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  • Hey all, just changed over the backend after 15 years I figured time to give it a bit of an update, its probably gonna be a bit weird for most of you and i am sure there is a few bugs to work out but it should kinda work the same as before... hopefully :)

The Gentleman's Underwater Bubble Blower Thread

That is all true Johnny, just did a couple of crossings that were't too comfortable, one of them trashed the galley, crap flying everywhere.

That being said, if you want Hammerheads, and this is the purpose of the trip, they are only there at that time of year. Ain't that a bitch.

All a crap shoot, could work out fine, could all go to hell. When has it ever been any different with this stuff? :cool:
 
You guys have fun out there! See some hammerheads for me ya?

90% of the time water around Hawaii is horrible so you got to do what you got to do LOL
 
Tom,

February 14th may be too soon for me, but keep me posted and I'll let you know. Only way to bring all the gear people like us routinely use is by boat, breathers, housings, scooters, so making the crossing is a must. But I won't abide one more nasty crossing ever in my life, so I draw the line at 10-12 knots easterly winds, 2-3 ft waves, otherwise, I'm staying put. Hopefully this year will be better, 2012 brought the worst weather I've seen in my 22 years in Florida. Incredible how the changing weather patterns are affecting everything for the worse...
 
Understood Rudi, and agree completely, no point in banging your boat up in heavy seas, this time of year, 2-3 foot seas are rare.

I may be moving my aircraft to Ft Lauderdale for that purpose, am looking at Bimini as Red Sea Picture's new home base of operations, close to all the big shark action. I'll ping you as the trip date draws near, thanks.
 
Rudi,
Thanks for the invite, will keep in touch as we get closer. Sometime thereabouts around May works for me.
 
While we're all waiting for the next round of posts, thought I'd provide a musical interlude here, in honor of Rudi. My wife's grandparents came over from Cuba, the unbridled spirit of Latin America is huge in these parts. And even though this band is not specifically from Havana, it represents the joy and the energy of the region. If you can't move your feet to this, you better change yer shoes :001_cool: Pls disregard the annoying 20-second ad.

Pochy y su Cocoband
 
This may or may not be worthy for Australian members but here it goes anyway. I met yesterday a longtime film and television program producer - cameraman, Richard Beilby. I tagged along with Steve Rice to look at some c-mount lenses he had on offer which were compatable with the SI2K. Steve is off to India for a few days and again for a few weeks on a project which will require small and agile camera for in-car-in-motion shots.

Whilst we were doing sharpness and coverage tests on the lenses, Richard brought out this amazing custom one-off dive housing.

He had built it around a Cine-Kodak 16mm film camera. He had engineered and done all the mass/balance/stress calculations himself as many Australians have had to do in the past with camera hardware. He made his own wooden pattern from which the foundry cast his aluminium housing. It has a dome port and sealed mechanical relays for the lens turret, controllers and camera rewind. The camera looks perfect. So does the inside of the canister. It never let water in.

His housing made it to 200ft at the Cocos Islands looking at sharks. Apparently he very nearly never came back home, some sort of target fixation thing on the shark in crystal clear water and overhead sun. It was all high science and incomprehendable to me but it was something along the lines of below a certain depth, the human body finds it physically impossible to breathe and the natural buoyancy of a wetsuit is somehow crushed. He apparently had the prior preparation, training and presence of mind to pump air into something to float himself back up.

As it was custom to the Cine-Kodak, it is not suited to any other camera. He made this comment about probably having to toss it out. My suggestion was that it should instead be in custody of a museum, testament to the can-do attitude of Australian innovation born out of necessity at the time.

As for diving. My lot is 10ft at best.
 
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Robert Hart said:
This may or may not be worthy for Australian members but here it goes anyway. I met yesterday a longtime film and television program producer - cameraman, Richard Beilby. I tagged along with Steve Rice to look at some c-mount lenses he had on offer which were compatable with the SI2K. Steve is off to India for a few days and again for a few weeks on a project which will require small and agile camera for in-car-in-motion shots.

Whilst we were doing sharpness and coverage tests on the lenses, Richard brought out this amazing custom one-off dive housing.

He had built it around a Cine-Kodak 16mm film camera. He had engineered and done all the mass/balance/stress calculations himself as many Australians have had to do in the past with camera hardware. He made his own wooden pattern from which the foundry cast his aluminium housing. It has a dome port and sealed mechanical relays for the lens turret, controllers and camera rewind. The camera looks perfect. So does the inside of the canister. It never let water in.

His housing made it to 200ft at the Cocos Islands looking at sharks. Apparently he very nearly never came back home, some sort of target fixation thing on the shark in crystal clear water and overhead sun. It was all high science and incomprehendable to me but it was something along the lines of below a certain depth, the human body finds it physically impossible to breathe and the natural buoyancy of a wetsuit is somehow crushed. He apparently had the prior preparation, training and presence of mind to pump air into something to float himself back up.

As it was custom to the Cine-Kodak, it is not suited to any other camera. He made this comment about probably having to toss it out. My suggestion was that it should instead be in custody of a museum, testament to the can-do attitude of Australian innovation born out of necessity at the time.

As for diving. My lot is 10ft at best.
Click to expand...

Robert, thanks for this great piece of history. Any photos to share?

If Richard finds no more worthy place to donate his housing, then please mention that we have an underwater housing museum here at Gates. A wide variety of historical items can be found stretching back to the 1950's. Richard's Cine-Kodak would be placed honorably amongst them.

Cheers,

J-
 
....so, why don't wee make the next round the validity of HFR for underwater production? I know John E. touched on the subject a while back, but given the passion, and vitriol, of the arguments for and against Peter Jackson's 48 fps in the Hobbit, I was wondering what do you guys feel about it?

