Joe Ruocco - Night Watch on the Reef

Night Watch on the Reef is a sampling of undersea HDV video we captured in October 2009 while night diving in Roatan, Honduras. We were there for two weeks of intensive diving and shooting with our Sony A1U video-cam which is housed in a modified Amphibico Underwater housing and carries two LED lights for use at night.

In some of the shots you might see the light of our underwater director/spotter Marilyn as she hunts interesting targets in the darkness, 10 to 40 feet down on the reef.

When viewing Night Watch, It is plain to see the stunning color development achieved on night dives using artificial light. With artificial LED lamps at night there is no competition from daylight which, while very helpful in daylight underwater videography, always suffers differential light spectrum loss with increasing depth. Hence, underwater color spectra are always somewhat inhibited by natural light. At night, artificial light is essentially loss-less therefore we can achieve a maximum of true color of the coral reef and its inhabitants.

It is also obvious in the Night Watch movie, that the reef comes alive with many creatures we dont often see in daylight hours. In addition, behaviors differ and create a more interesting seascape within the reach of ones lights.
We hope you enjoy Night Watch on the Reef as much as we enjoyed filming it!