Underwater Bubble Blowers User Group Thread NEW

[Johnny Friday]

as usual you can expect Gates and Aqua to be there.....

[John J Ellerbrock]

Hello all,

Update on DEEP EPIC.

Schedule. Our goal was to begin shipping DEEP EPIC housings next month. We are ~ 30 days behind. Amongst the reasons is lack of an EPIC camera here at Gates. We’ve had customer cameras sporadically, but we need one full time for full time support of prototyping and production.
EPIC Camera. But good news: Gates EPIC-X will be shipping in the next few days. Problem solved. Full steam ahead. Prototypes in October, followed closely by production.
Production support. For customers with deposits, we’ll make our prototypes available for your productions. No charge, I only ask that you pay for shipping. Protos are limited and will go out on a scheduled basis.
User ‘wish list’. Customers offered valuable feedback on DEEP RED. We’re keeping the good stuff, and improving on the rest. At this juncture we’re accomplishing those goals, which include:
--Smaller, lighter. DEEP EPIC is ~30% smaller than DEEP RED, and substantially lighter.
--Fluid Controls. Linkage from your hand to the lens will feel more natural, smooth
--DEEP RED Re-use. As mentioned in several posts on REDUSER, much of DEEP RED can be used with DEEP EPIC.
--5” Touch Screen. In addition to the carry-over 5.6” monitor housing from DEEP RED, we’ll design one for the the new 5” touch screen monitor as well.
Photos and updates. More will follow soon, including images and details of DEEP EPIC.

Best regards,

J-

[Jason Sturgis]

Thanks for the update John. Really looking forward to the new housing- sounds like a sweet kit! This may be a bit early but can I ask which nikon mount you guys are thinking about incorporating at this time? I know it is premature to speculate on the Red smart mount but just trying to get a sense of which way the wind is blowing. Thanks again!
Best,
Jason

[Johnny Friday]

Jason,
i know for fact that they will incorporate the Opti-Tek mount.....as usual. That said....you can expect that the new housing will also be able to use the nikon smart mount with the manual controls....RED says the new Nikon is both manual and auto...therefore that must mean we'll have an aperature control with some sort of control---i guess we should not assume it will be a gear ring--but that seems most obvious way to go.....considering RED should be considering it as standard for gear controls......

...but since the RED nikon mount does not exist....i don't think Gates will hold up production to wait on the red smart mount....not their style. But knowing Gates, if there's enough interest for some smart type control....they'll build anything as long as some one is ready to pony up.

.....now if you really want to trick out your housing package....you might talk to Pawel about his Cineport that is according to it's maker is the Rolls Royce with 100% improvement in corner resolution among many other improvements vs. a glass dome port. However at 25k + for the port alone....you may want to check with the maker and have a good comparison before ordering one......that said, i can tell you that going Glass vs. Plexi there is a huge improvement of resolution and just plain image quality. If you go glass with Gates....i recommend coating ONLY on inside of the port.....and no coating on the outside.....

[John J Ellerbrock]

you can expect that the new housing will also be able to use the nikon smart mount with the manual controls....RED says the new Nikon is both manual and auto...therefore that must mean we'll have an aperature control with some sort of control---i guess we should not assume it will be a gear ring--but that seems most obvious way to go.....considering RED should be considering it as standard for gear controls......

** Opti-tek for sure. Of course we'll look at the RDCC Version when available.

...but since the RED nikon mount does not exist....i don't think Gates will hold up production to wait on the red smart mount....not their style. But knowing Gates, if there's enough interest for some smart type control....they'll build anything as long as some one is ready to pony up....i recommend coating ONLY on inside of the port.....and no coating on the outside.....

** We stopped coating the outside. Just the inside. The outside only gained ~1/2% improvement in AR (from ~ 1%) and salt water eventually degrades the coating.

J-

[Jason Sturgis]

Johnny & John,

Thanks for the info on the mount options- much appreciated! I am still a ways off from getting my hands on my Epic(stage 3) but it is nice to think about the options and see how I am going to allocate my pesos. As always, really enjoy the insight you guys provide to the board. Best, Jason

[George Evatt]

Hi,

I have modified my housing to fit an Arri Alexa camera. We finally did a test shoot last Friday. The Alexa is a really nice camera and very user friendly. Next job it to get an Epic to work in the houisng. Here is a link to the Alexa test footage. Any comments most appreciated.

http://vimeo.com/29556112

The footage in the oceam pool is with a flat port and the footage in the ocean is with a dome.

Regards

George Evatt

[Johnny Friday]

George...my comments: nice looking....i'd like to see it at depth where cameras really are streteched to their limits and i think real comparisons can be made....low light/blue channel and base iso settings.

comment 2: the older gentleman putting his fins on needs to loose a few pounds
#3: the dog is fantastic.....albeit he/she looks a bit overweight as well....

That's a beast of a housing as well.....but flip since is you can usually modify larger housings for variety of cameras.

ps...some comments were meant to be funny.....and thanks for posting. Nice to finally see some more video/pics......

[George Evatt]

Hi Johnny,

Thanks, great comments, the shots with the large blue fish were at about 8 metres deep and the vis the day we shot was pretty bad. The old gent was indeed a little overweight, however this makes it easty to look at the skin tones which are nice with this camera. The Alexa is known for it latitude and after this test I think it is pretty good in this area.

It is a heavy housing when out of the water (38kg with camera) but very solid and smooth to operate when in the water. I should be able to fit an Epic inside with room left for the shopping.

Kind regards

Geoerge

[Ross Isaacs]

Hi guys
here is a short clip I just cut using my new Mobile Rocket and REDCINE x PRO. Just foolin around getting used to using the new hardware and software.

http://vimeo.com/29369799