Orda Cave is our first joint project with AirPano team.  In 2010 we spent 6 months in the cave shooting its amazing galleries, working on Orda Cave Awareness Project.  And spherical panorama of the Cave became the next logical step for AirPano team and us.

We are happy to show you The very first world’s spherical underwater cave panorama:

Orda Cave. Basic Passage
Photographer: Viktor Lyagushkin, models: Vladimir Fyodorov, Bogdana Vashchenko; equipment: Nikon D3x, Nikkor 16/2.8, Subal housing, 7 Ikelite DS160 strobes.

panorama  in your Ipad or Iphone

panorama  in your Ipad or Iphone

Underwater caves are considered the hardest subject of underwater photography. Overhead environment, inability to surface when you need to, zero visibility, underwater narrows, you have to squeeze through, and complete darkness – here are just a few difficulties that one faces in cave diving; and if you plan to take pictures in an underwater cave, the list multiplies three-fold. Now imagine that you are shooting a spherical panorama! It is impossible to set up a tripod or a panoramic head, which means that you won’t be able to mount your camera or strobe on a tripod. People can’t stand still, but without models you don’t estimate the size and volume of a cave. There is no light source except for the one you bring with you. Radio synchronizers don’t work under water. So all of the above puts you in the most uncertain place for a photo shoot. Every second every light source and every model is moving and turning chaotically, changing light and shade pattern, and altering the composition. But we wouldn’t be the best of the best if we didn’t know how to solve these little problems. Thanks to Oleg Gaponyuk’ and Sergey Semyonov’s expertise and good teamwork, we were able to photograph these exclusive underwater spherical panoramas, which you can now enjoy.

Now that we have successfully completed test photo shoots, and all “know-how” technologies are tried and true, we can say with confidence that Orda Cave spherical photo panorama is the beginning of an entirely new series of unique underwater virtual tours that have never been done before in the world. Here are just a few locations that we plan to shoot this year: Orda Cave, the Baltic, the White Sea, the Blue Lake (Chirek-Kel) in Kabardino-Balkaria, the Tkhach Caves in Adygeya, the Issyk-Kul’ Lake, and dry caves of Ural.

We express our gratitude to Nikon, and personally to Vladimir Volkov for their help in organizing the photo shoot.