Gibby's RED takes a dive...Underwater RED 4K

[david farland]

Nice shots.....

Have you shot a resolution or macbeth chart underwater yet!

Cheers,

 

[Jimmy Shen]

Those images... were they exported as REC709, or Red Log then graded?

 

[Radoslav Karapetkov]

This looks so good, it almost hurts :wacko:.

Blue and green... and red .... yes!

 

[Noah Kadner]

Very nice. And can I just say I applaud seeing the frame grabs first. I love to see btw and camera rigs as well but frame grabs taste better in my morning cereal.

Noah

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Optics Details

Optics Details

Sharkguy,

Congrats on a milestone! The grabs don't really do the RED justice, they are very compressed, but having seen compression before a million times from underwater images in every possible format, I have an idea of how clean the original footage is. Couple of questions for you:
- You say it was all shot with ambient light? If so, of the frames posted, which is the deepest one? Detail on the kelp looks amazing, even for shallow water, without any additional light.
- Besides tech details on the housing that are under NDA, how are the optics on the dome port built, acrillic or glass? What lens did you use, what is the widest lens you could use with that port while still keeping proper nodality? what angle of coverage you figure you got out of whatever lens you shot?
- Is there a green tint to all images from the actual conditions or is this just a camera/REd alert set up thing? I'm more of a tropical water shooter but I don't remember Catalina being so overly green, it had more of a brown, earthy, orangy tone in all the footage I got there before (with DV and F900)

We're planning on getting 2 REDs next year and will do heavy underwater work as well. We currently use exclusively Gates housings (7 of them) for all of our cameras and, with nothing but respect, didn;t consider Aquavideo to be a valid option for high end work until now that I see it on a RED, so I'm assuming the housing will be oustanding. Ultimately, to me at least, it all comes down to the optics a housing allows you, or forces you, to put in front of your camera lens. That's the make or break deal for me, so, what can you reveal on that subject mate?

Thanks in advance,

Rudi Herbert

 

[Ken Corben]

Que? TV Show? Are you NDA on that subject as well?

At present yes, NDA stuff. But I can say it is top of the food chain in our genre.

Those images... were they exported as REC709, or Red Log then graded?

REC709 to 2K DPX with no grading in RED Alert. Photoshop 16 bits changed to 8 bits then saved as med resolution JPG for posting. Only a slight adjustment of contrast then posted.

Have you shot a resolution or macbeth chart underwater yet!

Yes, we did not have time to shoot these in a pool so Johnny and I shot the rez charts off the back of the boat for the various lens tests. Mike will expand further on this when he posts his housing solutions later in the week? He's a bit busy building housings for us at the moment, major client shoot December in Dubai and the list goes on, including the external monitor housing for the RED LCD - which absolutely rocks underwater. The "zoom in focus" button works on the current cameras (third button down on the front left of camera. The RED LCD resolution with all the camera data is a dream underwater.

After shooting RED underwater, Johnny was really quiet. I asked him what's up. He said, "Oh nothing," as he stared at his $20K HVX underwater camera system sitiing next to Atlantis on the deck :bleh:

 

[Phil Becque]

Well done Ken, Gibby et al ! It looks like you're "ahead of the curve" as they used to say in the 80's - I got a call from (Camdiver) Mark this morning - he'd just got off a long flight so was a bit shell shocked - but it was nice speaking to him. All being well he'll make it to our RED bash on Saturday afternoon.

Keep up the great work ! Can't wait for the 1K stream.

All the best, Phil

 

[Jonas Rejman]

@Sharky

Would you please contact me at:
jonas[at]rejman[dot]com ?

I tried to send you a PM. I am in Prague now, and we should definitely talk about Arapaima Gigas project. We want to go red, and we would like to talk to you about it asap.

Thanks

Jonas

 

[Ken Corben]

Well you are in a sense my competition but in the spirit of the reduser community here's my take on your questions:biggrin:

- You say it was all shot with ambient light? If so, of the frames posted, which is the deepest one? Detail on the kelp looks amazing, even for shallow water, without any additional light.

