Over the years, a number of waterproof cameras have been produced. Likely the best-known of them is Canon’s AS-6, the “Aquasnappy”. But for serious underwater photographers, there has only ever been one choice.
Back in the mid-1950s, legendary oceanographer and explorer Jacques Cousteau wanted an easy-to-use, compact, amphibious camera that could be carried on the research vessel Calypso and used both on land and at depth.
Conceived by Cousteau and designed by Belgian engineer Jean de Wouters in the late 1950s, it is widely regarded as the first practical, fully waterproof 35mm camera that could be used directly underwater without a bulky external camera housing.
De Wouters built a prototype, which he called the Spiro in 1957, and that eventually evolved into the Calypso camera, manufactured by Atoms in France and distributed by La Spirotechnique in Paris starting in 1960.
The Calypso (sometimes called the Calypso-phot) was named after Costeau’s famed research ship, the RV Calypso.
The Calypso used a simple bayonet lens mount, whereby mounting the lens also pulled the two body halves into a single, watertight unit.
Both 28mm and 35mm lenses (often by SOM Berthiot) and a 45mm lens (by Angenieux) were made, and de Wouters designed a simple, two-bladed, focal-plane shutter that ran from 1/30 to 1/1000sec.
Aperture and focus were set via knobs marked on the lens barrel, rather than on the body. Later Nikonos versions gained a flash port in the base, for underwater flash units, making it a complete system for underwater photography down to about 60 meters (200 ft).
The Calypso’s most distinctive feature is a combined wind-on and shutter release lever. A small top-front rocker locks the lever and, once unlocked, the lever swings forward to its operating position.
Pushing it forward wound the film and cocked the shutter. Pressing it back into the body released the shutter. This layout minimized the number of seals needed and was carried over into Nikon’s Nikonos series.
In the early 1960s the design was licensed to Nippon Kōgaku (now Nikon), which refined it and sold it from 1963 onward as the Nikonos – later expanding it into a long-running series of underwater cameras. Thus, the Calypso is the direct ancestor of the Nikonos line and sometimes referred to as the “proto-Nikonos.”
Nikon produced several models, each adding modest but useful improvements, culminating in the Nikonos RS in 1992. It was a top-line autofocus SLR, waterproof to 100m, with a built-in motor drive, DX‑coded film sensing and a dedicated underwater AF lens set.
The system used Nikon’s special Nikonos / UW-Nikkor lenses, some of which were “water-only” designs optimized for shooting submerged.
These lenses are tuned so that the water itself becomes part of the optical path, giving very sharp, colour-rich images underwater – and they generally do not focus correctly above water. Popular focal lengths included 28mm, 35mm, 50mm macro, 13mm fisheye and the RS‑era 20-35mm zoom and 28mm zoom.
The autofocus Nikonos RS, the most advanced model, was quietly discontinued around 1996-1997 after only a few years of production. Nikon continued to manufacture and sell the Nikonos V until October 2001, when the company formally announced the end of the entire Nikonos series.
It cited the rise of high‑quality underwater housings for standard SLR and DSLR cameras, plus the shift toward digital imaging, as the main reasons for stopping new Nikonos development.
A small number of Nikonos RS bodies were modified by Kodak for the US Navy around 1995-1996, fitted with a digital-back-style rear unit similar to the Kodak DCS 420/425 series; thus becoming the Nikon/Kodak DCS 425 Underwater System.
But it was a one-off military project, not a consumer camera. The exact number made is not known, but believed to be quite small – and the price likely astronomical.
Nikon never did produce a dedicated, digital Nikonos-style camera. Enthusiasts still talk about the idea of a “digital Nikonos,” but Nikon has never brought such a camera to market. At least, not yet…
Read more of David Young's ongoing series on classic cameras, as well as his book A Brief History of Photography.
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