Are there photos/footage of the Titanic sinking?

Question

I know there are drawings and paintings from witnesses depicting the sinking of RMS Titanic, but are there any actual photographs or footage of the event happening?

This video claims to be footage of the Titanic sinking, but I am inclined not to believe it, because there have been many films made on the event. And not just the famous one from 1997, but there were also movies made on it from 1943 and 1953 as well. This "footage" could just be from one of those movies and the YouTuber took advantage of the old looking film to fool people (or perhaps he was misguided himself).

My question is, are there any photographs or footage of the RMS Titanic sinking? I am not interested in simulations or CGI interpretations, but real "on-sight" footage of the event.

Answer 1

Short answer: No.

The only film footage of the RMS Titanic shows her being towed into the outfitting wharf at Belfast in February 1912, and moored at Belfast. A clip of Lusitania leaving port has often been shown as a substitute for Titanic's maiden voyage commencement (including in the 1958 film 'A Night to Remember*).

No footage of Titanic leaving Southampton is known to exist.

There is almost certainly no footage of the actual sinking. Put simply, it just wouldn't have been practical to film it. In 1912, motion picture equipment was large and cumbersome.

Even ordinary photography, with 'simple' cameras like this, in 1912 required a lot of light to produce a reasonable image. I'm pretty sure someone would have noticed, and commented on, magnesium flash powder being set off from one of the lifeboats during the sinking.

Sadly, the video in your original question appears to be a fake. The truth is that the best video we have of the actual RMS Titanic has been that filmed since she was re-discovered by Robert Ballard on the Atlantic seabed in 1985.

Answer 2

Not of the ship sinking but there is one of the suspected iceberg it hit.

The photo was taken from a ship sailing in the area some time later. As it passed by an iceberg someone noticed there were paint stains near the waterline. It was the only iceberg in the vicinity of the wreck

Also a salvage vessel took some shots of a lifeboat picked up with a couple of dead bodies inside. This was something like 3 months later.

http://rarehistoricalphotos.com/iceberg-sunk-titanic-1912/

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/photos/titanic-rescue-photos-13724147/image-14786969

**Minor edit correction - ship wasn't Carpathia.*

Answer 3

I saw the same video of the sinking of titanic on YouTube and I compared it to the 1997 movie and as far as I can tell they were identical. But I noticed that the windows on the waterline were different than in the movie. So I looked on other movies like The Night to Remember. Bingo! I found an exact similarity to the Titanic lights going out.

I looked at each flash of the lights same amount. The waterline was about to where the 3rd funnel would be. Although, I noticed that the Titanic in The Night to Remember was facing to the right and I had another conclusion - Whoever did the fake video switched the Titanic from The Night to Remember to face left. But actually, if this wasn't surprising enough, there is only 1 picture of the Titanic sinking! It is a picture of Molly Brown drinking Coffee on the B deck dining as the ship sank. even without looking at the differences its obviously fake because the speed of the video would have been speed up because back then film was a lot faster than reality. were you see some one walking bye that person is walking normally were in the film that person seems to be speed walking. just turn on any old 1930s show and even that is the same.