The Advanced Imaging and Visualization Laboratory (AIVL) at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will use Fujinon lenses for deep sea exploration.
The lab used a Fujinon HA13x4.5 wide angle Premier series HD zoom lens on a prototype still and HD video camera to capture the first video and still images of deep sea volcanic actively erupting molten lava on the seafloor.
During a research expedition last May aboard the RV Thomas Thompson, oceanographers from NOAA used Jason, a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that is part of the National Deep Submergence Facility operated by WHOI, to observe and record the powerful event, which occurred in the South Pacific almost 4000ft below the ocean surface. The HD video footage was shown for the first time at the American Geophysical Union fall meeting in San Francisco.
The camera’s single CCD image sensor acquires up to 60 still images per second while simultaneously generating HD video at 29.97 frames per second. The system offers 1920x1080 resolution, producing raw still image data without spatial compression and a 10-bit, 4:2:2 HD-SDI video stream.
The ROV transmitted live HD video of the eruption back to the RV Thomas Thompson through a fiber-optic tether. The system’s Fujinon HD lens provided almost twice the focal length and many times the resolution of the SD cameras that are normally used on vehicles like Jason.
View video footage of the deep sea volcanic eruption.
