Underwater Bubble Blowers User Group Thread NEW

[lonny dill]

Successful Underwater Shoot in Bahamas

Successful Underwater Shoot in Bahamas

I haven't posted in a while, but I have to give credit where credit is due.

We just returned from a 6 day underwater filming production in Nassau Bahamas. We worked with Stuart Cove's Dive Expedition and captured some amazing footage of sharks and shipwrecks.

It is important for us to express our thanks to Birger as it has been the keystone of our success. First off, my director isn't a diver and insists on working on the surface while viewing the footage on a 24" monitor and having total focus, iris and rec start/stop control. There are a ton of advantages of topside control and viewing. No diver can insure perfect exposure and focus while looking through a mask, 3 foot of water, and the glass cover covering the Red LCD display. We ran 230' tethers from our Aquavideo housings to provide topside control and HDSDI video feeds.

During the whole production, Birger worked flawlessly with the Viewfactor knob to control several Canon lenses. Our footage will speak for itself.

I am bummed out for many of the Red users out there that aren't able to have access to the same gear that has been so beneficial to our success because of warranty limitations. We all look forward to the Epic and the Epic remote, and eventually we will venture down the Epic remote path, but until then we are going to continue to use Birger, Viewfactor and Red together to pull off some killer footage.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Lonny,

Looks like a lot of fun, even if carefully planned and executed fun. Can you share a bit more detail about how exactly the Birger, Viewfactor solution worked? I don't have a lot of knowledge about what can be done with it, even if I know the basics of course, so can you tell us how exactly were you able to change settings from the surface, what settings and to what degree? Iris, focus, exposure, anything else...

Thanks in advance,

 

[Michael Hastings]

Rudi:

I'll chime in here while I sip my second cup of coffee. The Birger/Impero basically gave them the same control you would have if you were using it with the 18" wire on the surface - except it was over a 230 foot tether. The director had control of iris, start-stop, and focus plus the initialize buttons and such as well as the lens data on the screen so he could always see distance and f stop information.

In another post on another thread, I mentioned that in terms of pure image quality, the stuff Peppermill got was the finest I have ever seen in my 25 years in the U/W motion picture biz - probably including even the IMAX stuff. I think this was a combination of mostly locked down tripod shots, RED 4K, the 8" AR coated glass dome, the Canon L series 14mm MarkII lens (which is a full frame lens so you are shooting the near perfect center of the lens on RED S35), virtually perfect exposure due to surface monitoring/control and probably most importantly the extremely precise control of focus. While it is pretty easy to get very close to perfect focus with wide angle lenses and depth of field - there is a certain "snap" that you get when you really nail the focus and I think Birger remote was the key to this.

Of course that was just the technical part - the other half of the equation was the money, time and effort the Peppermill crew spent to really get it right. Although shooting isn't my main business, over 25 years I have been involved in almost every kind of U/W shoot and it is very rare that you really get to set things up to really picture the underwater world the way you would like. Usually there is talent, or a story, or limited time or whatever that pushes you to move quickly and just get the best shots you can free swimming with the camera. Even when I worked directly for several of the tourist bureaus where they really want to showcase their diving we were always under pressure to get a lot of different locations and rarely had the chance to set up tripods and really work a shot. Peppermill did that - throughout their casino they have large plasmas in frames showing a "window on the world" (as well as a multiscreen virtual aquarium in one of their restaurants) - so they really took the time to pick locations, setup the tripod, tweak the framing, tweak the focus and tweak the exposure and then run two minute locked down shots.

The raw footage looked great and I really look forward to seeing the footage after color grading. And it would be great if some of this footage made it in time for the RED sample reel and to see it projected 4K at RED day in Vegas at NAB.

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Agree with all of the above. The biggest challenge, and the weakest link in the system, was the underwater communications. At too great a distance the signal became weak and unreadable, and any line of sight interference, such as parts of the shipwreck, caused it to cut out altogether.

Other than that, a remarkable job done by the team.

 

[lonny dill]

Hi Tom & Mike,

Thanks to both of you for all of your help in the Bahamas, you guys were a big part of our success too.

I believe that Tom is referring to the ear piece drop out and full face mask communication drop out between the director and the divers with line of sight interference occured. True, that is one of the biggest challenges. However, the last day, we dropped a OTS hydrophone in the water and communicated very effectively. We will be purchasing a hydrophone before the Red Sea trip. Plus it has an audio input, that we plugged our ipod into and all the divers were listening to music on the last day. Sorry you missed the hydrophone. It rocked!

 

[jim kozmik]

Hay Mike,I think I may need the external 5 inch red underwater monitor,,can you email a few pictures and tell me what i need to do to get it installed in my Aquavideo housing,,kozz

 

[Michael Hastings]

Hay Mike,I think I may need the external 5 inch red underwater monitor,,can you email a few pictures and tell me what i need to do to get it installed in my Aquavideo housing,,kozz

Working on my CNC machine today, get you some pics in the next day or so. It is pretty easy to install. I think there is a port already on your housing - send me a pic of the right side of yours so I can see exactly what I put on there. aquavideo1@yahoo.com

 

[Joe Shemesh]

Hi Mike,
Can you give me some idea of who can make up a 200' Birger/VF lead?

best
joe

 

[jim kozmik]

MIke I just checked ..there is no hole plugged on the right side of the housing..my machine shope guy can do it....send me some lovely monitor pics when you are free KOZZZ

 

[Michael Hastings]

Joe:

I can get that cable made up for you. Need to figure out cost.

