you so desire, to see
what a proper printed magazine should look like. The pictures, and the
graphics, positively jump out at you.

Today, a Google search on Jean de Wouters elicits:

http://www.google.com.au/search?q=%22Jean+de+Wouters%22&ie=ISO-8859-1&hl=en&meta=

Mika, the editorial staff of UWF transferred holus bolus to "unterwasser".
It's not the same, it's pretty good, but I haven't looked lately.

> As you say, the Calypso was a great - and easy to use - camera.  I used two
> of those - with one attached to each end of a short metal bracket - to take
> pics of thermocline structures that we could later view in "3-D", back in
> 1966.    Although the originals were in colour, they were only ever
> re-produced in mono.  (I think that some years back I sent you a few that
> had appeared in a publication at the time?

You did.

> If I didn't, then I might dig
> them out and see if I can briefly pop them up on Nekton next week.

I think that photographs like that deserve a record on the Internet.
You should pop them up rather less than "briefly" with a full
description of how it happened. They are a historical record which
should be maintained rather than lost.

It's one of the reasons why I am so particularly interested in
historical u/w photography.

> Not least for the fact that it represents my greatest achievements in U/W
> photography - until, that is, my pic of the 'Racing Turtle' that I captured
> in Fiji last month using digital!)  :-)))

There's got to be a "Tall Tale" in there somewhere. :-)

Cheers,

Christian
--
I haven't quite worked out the secret of life yet, but I just know it
must have something to do with lunch.