X-Ray Mag editor Andrey Bizyukin partakes in project to make use of high-power lights for cave photo and video instead of flash strobes to bring the wonders of Ordinskaya cave in Russia to a wider audience. Enjoy!
Prometheus is an underwater photography and videography project by Orda Cave Underwater Speleology Center looking into the use of the latest technology in diving lamps to illuminate huge caves also for photography where flash has previously been used.
Ordinskaya Cave system is a horizontal gypsum labyrinth within the body of the mountain named after Kazakova. The greatest part of the cave labyrinth is filled with very strong mineralized water, so after each dive, all dive gear is covered by a thick coating of gypsum salts.
Russian caves, with their difficult entrances, vertical pits, narrow passages and cold muddy water, are strikingly different from those in the warm-water recreational destinations such as those in Florida or Mexico where it seems that only the laziest divers don’t pursue diving in the underwater caves found there. Recreational cave divers in these spots can set up a dive rigging directly out of their car trunks.
The maximum depth of any of the known underwater passages in Ordinskaya Cave does not exceed 20 meters. Therefore, even the longest dives during the exploration of the cave did not require decompression.