Last winter, HD camera technology debuted in Antarctica during a four-month shoot for the upcoming PBS documentary Under Antarctic Ice. Based out of McMurdo Science Station on Antarctica's Ross Island, photographer/cinematographer Norbert Wu used Sony's HDW-700A (1080i) camera topside and underwater to shoot 90 percent of the documentary's footage. (Wu will take a final trip to the frozen continent early in 2001 to complete the piece.)

This was Wu's second shoot in Antarctica. He had already conducted a lengthy still-photo and motion-picture shoot on the icy continent in 1997, which helped him secure funding for the PBS documentary. The first shoot also gave him a basis with which to compare film technology against HD. He reports that HD held its ground-the Fujinon lenses that he used for underwater work and the Canon lenses that he used for topside nature and wildlife cinematography performed superbly under grueling conditions.

"I had never shot HD before this trip, and there was a bit of a learning curve at first," he says. "But Sony gave us a lot of education about the camera because they wanted to see how it would perform in this kind of demanding environment. It worked out so well, I doubt I would ever shoot film again under similar conditions."

Wu says that the HD camera especially made sense for underwater work. "We didn't have to worry about film-changing issues, and we could stay underwater longer, which was important since we only had limited windows of time when we had decent light down there," he notes. "We could just pop a 40-minute cassette in and be done. We didn't have to lug tons of film stock all over the polar region. Those things make a big difference."

HD's proficiency in low-light situations also came in handy underwater, where the small crew could only operate minimal lighting packages, and during major snow conditions topside. "Underwater, the Fujinon lenses [the HA 10x5.2BERD model] gave us great range, so much so that we never used any filters, mainly shooting wide open," Wu adds. "And we really pushed the camera-we even overrode its white balance settings in order to get the maximum light out of the situation, and we really pushed the gain to get images like extreme high-speed film. Had we shot on film, I doubt we could have gotten the same kind of color saturation as what we did with HD."

Wu was also pleased with his ability to use a zoom lens underwater. "That's something I've never been able to do with a film camera, but the Fujinon lenses could zoom down there without degrading the image at all. The [Pace Technologies] housing we used let us easily control the aperture."

On the underwater lighting front, Wu says his team primarily used portable SunRay High Intensity Discharge (HID) lights, made by Light and Motion of Monterey, California. "The camera really works well in low-light situations, but the lights were needed because that deep underwater, everything becomes blue, no matter what camera you use," adds Wu. "Therefore, we mainly needed them for the purpose of bringing the colors out, and there are spectacular colors under that ice."

Whether shooting film or HD, Wu advises first-time shooters in frozen conditions to always dry cameras after rinsing them with fresh water, before taking them into cold salt water. "At temperatures like we had in Antarctica, fresh water immediately freezes when you do that," he says. "So any water that might have seeped into a crack will immediately freeze, and you won't realize it until you are down there shooting."