Koz:

Get you those pics this weekend. Working on a rush order and Rudi's 3D.

 

[Joe Shemesh]

Thanks Mike - I'll await your costings

best
joe

 

[jim kozmik]

Also mike my friends at DJ WOODS are very interested in any underwater 3D housings as well if you have any thoughts and something in production.would be helpfull.Kozz

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Also mike my friends at DJ WOODS are very interested in any underwater 3D housings as well if you have any thoughts and something in production.would be helpfull.Kozz

Jim,

Mike's got that Canon AVCHD housing prototype that I used to shoot the videos posted a few posts ago. It's pretty good, and with my suggestions, he's making it even better. It produces great images for anything up to TV HD standards. NOW IF MIKE CAN JUST FINISH MY HOUSING, I MIGHT ACTUALLY GET TO SHOOT SOME 3D WITH IT SOON!

 

[Michael Hastings]

Also mike my friends at DJ WOODS are very interested in any underwater 3D housings as well if you have any thoughts and something in production.would be helpfull.Kozz

I am about to finalize some 3D housings. We are trying some new things with Rudi's so let me get his done and see what the most practical configuration is.

 

[jim kozmik]

red one company in Toronto will be contacting u shortly Mike they have a Birger mount system for possible underwater shoot.

 

[Matt Coats]

Hi, I was just wondering what type of breathing setups you guys are using?
Closed Circuit, Nitrox, other tech setups?
I've been a dive master for a while and soon to be a Red owner.... with every intention of shooting underwater one day.

 

[jim kozmik]

We have been using EVOLUTION closed circuit rebreathers for many years. and all of my crew are certified CCR trimix and cave ....so they are competent,safe,no how to settup and fix stuff and keep me the lonely cameraman alive and ticking on the bottom.For Coldwater,warmth,silent diving and some stealth.after all the marine life can see you rebreathers are the only way..even shooting commercials and feature films...I can have a clean flat surface and can hear the director on OTS or hydrophone barking down directions scuba is so NOISY...of course travelling with CCR,s and sorb and all that IS a real hassle at airports now without the CCR manual in the box and a chemical release form of what sofnolime is and is it safe to travel with..HOWARD HALL has shown us all the way on his long dives shooting IMAX.having a 7 minute film roll is a pain and he stays down while his crew brings the housing to the surface ,hauled up by crane,reloaded and sent back down usually onto a heavy tripod..while Howard and the boys stay on rebreather up to 3 hours a dive,,with REDONE underwater it is much easier and lighter of course.
I can do 2 good long dives a day and shoot more then 4- 1-hour scuba dives a day and be less tired and more relaxed at the end of a warm water shoot.
We picked EVOLUTION units because ..being in Ontario Canada..we are only 2 hours away from the main dealer and repair centre,,,easy parts as well..my crew have recently down 3 weeks in TRUK lagoon on rebreathers..I shot 27 hours underwater on my 4th expedition there.I did more..saw more,entered more wrecks then before all because of rebreathers..we have done thousands of combined hours to 350ft,Under 8 ft of Arctic ice.2500 ft into caves with rebreathers without a accident.Remember you are diving a machine so all parts have to work and you must monitor and service these units carefully
Thats it for now good luck...Kozzzzzzzzzzzz.

 

[Matt Coats]

rebreathers, 350ft, arctic ice, 3 weeks @ truk lagoon, and stealth... man, and I thought I had an awesome job.

Thank you though for that in depth reply!
Very cool to hear how you guys make it happen.

 

[Michael Hastings]

Hay Mike,I think I may need the external 5 inch red underwater monitor,,can you email a few pictures and tell me what i need to do to get it installed in my Aquavideo housing,,kozz

Here's some pics of the external LCD from our recent Bahamas trip. This is the case for the 7" Pro LCD. Case for 5.6" is just proportionately smaller. The other picture is of the 5.6" LCD as it is normally (i.e. standard setup) seen at the back of the housing. Either setup has controls for the user buttons on the LCD. Very handy for doing 1:1 checking of focus.

The ProLCD is a major step forward as (besides increased size) it provides much better off axis viewing.

The 5.6 at any viewing axis but dead straight on gets substantially dimmer and it is much harder to judge exposure.

I have only made 2 of the seven inch and 5 or six of the 5" external, and don't have much in the way of product pictures... I'll try to find some others, I know I took some other snaps a few months ago.

The external case uses the standard RED LCD cable with special seals and some braiding overlay to protect. This is due to the sensitivity of the signal that gets messed up easily if we try to make mateable type underwater connectors. I believe Gates ended up using the stock cables as well. (At one point Jarred told me that using a modified cable could void the warranty.)

The setup shown is a little odd in that we were switching from vertical to horizontal shooting frequently.

The case is supplied with ultralight type ball arms and mounts.

 

[jim kozmik]

Thanks Mike..you need a cataloque of product shots....you are saying you and GATES use the raw 22 inch cable punch through the housing with what seals and this is water tight...I just realized after looking at your monitor housing i have a old Aluim betacam housing with monitor external I may be able to cut down in size and it will only fit 5 inch red monitor though....my machine shop dude can reconvert this old baby..give it life again..MIKE can you email me how do you do the bulkhead seals for this monitor..Kozzzzzzzzzz