Titanic in 8k video
OceanGate Expedition released the 8K video showing never-before-seen details of the ship that sank in April 1912.
Nearly 37 years to the day a team from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution first located and photographed the wreckage of the Titanic, a new expedition has returned with the most detailed images ever captured.
The wreck lying on the ocean floor 380 nautical miles off St. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada promises new revelations and documentation as the wreck continues to disintegrate.
New technologies were used that are critical to helping maritime scientists and archaeologists characterize the decomposition of the Titanic more accurately.
“Capturing this 8K footage will allow us to get up close and still have 4K quality, which is key for big screen and immersive video projects. Even more remarkable are the phenomenal colors in this footage,” said Stockton Rush, president of OceanGate Expeditions.
Comparing images captured on the 2021 expedition, researchers may notice slight changes in certain areas of the wreck that the team will review by analyzing 8K, 4K and other images captured during the 2022 expedition.
In the new high-quality video, OceanGate has been able to capture new details of the ship, including the name of the anchor’s manufacturer, Noah Hingley & Sons Ltd., on the port anchor. Other details they documented include the crane used to unfurl the massive 15-tonne anchor, still located on the deck, and the shackle that was originally attached to the forward mast which collapsed after the 1985 expedition first photographed the ship. Other new reveals include three round structures along the inside of the railing, which are the triple guides that were used to feed the mooring ropes to the bollards on land to secure the ship.
The images also show scenes of the Titanic’s famous bow, the port anchor, the hull, a huge anchor chain (each link weighs approximately 200 pounds or almost 91 kilograms), the number one cargo hold, and the bronze capstans. Notably, the footage also captures dramatic evidence of decomposition, for example where part of the ship’s rail collapsed and fell or in the now famous captain’s bathtub scenes.
“I have been studying the wreck for decades and have done several dives, and I don’t remember seeing any other images that show this level of detail. It is exciting that after so many years we have discovered a new detail that was not so obvious with previous generations of camera technologies,” said Rory Golden, OceanGate Expeditions Titanic expert and veteran Titanic diver.
OceanGate said that one of the most surprising videos shows one of the single-ended calderas that fell to the bottom of the ocean when the Titanic broke up. In particular, it was one of the single-ended calderas that was first detected by the Woods Hole team in 1985 and used to identify the Titanic.
The images are expected to help determine the rate of decomposition of the ship as future expeditions capture new images that can be compared year after year. The video will also support the identification of species seen on and around Titanic, and archaeologists will be able to document features of the wreck and debris field in greater detail. A team of marine biologists, environmental DNA experts, maritime archaeologists and geographic information systems mapping specialists were part of the 2022 expedition team.
