Not our safety, but that of what they are filming. Some of these things never see the light of day and James Cameron over here is blasting it in the face with what must feel like the light of a billion suns, how does this not damage the eyes of the animals that have them?
In: Biology
Another aspect is that the lights don’t have to be all *that* bright. We’re used to thinking about film studios with all their hot, bright lighting, but most of that is only necessary to achieve a certain aesthetic vision. Bright light allows us to use less sensitive film and sensors, which reduces the visual “noise” of film grain. It also allows us to achieve very fast shutter speeds, that only allow a small proportion of the very bright light to enter the camera. This creates a very “crisp” looking video, with little motion blur.
Neither thing is as much a concern with underwater photography for research purposes. They have the luxury of not caring too much about the quality of the video, as long as it’s “good enough”. Therefore they can use more sensitive sensors that are noisier. They can also use (reasonably) slow shutter speeds and low frame rates, to allow more light to enter the camera during each frame.
Don’t get me wrong, the lights are still brighter than those creatures have probably ever seen, but they don’t even have to be as bright as regular sunlight, let alone multiple times brighter, in order to do the job.
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