All ambient light even the Farnsworth bank footage at 100 feet. Average depth of the posted footage is 25 feet (DOF shot, leopard shark and backlight kelp). When we opend the first .r3d file in RED ALERT Gibby just laughed out loud, "Look at the detail on that kelp."

Thanks for acknowledging the compression of the posted images - spoken like a true professional.

- Besides tech details on the housing that are under NDA, how are the optics on the dome port built, acrillic or glass? What lens did you use, what is the widest lens you could use with that port while still keeping proper nodality? what angle of coverage you figure you got out of whatever lens you shot?

Optics are all glass. The Arri ultra prime 8R will work in the current dome solution Mike has built (no vignetting). Your other tech questions were tested and the notes forwarded to Mike. These are best addressed by Mike since he has put so much time and money into developing the RED underwater solutions. I do not feel it is appropriate to post this on a public forum until Mike makes his announcements and starts taking deposits this month. I will say, he is very sharp and has been building housings for nearly as long as I've been diving. His math was spot on for our shoot yesterday. Also, like RED, he picked up the phone at all hours when we called from location to solve our user error issues real time.

- Is there a green tint to all images from the actual conditions or is this just a camera/REd alert set up thing? I'm more of a tropical water shooter but I don't remember Catalina being so overly green, it had more of a brown, earthy, orangy tone in all the footage I got there before (with DV and F900)

Great question - you are right about the "tobacco" look typical of Catalina. We had surge and plankton during our dives and the water was a bit greener than usual. Easily corrected in RAW but we left it as is. The RAW footage in RED ALERT was simply amazing straight out of the camera. The beauty of RAW includes the grading options.

We're planning on getting 2 REDs next year and will do heavy underwater work as well. We currently use exclusively Gates housings (7 of them) for all of our cameras and, with nothing but respect, didn;t consider Aquavideo to be a valid option for high end work until now that I see it on a RED, so I'm assuming the housing will be oustanding. Ultimately, to me at least, it all comes down to the optics a housing allows you, or forces you, to put in front of your camera lens. That's the make or break deal for me, so, what can you reveal on that subject mate?

This is Kinda' like the Mac or PC question.

Gates housings have been and still are an exceptional product and since John bought the company from Elwin just keep getting better - I own several as well. Hell, I could go on and on about experiences on professional shoots where my Gates housing was the only one left standing in the Arctic, South Africa and to 500 feet in Palau. I beat them to sh*t and they just keep on ticking. I am, or at least was , on the Gates web site testifying for their exceptional products.

I am certain the Gates housing for the RED ONE camera will be a thing of beauty and have the Gates reliability we have all come to know and love. That said, I needed a housing solution NOW. My emails to Gates with design requests in February were met with, "I'll put you on the waiting list." OUCH!

Our company GibCor, as early reservation holders, could not wait or work with this solution so I started looking else where. That's when I met Mike Hastings. Ya, I know - we professional shooters don't like PVC housings and Mike swears by them. His PVC housings work for NASA and other cool end users but are not the preferred system for underwater pros for various reasons. His RED PVC housing we used for the beta tests worked like a charm and has an exceptional price point that will suit the needs of many RED owner/operators. But for the professionals he is building an aluminum PRO housing that is a thing of beauty. I sent the photos of it to Jarred at RED and he said, "I want one."

When he sent me photos and tech specs for his aluminum shape formed signature housing series including his custom housing for the Varicam that are not on his web site I responded with where do I send my deposit.

Since April, Mike has come to my studio in LA to look at housing design needs, hosted me and #8 at his design lab in Florida and literally is working like a mad man to get our RED underwater housings on line in my time frame. He is taking all the design input suggestions and requests from me and several of my colleagues that own Gates, Amphibico and Light & Motion gear and making them real and/or better.

