The Gentleman's Underwater Bubble Blower Thread

[Ross Isaacs]

Greetings all, after having shot with the Rouge for the last 10 days or so, I have decided to take on a dealership for the housing.

Very impressed with the ease of use, the balance of the housing underwater, and above all, the instant access to all camera functions. If you know how to operate your Scarlet/Epic, learning this housing is very intuitive; each and every control is programmable in the same way as the camera; changing looks for varying depths, switching frame rates, project settings, shutter angles/speeds, etc, all available on the fly.

As someone who has learned from the careful observation of the best in the business, I will personally guarantee legendary after-sales service and support, in direct liaison with the Amphibico/Aquatica factory in my hometown of Montreal.

Any questions about the housing, controls, operating modes and so forth, please contact me at redseapictures@gmail.com, or pm me here on this forum for alternate contact details. Deliveries are on track to begin in January.

Attached are grabs of one's self and the Rouge seeing action at Tiger Beach last week, shot courtesy of Emmy Award winning u/w cinematographer Frazier Nivens. Frazier hired me to assist on a Discovery Network shoot, needless to say, he is an absolute pleasure to work for, and as one with an astonishing wealth of knowledge and experience, an eye-opening shooter to learn from. I feel very fortunate for the experience.

Regards to all,

Tom

Great images Tom I am still concerned that over time those handles will fail.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Ross, i saw the housing at DEMA....very well thought out and the engineers did a great job in mapping out all the controls. I'm personally no fan of all the electronics since if there is water intrusion, then you have to replace the electronics. that said, it is designed for very easy swap of handles and the control board on the inside of the housing---but that's also a cost issue to run around with a spare handle and board. Not sure of those costs, but could be significant. In the end a nice housing and has potential. Not my cup of tea, but it will be popular with others.

 

[Ross Isaacs]

Ross, i saw the housing at DEMA....very well thought out and the engineers did a great job in mapping out all the controls. I'm personally no fan of all the electronics since if there is water intrusion, then you have to replace the electronics. that said, it is designed for very easy swap of handles and the control board on the inside of the housing---but that's also a cost issue to run around with a spare handle and board. Not sure of those costs, but could be significant. In the end a nice housing and has potential. Not my cup of tea, but it will be popular with others.

Yes if the housing comes with a full set of spare handles at no extra expense might be worth a look. I am curious what they use to replace the redmote?

 

[Johnny Friday]

those guys are electrical engineers....they did some fancy work. I failed to see how the connection to camera was made for control, but i did see the plug on the board side....

The handles and boards were all very easily replaced and if you broke of the handles you could assign those functions to the other handle....but no, i don't believe it came with a full set of spares....but if you did buy one and were working remotely, you would likely have a full set of spares. Cost? i'm sure not cheap, but i have no idea.

Yes if the housing comes with a full set of spare handles at no extra expense might be worth a look. I am curious what they use to replace the redmote?

 

[Pawel Achtel]

My main concern, as usual, is the image quality. RED is now working on a 6k sensor, yet most u/w housing manufacturers still can not offer sharpness of more than 1/5th of the sensor capability across the frame. I think it is much more important than the handles.

Tom, does Amphibico do any testing of optical performance and, if so, can you publish any data or images?

I look forward to see some 5k frame grabs and anything aiding in determining optical performance of this rig.

Nice tigers, BTW.

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Ross,

The Redmote is not necessary with this housing, all Redmote functions are implemented in the pistol grip controls, and the four function buttons on the left side of the housing. Each control is programmable via the Epic brain, you essentially design your own housing exactly the way you want it to operate, very clever stuff. And you needn't take your hands off the grips to activate each and every function of the camera. It works, very well, and very efficiently. Menu navigation is as easy as if the Epic were on your desk in front of you.

Also remember, the unit comes with a full two-year warranty on parts and labor, that should be plenty of time for a pro shooter like yourself to break the grips, if you are so inclined. These grips are precision machined aluminum, very tough. They are backing up this design with some very respectable support.

Pawel, this is a dome port design, implemented for a wide variety of lenses, dictated by shooter preference. You know how that all goes. Lens-specific corrected optics are in the works. For shooters who want Nikonos, you are the solution, no need to remind everyone

And yes, the Tiger shark is a gorgeous animal, commands some serious respect when one shows up, no doubt at all who's in charge. We had six.

 

[david cheung]

Amphibico Rouge
They design and make their own optics don't they? Other housing manufacturers uses Fathom Inc to design their optics. Al-though the Fathom offered by Gates is some of the nicest wide angle lens converter for underwater I know.


