Underwater Bubble Blowers User Group Thread NEW

[Johnny Friday]

Underwater Frame Grabs

Underwater Frame Grabs

Working on a film in development on the Sea of Cortez and our end goal is to find Marlin working bait balls. Season is off to a slow start, BUT, we're having some luck with other species. We're using both the Gates "Deep RED" and an Aquavideo Hi-Bred housing (one i had gears and dual battery functions added). Both housings are doing a SUPERB JOB. DOF at 4k on moving fast moving objects however is another story.

Here are a few frame grabs from our shoot. All are grabs off of RED shot at 4k and downrezd for this upload:
Johnny

 

[alex lemon]

Great shots!

 

[Michael Hastings]

Very nice stuff, Johnny.

 

[Ross Isaacs]

Deep Red on Great Barrier Reef

Deep Red on Great Barrier Reef

Nice images John....here are some recent screen grabs from my new Deep Red with a 11-16 Duclos shot on the Great Barrier Reef....I am very happy with the performance of both housing and lens....Ross

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Hi Johnny,

We spend a lot of time in Bahia de Los Angeles, now developing an aerial Scarlet mount for our Cessna 182, let me know if you can use aerial support eventually.

I'm guessing the Hammerhead shots are from El Bajo?

Best,
Tom
www.redseapictures.com

 

[Johnny Friday]

Hi Johnny,

We spend a lot of time in Bahia de Los Angeles, now developing an aerial Scarlet mount for our Cessna 182, let me know if you can use aerial support eventually.

I'm guessing the Hammerhead shots are from El Bajo?

Best,
Tom
www.redseapictures.com

Hi Tom,
Yes, would be great to have you contact info Tom. Thanks for the heads up. I'm usually shooting out of an ultralight that's a bit bouncy and not a lot of shooting room at the back.

The shots are NOT from El Bajo I'm sorry to say. I wish it was, but the sharks at El Bajo have been poorly managed and many have been longlined or gillnetted off of the Seamount. Although there are still the occasional passerby, it's but a vacant seamount. These pics came from another seamount that was cleaned by gillnetters five or six years ago and they are all very small sharks--so very good to see that they are slowly making their way back. Only HOPING that word does not leak out to the local fishing commercial fishing community on its location.

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Johnny,

Sorry to hear about El Bajo, that was an amazing place in its day. Also glad to hear there are other places in recovery mode, it's a sorry statement about marine conservation affairs when locations need to be kept secret for their own protection.

Check your PMs for my contact details, I'll keep you posted on our aerial mount progress, we are also looking into making it suitable for R1.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Hi Tom,
yes, it is such a sad state of affairs. Sorry to say that. But el bajo was completely wiped out and continues to be fished commercially even though it is supposed to be protected. There are a lot of laws on the books in mexico for conservation and protection, however lack of enforcement and plane corruption is a problem. We only have two fish and game inspectors in the state of Baja South....so there ya go.....
Best, and i'll check contact details,
JOhnny

 

[Peter Strietmann]

Wow, Mr Friday! You get paid to make these images. a fortunate man indeed.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Nikonos lenses for Epic/Scarlet conversion

Nikonos lenses for Epic/Scarlet conversion

Gentlemen,

I know I brought this subject up a long time ago, on the original Bubbles thread, and today I've been thinking about it again. I was mentioning this idea in passing to Mike Hastings, who is building some housings for me, and he seemed to think it should be possible.

Anyway, we all agree that the Nikonos 15 mm lens is probably the sharpest lens ever made for underwater use, followed closely by the Nikonos RS 13 mm, both of them fairly fast for underwater at F2.8. Now, my thinking is, could we figure out a way to build a housing where the front of the Epic/Scarlet is basically flush with the front plate that has an opening for said lenses? Or add an extender of sorts? Both those lenses were built for full frame 35mm photography, so couldn't they loose a millimeter or two to have such an adapter fitted between the front plate of the housing and the camera's own Nikon mount and still fill the full S35 frame? If anybody can figure this out, then "we're talking" because those lenses are far sharper than anything inside a dome, and far, far, far cheaper. You can still pick up a great condition 15mm on Ebay for around $600. Let's not even mention the substantial size in weight and bulk as compared to an Arri 12, 10 or 8mm monster and the corresponding 8 or 9" dome that needs to cover them. With how small and "boxy" Epic and Scarlet will be, making an ultra small housing for them should be easy, and fitting such a high quality lens up front that weighs so little would be a major coup...

Any takers?

 

[Ross Isaacs]

Duclos 11-16mm

Duclos 11-16mm

Hey Rudi
I have owned both the 15mm Nikonos lens and the 13mm RS and I have just started shooting on the Duclos 11-16mm with at least equal results if not better. It seems to be pin sharp from edge to edge.
Ross

Gentlemen,

I know I brought this subject up a long time ago, on the original Bubbles thread, and today I've been thinking about it again. I was mentioning this idea in passing to Mike Hastings, who is building some housings for me, and he seemed to think it should be possible.

Anyway, we all agree that the Nikonos 15 mm lens is probably the sharpest lens ever made for underwater use, followed closely by the Nikonos RS 13 mm, both of them fairly fast for underwater at F2.8. Now, my thinking is, could we figure out a way to build a housing where the front of the Epic/Scarlet is basically flush with the front plate that has an opening for said lenses? Or add an extender of sorts? Both those lenses were built for full frame 35mm photography, so couldn't they loose a millimeter or two to have such an adapter fitted between the front plate of the housing and the camera's own Nikon mount and still fill the full S35 frame? If anybody can figure this out, then "we're talking" because those lenses are far sharper than anything inside a dome, and far, far, far cheaper. You can still pick up a great condition 15mm on Ebay for around $600. Let's not even mention the substantial size in weight and bulk as compared to an Arri 12, 10 or 8mm monster and the corresponding 8 or 9" dome that needs to cover them. With how small and "boxy" Epic and Scarlet will be, making an ultra small housing for them should be easy, and fitting such a high quality lens up front that weighs so little would be a major coup...