Particularly, I loved the look of 48 fps, never being distracted or bothered by all the things people seem to hate, then again, I love 3D and can spend hours working on it without nary a bother. So my visual tolerance threshold must be higher than most's. Also, I agree that shooting 48 fps and HIGHER makes a lot of sense for us. The aesthetic of HFR does a lot to convey the drama and awe of some creatures and places, but also, goes a long way in allowing us to pull good stills from our footage. In fact, the one thing I miss from the Epic now that I'm back shooting R1 is not so much the size as the lack of true high frame rates. What say you?
 
Rudi,
I embrace the idea of shooting HFR....48fps...The biggest issue that Bob C. and i ran into a few months back shooting 48fps....was loss of light at that frame/shutter rate. Well...this with 3d anyway.....We found with loss of light with the mirror/frame&shutter speed we could shoot only in shallow well lit and clear water...On the other hand shooting 2d....that's another thing all together. Solution in 3d seems to be a side by side rig....or always carrying a giant setup of lights....but try ing to hold an F5.6-F8 split at 24ps @ 65-70feet in Ca. waters on a wreck was difficult enough...we tried at 48fps...and that was a bust....I know ways around it and what light setups to use....but it ain't easy and something of a 4-5man crew.

...back to 2d...i'm Always ocvercranking at 30 to 40fps from 24time base. Allows for a lot of options.
 
I've been shooting 3D at 48 fps base for 6 months now. Yes, it requires 1 stop more light than 24 fps so larger lens aperture.
Did I mention how much I love the performance of the Nikonos 15mm and how much I hate the dome port at large lens apertures? :biggrin:

Also, speaking of lighting and filters. Here is the look I was after, which sort of pops out of the RedCine-X with most default settings. No colour balance changes and no saturation adjustment, just an S cureve. The look was achieved with carefully selecting the colour of lights and filters in respect to the ambient light. Personally I don't like over-saturated images. But I do like high contrast images with all colours fully exposed.

This 5k frame grab was shot at 48 fps with 3Deep two days ago.

 
Hey guys, just wanted to keep you up to speed on the developments of the Shark project I'm looking to piece together. Since living in Micronesia for seven years I always knew there was a drop dead massive story to tell, it's a project that has been put on hold, then on, then off etc. One of those ideas that just gnaws away at the grey matter until it gets done. However it looks like things are getting on track. Professional entities are also seeing the potential value of it too and Ive started to develop relationships with some of these entities, one of whom we're all familiar with.

These past couple of months have been pretty hectic but the advances towards this project becoming a reality are moving on. With that I am super stoked to welcome yet another product supporter for the project in the heavyweight form of Gates Underwater Housings. I've used these housings extensively in my career to date and have always had a great rapport with CEO John Ellerbrock. This was borne due to their incredible customer care, he called my cell phone during a remote shoot in Palau to arrange the replacement of a light head back in 2008, an action that always stuck with me as going above and beyond the call of duty to drive home that solid reputation the company now enjoys.

Gates will be supporting us with two Deep Epic housings, dome ports and housing accessories for the project. Given the isolation, as outlined in this thread, I can think of no risk management aspect that puts my mind to better rest knowing that I will be using the tried and tested mechanically operated, tough as nails product from this market leader in one of the most isolated regions of the Pacific Ocean.

If anyone is also happy to offer moral support and follow this along I have also created an FB Page linked via the signature below.

Regards,
Mark.

DEEPEpic_zps9da6fec0.jpg

The DEEP Epic Housing
 
That is TERRIFIC news Mark. Here here my friend! things are shaping up...Is john sending those with Epics inside as well? just kidding.....Great to hear. As said time and time again....Gates will astound you with customer care that goes far beyond the continental USA....i've had same in the Arctic with one on one phone calls with Pamela and John Ellerbrock and parts being sent out next day air to us....You NEVER forget that and it is incredibly important with the profession we enjoy.
 
Johnny Friday said:
...Is john sending those with Epics inside as well?
Click to expand...
That's for Jim to decide if he wants in! :yesnod:

Cheers mate and yeah, that client care is the absolute crux to the success of such isolated projects.

Best,
Mark.
 
Tom Hamilton's got a fan club!

Tom Hamilton's got a fan club!

Hey Tom, Thanks for the baby clobber, you got a fan, check out the tee shirt. Cheers, Mark.
 

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Congrats on things shaping up Mark, you could do far worse than securing two Deep Epics, but probably can't do much better!

Re: HFR. HFR should be mandatory for 3D. Despite all the complaints about the hyper realism of the Hobbit, everyone agrees that the 3D was probably the easiest on the eyes. For an easy 3D experience, you need images with pronounced textures, for texture is what makes for the best, most natural fusing of the two images, not matching colors, matching illumination, etc, etc, all of which are important but not so much as images that have good fusion points. Texture provides that. And texture becomes more pronounced with sharper images. People seem to forget that you can have images in perfect focus which are still blurry, usually courtesy of the magic of 24 fps. HFR eliminates all that. Further to the point, when you are trying to show things like the teeth of a shark, the scales of a tarpon, the suction cups of an octopus, and on and on it goes, you want those details to protrude to life as sharply as possible, you do not want to veil them. Yes, 48 fps robs you of light, or rather demands it in spades, but if you're going to shoot macro subjects, you need light anyway, and for wide vistas, I insist that side-by-side is far better than people give it credit for. I have put 3D aside for a while, but did it long enough to be certain that, if I'm going into the wild without knowing what will come my way, I'd rather have a parallel rig than a mirror one, 100%.

Tom, if you open a clothing store for toddlers, let me know, I'll buy one of them shirts for my daughter :-)
 
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