Amphibico of yesteryear made some in water wide converter lenses.They were used in the Amphibicam for F900 and other sony camcorders. No complaints with the quality. I hope they still retain that optical expertise. The new owner Aquatica is also no slouch when it comes to designing ports and lenses. All the experience Aquatica has on designing ports that works with zillions of mega pixels digital stills will come in handy.

I hope the Rouge has easy to change control grip boards. You could never have enough spares with electronics.

 

[Enrique Blein]

Just got through at Tiger Beach. A couple of frame grabs from my camera. Just love working with these amazing animals.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oceanimaging/8230043039/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oceanimaging/8231106308/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oceanimaging/8231105310/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/oceanimaging/8230042047/in/photostream/

These aren't the high res files and are converted in Lightroom to email size, didn't do anything other than export the files as jpegs out of REDCineX pro. Straight out of the camera.

Just wanted to share them with you guys.

So how do I post these without the links again easily so that they show in the post.

Hey! I know that shark with the hook on its commissure ! Great, great experience having had the chance of knowing you Frazier

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Pawel,

You know very well what results would be obtained from such tests, no need to harp on something you yourself know better than anybody else. Domes allow wide angle lenses to yield images that are, all things considered, much better than they have any right to be, so most of us shooters who make a living underwater choose to use those antiquated optics aware of their limitations. However, I for one, do not for a moment forget the fact that it is about damn time we had some corrected optics. As I ranted endlessly on a very long post a while ago, it is unbelievable to me that no manufacturer has undertaken to build proper underwater optics when the Nikonos lenses proved decades ago. The optical principles are no secret, they are very well known, and any decent engineer could design a corrected optic that could easily surpass the quality of domes. Yet, nobody has done it, at least not for large sensor cameras. I had undertaken to build such an optic and then sort of put my project on hold, but seeing as there really isn't anything visible down the pipelines, I will reignite the burners and start cooking again. Look at the size of the Nikonos 15, never mind its quality, and that's for a full frame sensor. We could very well have something just that tiny for our super 35 sensors. But again, for far too long manufacturers have gotten away with building domes, and charging a small fortune for them no less, ignoring the undeniable truth. It is about time somebody kicked the established notions right in the pants....

 

[Johnny Friday]

Amen to that....but until then............if production and direction don't see this as a limitation and not willing to pay for the difference...then there will likely be little reason to push the R&D in that direction. Hard for most people to see a 10% or 15% gain in image quality or even quantitatively evaluate it....It would be up to the film-maker--true u/w film maker to push this and use on their own project. you won't find discovery, NG or others moving for this.....just no incentive since image quality for most is "good enough".

 

[Ross Isaacs]

those guys are electrical engineers....they did some fancy work. I failed to see how the connection to camera was made for control, but i did see the plug on the board side....

The handles and boards were all very easily replaced and if you broke of the handles you could assign those functions to the other handle....but no, i don't believe it came with a full set of spares....but if you did buy one and were working remotely, you would likely have a full set of spares. Cost? i'm sure not cheap, but i have no idea.

The thing I like about the gates design is that I can totally strip every O ring out and do a complete service myself no problem.

 

[Mark_Thorpe]

Nice work Tom, looking forward to a full run down.

Six tigers in the well lit shallows of the Bahamas? Try a gaggle 14 chum attracted Tigers at the same time in Aliwal SHoal, south Africa, without the white stick and a snorkeler for 'backup'. Amazing animals indeed.

Cool pics.
Mark.

 

[Michael Maes]

The thing I like about the gates design is that I can totally strip every O ring out and do a complete service myself no problem.

I second Ross. Deep Epic has nothing fancy but it just works. And it's easy to strip to the bone, rebuild, adjust...
Not the, ahum, cheapest but it's reliable.
and I say this being.... a Nauticam fan :yesnod:

 

[Ross Isaacs]

Nice work Tom, looking forward to a full run down.

Six tigers in the well lit shallows of the Bahamas? Try a gaggle 14 chum attracted Tigers at the same time in Aliwal SHoal, south Africa, without the white stick and a snorkeler for 'backup'. Amazing animals indeed.

Cool pics.
Mark.