Mike's lens solutions set the bar. He is not offering just one lens solution for every one but taking advantage of the cine style lens options for RED. Thus far, field options and ease of change out for the PRO housing are a wet dream. There are also several other unique and very cool design features that will be very popular with the RED underwater shooters.

Gates or Aquavideo? Think more along the lines of Mike Hastings Signature Line of custom housings for RED or Gates housings. Both will be professional tools you can rely on - count on it.

BTW - I have ordered 2 PRO housings from Mike with delivery by mid-October (right Mike?) His girlfriend must hate me given the frequent all nighters he's been pulling for GibCor.

 

[Rob Lohman]

Damn, you guys are doing cool stuff! You do know we have a 4K projector at RED, right?

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Sharkguy,

Thanks a LOT for your answers, I TRULY, TRULY appreciate your time and openness, even if as you say, I "could" be your competition. On that note, not to worry, all fields are full of talented and knowleadgeable professionals that achieve varying level of success. Though I'd like to think of myself and my group as talented perfectionists, we gave up long ago on the everyday fight to land profitable/interesting gigs such as you do, and concentrate instead on our own projects. I'm well aware of my strenghts but even more so of my weaknesses Be sure that when shooting time comes around, I'll be calling on you if not to shoot for us, something we still enjoy, to consult with you on all technical aspects to avoid the steep learning curve and theething problems that by then you'll have brilliantly solved I'm certain

Well, I swear by Gates, but if Aquavision is to provide a great solution for the RED with professional glass optics, then heck, they could be our housings of choice instead. Who knows, being open to all available options has given me some of the most pleasant surprises in life yet...Thanks a LOT once again, you are an example for the community.

Good luck and safe dives,

Rudi Herbert

 

[Michael Hastings]

AquaVideo checks in with some details about underwater housing.

AquaVideo checks in with some details about underwater housing.

Mike's lens solutions set the bar. He is not offering just one lens solution for every one but taking advantage of the cine style lens options for RED. Thus far, field options and ease of change out for the PRO housing are a wet dream. There are also several other unique and very cool design features that will be very popular with the RED underwater shooters.

Gates or Aquavideo? Both will be professional tools you can rely on - count on it.

BTW - I have ordered 2 PRO housings from Mike with delivery by mid-October (right Mike?) His girlfriend must hate me given the frequent all nighters he's been pulling for GibCor.

WOW! I decided to have a life last night, went to dinner, then watched the Democratic debates, so didn't check in on RED ... log in today and I missed four pages of posts.

Anyway, thanks to Ken who has been making exceptional efforts to get the RED in the water, and to Gibby for trusting us with #8, and everybody else on the team.

I think Ken has been hesitant to detail things before talking to me but I will try to lay things out for you, he has pictures too, which I hereby give my permission to post if he was waiting for that.

First, I am amazed at the images they achieved, but I will also tell you that they are nowhere near what the RED is capable of simply because they were forced by time constraints to use the 18-50 zoom. It is an excellent lens, but nowhere near as wide as we would normally use underwater. The 18 gives a little over 70 degrees angle of view - where we are used to shooting at about 105 degrees with Varicams, F900s, better HDV cameras, etc.. The equivalent lens would be a 10mm on the RED. The main difference is that everything would appear much clearer since they would be shooting at almost half the distance - a huge difference underwater.

The housing was actually setup for the 10-22 Canon EF-S lens on the Birger EOS mount. We had the physical prototype last week but Erik at Birger is doing some final tweaks and is about another week or so from having a working proto for us to use in the housing.

A lot of the questions have to do with ports and lenses and rightly so since it is all about the optics, and it has never been more so given the new paradigm of shooting RAW with RED. With that in mind we are making the housings with total flexibility in terms of ports and lens adaptability. The standard interchangeable port system we are using is very flexible, but the second part is that the front plate is removable so even if someone comes up with a funky lens setup that we can't accommodate with the standard ports we can easily, and fairly inexpensively, make a new front plate to specifically accommodate that lens. For instance, I doubt if there is much point to a Fathom type optic since we have interchangeable lenses and excellent superwide choices from Canon, Zeiss, etc. (the Fathom has been more about converting fixed mount lenses) but it would be pretty easy to accommodate simply with a different front plate.

