David Fleetham

Peter Rowlands · Issue 144, May/Jun 2025 · pp. 35–42

Products mentioned: Canon EOS R5, Canon EOS 5D, Canon F1, Minolta, Nikonos, Ikelite housing, Ikelite DS161 strobes

I think it’s fair to say that both you and I are ‘of a certain age’ having learnt on film and transited to digital. Do you think today’s digital only underwater photographers have missed out or benefitted? They’ve certainly benefited. It’s hard to imagine going back to the days of just 36 exposures per dive—not to mention the uncertainty of whether the image in my mind had actually been captured on that tiny strip of chemically treated film. The instant gratification of digital photography— being able to say, “That’s it, I got the shot,” and immediately move on to the next subject—is truly invaluable. And if the shot isn’t quite right, I can keep shooting until it is. What newer photographers may have missed out on, however, is the tactile satisfaction of physically discarding a slide that didn’t make the cut—dropping it into an actual trashcan, rather than simply dragging a bunch of pix…