Losing Colour Underwater

[tropicrows]

Found this little piece while web crawing. I knew this happend, but now I know at what depth.





Losing Colour Underwater

December 31, 2008 Direct light from the sun is called white light. It appears to have no color, however it is actually composed of all the colors in the spectrum. If you were to project it through a prism, you would see it break up into bands of color. Each color is a wavelength of light.
When we go underwater, water absorbs the wavelengths of light one by one as you get deeper.

• Red will disappear at a depth of around 15 to 20 feet.
• Orange at between 25 to 30 feet
• Yellow at 45 to 60 feet
• Green at 70 feet
• at 100 feet, everything will appear blue or grayish green
• at extreme depths all the light will be absorbed and everything will appear deep blue or black.

[finding_time]

tropicrows

The below is a pic of myself and a mate diving the wreck of the Jennifer K which lies in almost 300feet of water NE of Hutchies although the pic was taken in black and white no flash was used and there is heaps of ambient light ! Colour disapears vey quickly as the artical states and by 30m ( 100 feet) it's gone but brightness and tone dont disappear and are very very noticable, the other thing that is very very noticable is the fluro beads we put on above the hooks! I have quite often observed a whole school of fish gathered around what looks like a underwater torch but on closer inspection is a fluro bead that has been there for ages but is still getting charges but the sun even though it's 300 feet down. Fish really seem to love the floro beads and i have and will use them always because i've seen the effect they actually have, there no gimic! The other diver in the shot ( Dr Simon Mitchell) dived the Kyogle not long after that shot was taken and at 500 feet there was still enough light for him to see without a torch although it was very gloomy, so light does penetrate a long long way down!

[f.t.r.]

very interesting

amazing photo

matty

[banshee]

Don't know if I agree with the statement that any colour will actualy disapear,I think it would be more accurate to say they neutralise into the same colour at various depths.


edit.....My bad,I should have read what was there instead of what I thought was there.

[tailorboi99]

I found that information interesting. Thanks for posting it up.

Thanks Tom

[deepfried]

300 foot dive, thats impressive. Never had the balls or training to go deeper than about 100 ' myself when i used to dive of byron bay years ago. That wreck sure has a few fish around it. Would have been tempting to drop a line down when you got back up top.

[dazza]

i remember diving the star of russia in vanuatu years ago, i cut my hand on the decent rope that we used, pretty wild to see purple/black blood running out of my hand. off memory it was around 45 meters deep.
cheers
dazza

[FNQCairns]

tropicrows

The below is a pic of myself and a mate diving the wreck of the Jennifer K which lies in almost 300feet of water NE of Hutchies although the pic was taken in black and white no flash was used and there is heaps of ambient light ! Colour disapears vey quickly as the artical states and by 30m ( 100 feet) it's gone but brightness and tone dont disappear and are very very noticable, the other thing that is very very noticable is the fluro beads we put on above the hooks! I have quite often observed a whole school of fish gathered around what looks like a underwater torch but on closer inspection is a fluro bead that has been there for ages but is still getting charges but the sun even though it's 300 feet down. Fish really seem to love the floro beads and i have and will use them always because i've seen the effect they actually have, there no gimic! The other diver in the shot ( Dr Simon Mitchell) dived the Kyogle not long after that shot was taken and at 500 feet there was still enough light for him to see without a torch although it was very gloomy, so light does penetrate a long long way down!

Sheesh I notice your too cheap to put up for a colour underwater camera

cheers fnq

*edit* foot in mouth here, sorry!! i only just read what you wrote and was playing on the loss of colour at depth as to why the pic looked B&W but it WAS a B&W pic heading back to face the corner of the room now....

cheers fnq

[No Fear]

Interesting information - and the boys always laugh at me when I put the glow beads on and outfish them everytrip.... "They dont make a difference, no fish could see them in 100m!!"........welll suck on this bit of info boys!!!!

[TimiBoy]

Has an interesting implication on all the pretty coloured jigs people buy for deep jigging. Lumo white or cream for me, the rest are just sucker marketing!

I always use beads too, but I still don't catch enough fish

Cheers,

Tim

[Cammy]

Has an interesting implication on all the pretty coloured jigs people buy for deep jigging. Lumo white or cream for me, the rest are just sucker marketing!

I always use beads too, but I still don't catch enough fish

Cheers,

Tim

Isnt the thread pointing towards the sunlight/colours seen from above? The colour of a lure at that certain depth would still look remotly like the true colour it is.

Or am i reading the first post wrong?

Cam

[fivefishes]

Hey,

If you want to see how some of the really red fish (ie Red Emp, Long Tail Flame Snapper, Rosy Jobfish) look at depth check out this site. In particular look at the shot of the Flame Snapper (Etelis Corruscant) These fish are a brilliant bright red out of water but as stated previously here, red is the first colour to disappear from the water column hence the black and white appearance.
http://www.pifsc.noaa.gov/cred/botcam.php

Matt

[alfish]

finding_time
isn't 300 ft about 90metres?
what were you breathing?
500ft/ 150 metres? same question

al

[kokomo]

I have the perfect example

this was a dive I did at shallow tempest... about 40m or water. no artificial light



same fish.. in a cave with light




Different lion fish but shows the torch light and how bright the red becomes

[kokomo]

so to answer the question regarding lure or bait colours... they will appear grey/blue in deep water.... unless you supply artificial light which will enhance the colours again.