Initially we are using a series of interchangeable ports from Aquatica. The front plate has the mating part for the Aquatica screw type ports. We are using the screw type because it provides a much larger hole diameter than any of the off the shelf bayonet style. The large diameter is necessary to accommodate the larger cine style lenses and particularly the Zeiss Ultraprime 8R which is probably the ultimate underwater prime lens (price: US$25,000). We think most will use the EF-S 10-22 (or the nikon equivalent) on the Birger mount, but we wanted to make sure that everyone could also easily use the 8R for super high quality projects. Both six inch and 8 inch domes are available as well as extension rings, macro ports, etc. which allow use of virtually any lens I have seen.

Currently the domes are acrylic, and should be excellent for most users. (The vast majority of high end underwater motion pictures and stills that you have ever seen were shot through acrylic domes - including IMAX ( I know because I have built replacement domes for some of them.) However, Aquatica recently introduced an 8" glass dome for their bayonet style which should be adaptable to the screw mount. I also have other sources for 8" and 6" glass domes as well if necessary.

Re: housing pricing and specs. Two things: 1) Depth rating is primarily determined by the front plate/port. Either PVC or Aluminum body can do 300 feet or more. You wackos that are pushing 400 or more need the aluminum. 2) Pricing is sort of a la carte. Partly because many users will be using it in the surf line and/or less than 130 feet and partly because we don't know the exact configuration of things like the RED drive, the cost of LCD and power cables, etc.

The housings, whether aluminum or pvc will be 9" OD and our prototype was about 21.5" long plus port with a displacement of about 50 lbs. (displacement is the amount it has to weigh to be neutral in the water. It is the same for aluminum or pvc but the pvc needs a 12 pound weight to be neutral, the aluminum just 3 or 4. (If you are using lights they would offset the need for weights.)

Given the shape of the camera and the position of the viewfinder connectors there is no size advantage to a rectangular shaped housing. If Ken posts pictures the one straight on seems to show a lot of space around it but it is a lens/perspective thing - it is actually pretty tight (and the pvc has about .20 extra on the ID.

Pricing: Tentatively, with the usual disclaimers: $3999 will get you the PVC body with acrylic front and back plate, Aquatica screw type interchangeable port mount with 6" diameter dome standard. We rate this configuration to 175 feet. Thicker acrylic or aluminum frontplate give optional greater depths (see below for price and rating for other plates.)

Standard controls are Power, trigger, and magic focus (i.e. the two small buttons on the front left of the camera). It will be set up to use the Birger mount with control shafts to the Birger focus and iris controls. We may end up with an option for incorporating separate birger controls/cables into the housing so they are semipermanent and you don't have to use the regular knobs that comes with the control. (est. 300-400 each control for the encoder and cable). We will include a simple friction type, works but not super slick control for zoom on the 10-22 canon. Smoother control will be available once we get to evaluate the Birger and other zoom motors.

We will probably include one or two controls on either housing for the menu buttons on the rear LCD but it has not been determined what of those will be possible/desired. The aluminum housing will have a flat on the top over the LCD control area and allow more functions to be accessed, up to the point where the spaghetti factor takes over. We feel fairly confident that at some not too distant point, RED will make or allow much more sophisticated camera remote control through the USB interfaces.

However, it is important to remember that we will be shooting RAW so most of the adjustment controls you have been used to in the past will not be used - i.e. white balance, gamma/knee, picture profiles and the like. This will be more to allow shutter angle, iso, shutter speed, etc. to be changed underwater.