I see your 14 tigers and raise you over 20 tigers numerous bull sharks and many lesser species eating a sperm whale off Port Douglas shot on my Deep Red.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

I tend to agree with you, Johnny, there is little interest in image quality from the networks. Broadcast commissions are not what they used to be and production values are not a priority anymore. In fact there is good case to use GoPros for the vast majority of shows. This is the main reason why I lost interest in broadcast market. Sad, but true.

The point you are making, which I agree with, is that the cinema market may not be very big and probably not worth the investment in large R&D.

But, RED Epic is a cinema camera....so questions of the image quality will rise and should be relevant to some users. Otherwise, why Red Epic? Why Dragon?

Rudi, based purely on factual information that I have:

- there is no evidence that corrective underwater optics are capable of resolving 1000 lp per picture width. I'm not convinced that Amphibicam optics ever reached or exceeded 2/3" HD sensor resolution,

- there is no evidence suggesting corrective optics for any S35 or FF35 terrestial lens will be able to resolve at least 2500 lp per picture width. With the experience that I have I remain skeptical,

- I am currently tinkering with optics exceeding 5000 lp (10,000 lines) per picture width and this is when lots of "interesting things" happen. This time around I'm keeping the details under wraps, just suggesting where the bar might be and what I'm excited about.

I'm not bagging the idea of corrective optics. But, from my experience (and I evaluated and compared scientifically dozens of different optics on land and underwater), I remain skeptical that corrective optics would give satisfactory results.

BTW, Wasn't Mike Hastings working on correcting 14 - 24mm Nikon? You would expect at least some preliminary results or a proof of concept to be available if it was working better than the solutions available today.

Tom, It is not "Nikonos vs. the rest of the world" competition. It is about factual information. Not all dome ports are created equal and, in any case, I think that knowing what optical performance to expect, at what apertures and conditions would be an absolute minimum information that any film maker would like to know before embracing a new rig.

You would expect that there be one or more recommended configurations which perform best. Or, are you saying, it is up to the user to figure out what works and what doesn't by trial and error?
The company provides little factual information, however it does say that the Rouge housing "...is leading the way of ...performance with underwater imaging."

I'm not sure what it practically means, perhaps you can explain, but I struggle to see how can they possibly lead in performance of optical imaging if they are not prepared to quantify it first? You need to quantify something if you want to compare it. And, you need to compare it in order to state that you are leading.

 

[Mark_Thorpe]

I see your 14 tigers and raise you over 20 tigers numerous bull sharks and many lesser species eating a sperm whale off Port Douglas shot on my Deep Red.

Full House then? Cool beans.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

On camera looks,

What's wrong with loading a look into the camera? Looking at the flat RAW image makes for a miserable monitoring experience, so with RED, even loading some sort of look into the camera will help monitor. Now, since I don't do much color correction on RCX, I have 3 different looks that I apply to all of my footage there to sort of prepare it to take it out to proper grading. Those looks are customized for underwater footage and they balance/neutralize the footage to give it a more natural look, i.e.: increased reds on the midtones, increased magenta on shadows and midtones, cut off of green and red from the top, more yellow at the bottom and middle, more blue on the top for pretty blue water, etc, etc. I call these looks "neutralizer" and "neutralizer deep" and they basically cover the tweaks that I feel RCX is more suited for, the rest is much better done in a proper grading application. BUT, using these looks on camera has also helped me get a good idea of how malleable the stuff I'm shooting will be later on, and in fact, and many an occasion I've realized that the shot I'm trying to get will not play nice and will be a waste of time, so I quit and move on to better things. If you use in-camera looks with the ulterior useability of your footage down the line, then it can be a very valuable tool. Just because footage is RAW does not mean that it can be infinitely tweaked, so having some sort of reference will save you headaches later when your RAW footage looks more like RAW manure and you don't know why.

On corrected optics,

At the risk of fanning the all-consuming flame that has laid dormant for this brief period of peace and civility, what is the standard bearer Nikonos 15 if not a WCO (water corrected optic)? Any optic built with elements that correct all water induced aberrations is a WCO, whether a fully contained lens that mounts to the camera or an adapter that goes over an existing lens. Pawel must have done extensive research so he will correct me if I'm wrong, but the last test report I read on the Nikonos 15 years ago stated MTF figures of less than 200 ppl at the center. I don't know how optical resolution we need before we pass that threshold where our own visual acuity does not really resolve anymore. 10,000 lines sounds as great as a 20K sensor, and just as ultimately useless. I hope to God 4K holds for a long time and instead we focus on other things, like better underwater optics. And if we come up with is as good as the Nikonos 15, then I'll be happy. Thing is, there are many awesome modern lenses upon which to build full WCO ecosystems like the Nikonos, but for whatever reasons, nobody has done so.

