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Budget underwater cinematography to cut with Red

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Kenneth C Merrill

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Hi guys! I will be shooting a Kickstarter campaign for a friend of mine, and she has very little money to throw around. The project is for women's swimwear, and I'm shooting most of it with my Red Scarlet MX, but she's wondering if it's possible to get some shots of the women in the water, on surfboards, riding waves, etc.

I don't have an underwater housing for my Scarlet, not to mention zero experience with those things; so that's out of the question. I'm wondering if there is a budget alternative that could cut reasonably well with the Scarlet footage. A GoPro is the obvious budget choice, but I don't think it will look any good (but maybe?). I do have 5D II; perhaps an underwater rig for that?

I just need to talk it over with someone with more experience shooting in the water. I'm open to anything really.
 
Kenneth C Merrill said:
Hi guys! I will be shooting a Kickstarter campaign for a friend of mine, and she has very little money to throw around. The project is for women's swimwear, and I'm shooting most of it with my Red Scarlet MX, but she's wondering if it's possible to get some shots of the women in the water, on surfboards, riding waves, etc.

I don't have an underwater housing for my Scarlet, not to mention zero experience with those things; so that's out of the question. I'm wondering if there is a budget alternative that could cut reasonably well with the Scarlet footage. A GoPro is the obvious budget choice, but I don't think it will look any good (but maybe?). I do have 5D II; perhaps an underwater rig for that?

I just need to talk it over with someone with more experience shooting in the water. I'm open to anything really.
Click to expand...

Shoot the scarlet - call us for rental quotes on scarlet housing.
 
You can rent an housing for the 5D and shoot some. Underwater will look different no matter what. So you can cut it.
I have a relatively cheap housing for Sony A7 series. You can borrow/buy it ($250) and you can rent a sony to use with it. (I am in LA)

Personally, I would go another route. Shoot them from above the water if you can't shoot in the water. Find a way to do it that fits the rest and it is more together.
I know people want everything, but if they don't have the budget sometime it can't be done. And it is better to do fewer things well with good quality, than adding bad shots.
 
Check out the Z-cam. It shoots some pretty nice looking 4k video and it's the same size as a gopro but with an MFT sensor and interchangeable lenses. You could make an underwater housing out of PVC very cheap. I like mine a lot.

http://z-cam.com/

Nick
 
My recommendation is not to use a cheaper, crappier camera for the underwater camera. You're going to notice the difference. Before you disgard the idea of renting an underwater housing, call around and get some rates and weigh the pros and cons for your budget.
 
I can say with confidence that a housing for my Scarlet is out of the question, unfortunately. Briefly scrubbing through the options, it seems the next best thing would be a housing for my 5D. But THEN it seems the problem will be that I can't focus manually? How do people work this way?
 
Hi nick,

I might be really interested to buy one too. Where did you get yours ?
Also how good is it really in low light ? And what about the file size and output power possibility ? (we're looking for a light camera that could hold 9hours of continuous recording)

thanks !
 
If you stick to swimming pools, you can get a smaller acrylic aquarium, lots of sandbags, and use the aquarium as the housing. Done it on several projects with my Epic, even on a MoVI so I have panning/tilting under water. Obviously, can only go as deep as you're comfortable with so water doesn't pour in, but cheap aquariums are only like $50-$75 and you could maintain a beautiful image.

All these under water shots in this film were shot that way:

https://vimeo.com/100604016
 
If you are in a pool with good visibility I would use the gopro 4, 2.7 or 4k. My first underwater shoot was with a kodak instamatic (1966) with two twist tie baggies over it. Extreme budget. Put the gopro on sticks or a pole to dampen camera shake.
 
Brian Nguyen said:
I would recommend a 5D Mark III with Magic Lantern RAW and shoot RAW if you know the workflow (and are exporting to an HD output)

This was all shot on the 5D Mark III with ML RAW and a Aquatech housing witha Canon 16-35mm L lens

https://vimeo.com/137790791
Click to expand...

Brian, thank you SO much for that tip. That stuff looks amazing. May I ask how you worked the focus with the Aquatech housing? From what I understand you can't operate the lens barrel once the camera is in there, right? Noob question, but I'm a noob to anything to do with water...
 
Kenneth C Merrill said:
Brian, thank you SO much for that tip. That stuff looks amazing. May I ask how you worked the focus with the Aquatech housing? From what I understand you can't operate the lens barrel once the camera is in there, right? Noob question, but I'm a noob to anything to do with water...
Click to expand...

There was no live focus unfortunately, but you could use the auto-focus function to set focus to different distances (not during filming of course). You just have to preset your focus before you shoot, so there can't be any rack focusing or pulling going on. You are able to change focal lengths with the knob on the outside of the housing, but I would suggest shooting wide and stop down.
 
Kenneth C Merrill said:
Brian, thank you SO much for that tip. That stuff looks amazing. May I ask how you worked the focus with the Aquatech housing? From what I understand you can't operate the lens barrel once the camera is in there, right? Noob question, but I'm a noob to anything to do with water...
Click to expand...

I've been doing surf photography for a while and although Brian will be able to answer exactly how he achieved his focus, I might guess that he used a function button on the rear to focus first before recording.
Remember there is a huge difference in focal distances above and below water. Of course, a narrow aperture will help with that gap (f8 or greater).
 
If you're on budget, just use a gopro with protune, the next setup from that would be in the 3000-5000 usd range, and the footage might not be much better, except in low light situations.
 
Not as a rule but in general you will only have to focus once when shooting underwater. Video or stills. When you first get under go to auto focus on your fin tip or some high contrast area close in and then lock to manual focus. The rest of the day will be in focus. You will have a dome port on the 5d housing that is curved making it so you don't have to refocus. Auto focus is possible but there is a lot of hunting as the sensor sees things floating in the water. If you use strobes underwater be sure to point them outward so the light intersects just before the subject so the least amount of particles in the water between you and the subject get lit up so you can get the cleanest shot.
 
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