The aluminum body housing will be $6200 with the same functions and the same acrylic plates depth rated to 175ft. Add $900 for aluminum frontplate which jumps you to 250 foot depth rating, and if you add $150 additional for a 1.25" backplate increase depth rating to 300+ feet (I will work the numbers further - don't know the real rating of the dome ports. With the proper ports and an aluminum backplate, 1000 foot or greater ratings would be possible - again with the same main body housing. With the same endplates the PVC housing would have the same depth ratings, up to 300 feet. Much beyond 300, prudence would dictate using the aluminum body even though the PVC should be able to go much deeper as well.

The camera mounts on a slide in tray - currently either front or back load depending on user preference and lens used (wouldn't want to scratch a $25000 Zeiss 8r sliding it in from the back and hitting a control). We will provide a mount at the rear of the camera tray for the RED LCD. It is so slim that it adds almost no additional length even if you choose to use the LCD externally instead. We will also offer an external LCD housing for the RED LCD priced at approx. $999 (it is being prototyped now) plus connectors/cable (to be determined - could be from $300-700 more.)

In keeping with the RED tradition of naming prototypes after cities we named it - what else? - ATLANTIS. While our normal trademark color is yellow - we have made a special exception and the PVC housing will be RED. The aluminum will be the standard Navy spec Black hardcoat that we do on all of our broadcast housings - with undetermined label colors. We can provide a white or yellow material to put over the black hardcoat for those that feel it necessary to avoid heat buildup.

REDDrives were not available but there is room behind the camera for the drive if we use a separate battery (about $400) along the left side of the housing. If both battery and drive need to go behind the camera it would add about 2" to the length.

I'm sure I've forgotten something important but we can add to it as we go along. Just wanted people to get some ball parks. That is: $3999 for PVC Surf/dive to 175 ft. housing. $7100 for aluminum with aluminum frontplate base rated to 250 with low cost upgrade to over 300 feet.

Add ~$400 for special battery. Add $1500 or so for external LCD (monitor not included - take your red LCD in and out or buy a second - it is the best you can get for anywhere near the size, clarity and money.), and maybe $600-$800 for permanent mounted focus/iris encoders/cables.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Mike,

Thanks for all the details, much appreciated really. Acrylic is fine, I've used Aquatica's acrylic 8'' ports for years now and love them, to the point of putting an 8008 housing and port (empty) down to 1100 ft with a winch and bringing it back to the surface without a drop of water inside or any stress fractures. Maybe that bit of info helps you with your depth ratings Anyway, I agree that good acrylic, when is well machined and shaped produces awesome images, so if that's the direction you're going, then it should be OK. I'm looking forward to seeing some photos of your prototypes whenever possible. Your product seems well thought out, solid, and capable of professional images, and being first to market should give you an undeniable edge. I wish you luck and look forward to testing your housings next year.

Rudi Herbert
p.s. BTW, I think we met back in 1995 when I approached you as a possible sponsor for a freediving world record I was organizing...small world indeed.

 

[Ken Corben]

Post work flow...

Post work flow...

With all due respect: those jpg's are so compressed that I can't make a real judgement about the images.

OK,

To my little buddy Concrete in Spain. I can now say with definitive proof that you are so correct in your analysis of internet posted images and sequences of REDCODE 4k RAW footage on reduser thus far.

I just spent the day with Ted from RED at Paradise FX using RED ALERT and FCP 2 to create the 2K prores underwater footage Johnny and I shot with a RED ONE camera for playback from the REDCODE 4K originated footage. I will not go into the details of the work flow because REDCINE is coming soon and it would be pointless. Suffice it to say Concrete is right in his analysis of the internet footage - it sucks!

Watching the "baked" test footage from the kelp forests of Catalina Island on an HD monitor today was one of the singular moments in my career I will always remember. It's not the subject matter we shot. Gliding thru the kelp passing over the dome, in focus, and revealing schooling fish. I watched the footage and thought, "Son of a bitch, that is the most amazing underwater image I have ever seen." Had I not produced it I would have been green with envy.