Now, I won't underestimate the economical realities that such a pioneer would face, but good enough is believed to be good enough when there is no other point of comparison. Just because networks don't complain about image quality does not mean we shouldn't pursue it. They don't know any better really. And just because a whole new generation is making "films" using nothing but GoPros does not mean we should drop our Epics and follow suit. The participants of this thread are trail blazers, who choose to spent thousand upon thousand of hard earned $$$ to shoot the underwater world in all of its splendor, and we did not do it to impress networks, we did it first and foremost for us, to do the best that we could do. And make no mistake, it is not that hard to design and build a WCO, and yes, such an optic can be built on an impromptu for a particular project. You all remember the Luc Besson film "The Big Blue"? Luc wanted to shoot anamorphic and was dismayed at how much worse existing optics looked with those lenses, so he looked for an engineer and quickly found Francois Laurent who built the Thalacetor WCO in just a couple of months. Thalacetor was based on the use of aspherical elements and it is the original design upon which the Amphibico and Fathom optics are based. So, given the proper motivation and commitment, such a WCO can be built and amortized with sales to just a few quality enthusiasts, it does not require sales of mass scales to recover the R&D, but yes, it implies getting off one's rear and venturing into unknown territory, which can be risky, uncomfortable, and a bit scary. And also incredibly exciting and rewarding.

I will have such a WCO available before 2013 ends. Count on it.

And hopefully mine will not be the only one or the first one of a new generation.

 

[Mauricio Handler]

I Just returned from 5 weeks shooting the Amphibico Rouge in Indonesia.
A little delay in getting back on track here but here is my initial assessment of the housing.

Overall experience was very positive.
My report mirrors Tom’s comments so I will not duplicate those here.

Camera housing configuration was:
Red Scarlet, 4HD, 30fps, 1/48th, ISO from 320-1000
Lenses used: Tokina 10-17, Tokina 10-17 + 1.4x teleconverter for wide-angle macro , Nikon 60mm macro, Nikon 105 macro, Optitek Nikon Manual mount.

The Housing is well balanced and totally neutral using the 9.25” megadome port
+ Tokina extension ring (with the Tokina 10-17 lens, Optitek Nikon mount and a Switronix L95 Red Battery.
The housing is very streamlined.

I opted for using the 5.0 LCD mounted strictly on the rear – loved it! You can also install it facing up using the top LCD window. Soon there will be an external monitor option as well. It just works better for the way I shoot. It allowed me to move through tight spaces and to shoot in low profile situations where an external monitor and or looking down at the LCD (top window) would have been impractical.

The camera mounts on a saddle tray that holds all components in place.
This tray slides in and out very smoothly without the aid of any tools.
This was a real plus.

For those concerned about electronics accessibility- the electronics board is placed inside the saddle not the actual housing. Access to it, should you ever need to is straight forward with 4 screws holding a cover in place.

For wide-angle I used the Tokina 10-17 and there was no vignetting and or noticeable distortion of the images in any one of the corners.
I used this lens with the 9.25” megadome and the small extension ring.
The images all seem sharp.
I also used this port combo for wide-angle macro shots using the T10-17 + kenko
1.4x teleconverter. This was a superb lens choice for interesting up close wide-angle macros…

I used the Nikon 60mm with the flat port and added the medium ext ring for when using the Nikon 105 macro lens.

Port locking and unlocking was efficient and secure with the built- in Port lock mechanism.

The housing weight was manageable by installing and using the top handle as well as the two rod handles – these in particular were fantastic for carrying the fully loaded housing with arms and 2x Sola lights.

Attached are a few macro and wide frame grabs.
If you have any questions and or want to secure a housing, please feel free to contact me directly mauricio@handlerphoto.com

All in all every manufacturer has a great housing.
There are positive and negatives to each one.

Glad to see the forum up and running once again.

Mauricio-

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Excellent post Rudi.

I also hope we all don't get 'aced' by the flood of GoPro 'Pros' flooding the u/w world at such an alarming rate. They are littering the seas, literally; the safety diver last trip told me his most recent dive on the Spiegel Grove wreck yielded two (2) HD GoPro 2's in perfect working condition.

Please put my name at the top of the list for your WCO, looking forward to regular updates.

Welcome back Mauricio!

 

[Mauricio Handler]

A few more images- all wide- Tokina 10-17. All macro Nikon 60mm .