The Gentleman's Underwater Bubble Blower Thread

[Pawel Achtel]

To all:

A customer asked me today about the meaningful differences between EPIC and Scarlet cameras w/respect to underwater imaging. What say you?

J-

John, I guess it all depends ...

Is he shooting for Web? TV? Cinema? IMAX?
Is it for reality show, doco, blue chip nat. hist, commercials, music videos?
What lenses he is planning to use?
Also, what Ron said.

I have seen some lovely underwater Scarlet footage of whales shot by Jon Shaw in Tonga last year (actually shot with your Deep Epic housing). He used a fisheye lens, and the result was the best I have seen from such setup. As far as image quality is concearned, it looked better to me than Howard Hall's whale footage shot on Epic, which might have something to do with lens position, aperture or focusing, not sure. The point is that if you get everything right, Scarlet underwater footage can look good.

Most of the time I shoot 48 fps, 5k at 6:1 compression ratio for transfer to 15/70, so Scarlet is not an option for me.

Best fishes from sunny Tasmania!

I just finished another deep dive filming some remarkable deep water reefs....crikey...f/2.8 with 20,000 lm of light...I have no idea if any of it turns up any good

 

[Ross Isaacs]

Ross, I always assess the sharpness of my images by watching a low resolution, compressed video on Vimeo or Youtube. :thumbsup:

Nice footage, BTW, James. Thanks for sharing. Yes, it would be nice to see a 4k or 5k frame grab.

I was waiting for that comment.
:beatdeadhorse5:

 

[Pawel Achtel]

This was shot today at midday. Vizibility ~5m. Butterfly Perch on a deep coral reef off Tasmanian coast.

Not much natural light penetrates to these depths. Shot in 3D with 3Deep and Nikonos 15mm at f/2.8.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

It's summer, it's mid-day: schooling mackerel in deep water off Tasmanian coast.

Shot earlier today in 3D and full 5k with 3Deep and two Nikonos 15mm lenses wide fully opened at f/2.8. Did I mention I love this lens?

 

[James Killion]

Hi James thanks for sharing those gorgeous images Extraordinary!!! SHARP edge to edge spectacular!! Which lens did you use?

Thank you Ross! This was shot with a Tokina 10-17, 5K2;1, 8;1 compression using a Deep Epic Housing.

 

[Ross Isaacs]

Thank you Ross! This was shot with a Tokina 10-17, 5K2;1, 8;1 compression using a Deep Epic Housing.

Great work Jim anyone can see that the image is sharp edge to edge. I love Deep Epic and I can't wait to trade in my wonderful Deep Red for one.

 

[James Killion]

Ross, I always assess the sharpness of my images by watching a low resolution, compressed video on Vimeo or Youtube. :thumbsup:Nice footage, BTW, James. Thanks for sharing. Yes, it would be nice to see a 4k or 5k frame grab.

Thank you Pawel! If your image looks good compressed then it should look spectacular in the Raw form. Photo below compressed to jpeg. Again, would be so nice to view in 4K.

 

[Pawel Achtel]

... This was shot with a Tokina 10-17....

Fisheye lenses do not suffer from significant deterioration of optical performance behind a dome port, rectilinear lenses do. So, there is no reason for your images to be unable to resolve the sensor, particularly when there is sufficient ambient light.

I have a couple of Sea&Sea 12mm fisheye submersible lenses as well as the Nikonos RS 13mm, but haven't used them outside an optical bench because fisheye lenses are not suitable for 3D. It seems our brains don't do very well with fusing two distorted images together. :blink:

Best Fishes!

 

[Greg F]

Is the thread dead?

Speaking of dead.. So how many of you have decided to go dive without a memory card and turn it on underwater only to look like a massive TOOL.. Laughter at yourself is amazing

 

[Matt Ferraro]

Is the thread dead?

Speaking of dead.. So how many of you have decided to go dive without a memory card and turn it on underwater only to look like a massive TOOL.. Laughter at yourself is amazing

Never did that but in a rush one day I left the lens cap on the super 16mm. Needless to say that roll was a little underexposed. :001_smile:

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Is the thread dead?

Speaking of dead.. So how many of you have decided to go dive without a memory card and turn it on underwater only to look like a massive TOOL.. Laughter at yourself is amazing

I have left the lens cap on twice when using my HDCAM housings. :blushing:

This has not proven problematic since I started using submersible lenses. :smile5:

Now I have a check list and run a test before each dive. Shooting 3D there are two cameras and synchronisation hardware that all need to be set up, connected and working correctly...but no problems so far....

 

[Ross Isaacs]

Has anyone here attempted to film bioluminescent invertebrates at night with an Epic X?

 

[Greg F]

Has anyone here attempted to film bioluminescent invertebrates at night with an Epic X?

I am going to play with this as well as UV lighting of targets hopefully this week or next? I ordered the UV keldan modules but as well we have bioluminescence here and I have wanted to film that if possible.. Just a weird quirk I have wanted to try.

 

[Ross Isaacs]

I am going to play with this as well as UV lighting of targets hopefully this week or next? I ordered the UV keldan modules but as well we have bioluminescence here and I have wanted to film that if possible.. Just a weird quirk I have wanted to try.

Thanks Greg I would love to know if you are successful good luck. Filming this in 3D will be a challenge ;-)

 

[Michael Maes]

"No Media Attached".... yeah, had that once. As a matter of fact: Howard Hall had it too three weeks ago! )

 

[Frazier Nivens]

Shot on Sigma 8-16mm lens at 5k and 60 fps.

Shot on Sigma 8-16mm lens at 5k and 60 fps.

Shot this as a test of the Sigma 8-16mm lens at 5k and 60 fps. Doing tests of the Samyang but it curves a bit in the corners and I'd have to shoot it at 4KHD instead of 5k.

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated, good or bad? This is not full res image guys either. It looks pretty nice here at full res. The lines aren't too bad in this lens though, not too much curvature.

 

[Greg F]

Thanks Greg I would love to know if you are successful good luck. Filming this in 3D will be a challenge ;-)

I can only imagine..

"No Media Attached".... yeah, had that once. As a matter of fact: Howard Hall had it too three weeks ago! )

LOL ok well I feel better now. Thanks for the pep talk

 

[Michael Hastings]

Shot this as a test of the Sigma 8-16mm lens at 5k and 60 fps. Doing tests of the Samyang but it curves a bit in the corners and I'd have to shoot it at 4KHD instead of 5k.

Your thoughts and comments are appreciated, good or bad? This is not full res image guys either. It looks pretty nice here at full res. The lines aren't too bad in this lens though, not too much curvature.

Nice shots. What was the widest setting you could go on the 8-16 without vignetting on 5K? I'm guessing not all the way to 8?

 

[Pawel Achtel]

...The lines aren't too bad in this lens though, not too much curvature.

Frazier, I don't understand this comment. What lines are good or bad? And, how does it relate to or how do you assess the curvature? Can you explain what you mean?

 

[Frazier Nivens]

Nice shots. What was the widest setting you could go on the 8-16 without vignetting on 5K? I'm guessing not all the way to 8?

Actually at full 5k I could only get 12mm. The shot of the corals was shot with Sigma 8-16 and the shot of diver with moray eel was actually using the Ruby at 14mm at 5k. Gotta post the full res tiffs of all of the lenses for comparison. The Canon 8-15mm I could only shoot at 4khd and at 10mm but the corners curved a bit too much for my taste.