So Concrete I apologize you were so right about the compression, artifacting etc. The internet today simply can not deliver the quality of the images I saw PERIOD. My posted jpg images - frickin' placeholders. This footage is off to Jackson Hole Wildlife Film festival with Gibby and me next week to be intercut with HDCAM SR underwater footage from a high end production and showcased by Apple during the festival. This is gonna' open a few eyes with the major players in our genre to say the least.

I'd guess that our genre, underwater especially, was not on the top of Jim's mind when he started out with RED. I can say now that there will be an Emmy and/or Oscar in Jim's office for technical achievement, and a few in GibCor's offices for cinematography, as our projects go to broadcast and theaters next year.

UNBELIEVABLE! I wish you could all come to my house and watch the footage on my 50" plasma tonight. It is stunning. I'll post more photos and info about the housing solutions from Mike per his approval later.

Sharky

 

[SalaTar]

I think he got us underwater guys attention..

We just go DEEPER...

 

[Clark Dunbar]

Hey Ken and Gibby,

cool - look forward to seeing the footage in Jackson Hole!

 

[Ken Corben]

Hey Ken and Gibby,

cool - look forward to seeing the footage in Jackson Hole!

Clark,

That was a typo right? You meant SELLING the footage at Jackson :bleh:

 

[Ken Corben]

PRO housing prototype build at Aquavideo in Florida

PRO housing prototype build at Aquavideo in Florida

OK,

Per Mike Hastings approval here are some photos of the PRO RED 4K Aquavideo housing build in Florida recently. Please call Mike directly at 954-937-6600 USA Eastern time with any questions about the housings. I am not a sales rep just a satisfied customer.

Keep in mind this is the PRO design prototype NOT the finished product. Now is a good time to make design requests that we may not have thought of at this point. AND YES, that is the Birger Canon/RED mount and Canon 10-22mm lens in the photos.

Sharky

BTW - special thanks to Billy Summers for lending me his limited supply RED LCD for a week so Mike could design and build the external monitor housing.

 

[Clark Dunbar]

Clark,

That was a typo right? You meant SELLING the footage at Jackson :bleh:

heya - well YEAH that too!

 

[Steve Gibby]

It was very cool to make some RED history yesterday - shooting the first RED underwater footage. It was an awesome trip and Sharky has summarized it well!

A huge thanks to RED for the tech advice, Mike Hastings for the housing design and fab, Sharky for taking #8 to Miami for the housing build, Johnny for arranging for the great yacht we used, Tony & Linda for using their beautiful yacht to take us to Catalina Island, Pam and Marie for all their help, and Sharky and Johnny for their spot-on underwater cinematography.

We're used to working in great locations around the world, but we were still like kids in a candy store on this trip: fantastic weather, great crew & boat, and the chance to splash a RED One camera in a kelp forest full of fish.

GibCor's hallmark is getting the really unusual and hard to get shots - aerial, in-water, POV, stabilizers, jibs, RF helicopters, 3D (with our partners Paradise FX), and about any other kind of unusual shots possible. Now we're doing all that with RED cameras. We obviously have the experience and skill sets to shoot the regular array of shot types...it just tweeks us more to nail the really challenging types of shots!

The Catalina footage was stunning. We had hoped to get some good images out there, but the quality we got even surpassed what we had hoped for. It was a prototype housing without a lot of the features enabled, as Mike Hastings has mentioned...and yet it performed like a champ, as did the RED One camera inside. The 18-50 wasn't the lens we had planned to use, because we were after a wider field of view, but it performed really well.

Now that we've shot RED 4K 2D footage underwater, sometime very soon we'll take it to the next level by shooting RED 4k 3D footage underwater.

I shot about 300 10 megapixel RAW stills of GibCor's Catalina Expedition. Here's a few of those transcoded to JPEGs and optimized in DPI for web delivery.

There's nothing quite like time spent on (and in) the ocean...salt water is the most addictive substance on the face of the earth...but what a healthy addiction it is! I've been addicted to it since the age of 2, and you won't ever see me enter rehab for that addiction...