Any takers?

 

[Michael Hastings]

Hey Rudi
I have owned both the 15mm Nikonos lens and the 13mm RS and I have just started shooting on the Duclos 11-16mm with at least equal results if not better. It seems to be pin sharp from edge to edge.
Ross

I'm not going to flat out disagree, but I do question this.

I have never seen any U/W optic setup for motion pictures that truly seemed sharper edge to edge than the 15mm. I suspect that it is due to the perfect alignment of the lens with the dome (nodal point, optical axis, and possibly some additional optical correction) which is difficult to achieve with any kind of housed system.

The 11-16mm is an excellent lens, but it seems to me that in combination with the available port systems it doesn't quite compare to the 15mm. Just looking at the photos you posted recently, there seems to be significant loss of sharpness at the edges. And this isn't a criticism of you or the housing/port you are using - in fact I found out at the recent DEMA show that the acrylic ports Gates uses are exactly the same as the ones we use. It is just the nature of dome ports at large apertures. I haven't done much comparison with our glass dome, but it probably isn't a lot better - glass probably has a little less aberrations in the optics itself but the primary difference with glass is the ability to keep it really clean (and with fewer microscratches) and the AR coating.

I have not had time to do really exhaustive tests (one of my goals this winter is to set up a good test tank in our warehouse that makes it easy to do comparative testing of different setups. I had a good one years ago but it got destroyed in one of the moves.)

As far as the Nikonos 15, the way to do it is to remove the frontplate/mount of the epic/scarlet camera and replace it with a frontplate with the nikonos mount at the proper FFD. It would be bigger than the camera and become the front of the underwater housing itself. (kind of like the old spiro16 Jacques Cousteau cameras). Also remember that this only really makes sense for a full frame scarlet or epic (or a mangled 5D MarkII - like pawel did with putting a pl mount on his 50D) since the 15mm is really a 20mm lens (look it up) so isn't really very wide on APS-C/S35.

BTW as I said, the 11-16 is excellent, but in side by side shots I found the Canon 10-22 to be slightly sharper on the edges - for those that have or will be getting a Canon mount.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Rudi,
with such a setup, don't you then limit your lenses to ONLY Nikonis lenses in that case? no zooms etc... I know how beautiful those lenses are, but seems a heck of a project to limit yourself to ONLY Nikonis lenses then. personally i don't see anything wrong with using plain nikon glass behind a dome.....simple and inexpensive and a variety of lenses to choose from. Now using the OptiTek mount with great results.

Johnny

 

[Johnny Friday]

I'll chime in about the 11-16 as well....used it on a shoot in Alaska and was VERY HAPPY with results. HOWEVER i also encountered significant drop-off of sharpness and detail as you move towards the outer edges of the dome. BUT that said, it really did not distract from the image...merely a remark on what i experienced. However, compared to the Arri 8r....the 8r is so much sharper....so i'd have to say it has to do a lot with the optics itself rather than just the width of the lens. $30k vs. $1500 (i can't recall what i paid)---BUT, i'm very happy with my 11-16 PL mount and it's in my bag for good.

Johnny

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Johnny,

Yes, you're right, in essence, this set up would a single lens/port set up. So I would get a Scarlet and dedicate it to this and pretty much forget it exists for anything else. But this would be worth it for me. Most of what I shoot underwater is wide angle anyway, the days of macro photography/video are gone for me, I really don't have the patience or passion for it anymore. But this set would allow me to carry a presumably fairly small and light combo of housing/port, which I could use freediving, and follow humans and creatures down to 130 ft or so, which is what we do now with the HDV and AVCHD housings. This is not something I could do with either the Gates or Aquavideo set ups for RED and the same would apply for a big PL lens with a dome on the Epic or Scarlet. So this could be my "mobile" wide angle set up. I agree however that a more elaborate set up would be needed to film other things, something with a zoom and gears to actuate it, like what you use now, so I would look at this as a second set up.

As for whether current lenses are as sharp as the 15mm nikonos, they are, but only on land, the minute you put them behind a dome, however good it is, they loose a lot of their magic and mojo. I fought with this notion for years when I made the move from Nikonos to housed systems, but hey, no picture I ever took with a plethora of domed wide lenses ever approached the crispness and natural feel of the Nikonos lens. Not to mention that that baby can really focus sharp at 5 ft from you, can go to 340 ft (where I've taken it several times) and costs $600! A thing of beauty. As soon as Scarlet full frame is out, I'll be knocking on Mike Hastings' door and bug him until he builds me one of these...

 

[Michael Hastings]

Rudi,
with such a setup, don't you then limit your lenses to ONLY Nikonis lenses in that case? no zooms etc... I know how beautiful those lenses are, but seems a heck of a project to limit yourself to ONLY Nikonis lenses then. personally i don't see anything wrong with using plain nikon glass behind a dome.....simple and inexpensive and a variety of lenses to choose from. Now using the OptiTek mount with great results.

Johnny

Well, you could use the Aqualens setup (I have about 15 of them) which allows you to use standard Nikon glass on Nikonos cameras. But you would be talking kind of a specialty housing - but the backend wouldn't need to be very sophisticated, since your lens controls are on the lens itself - and if we make a separate control box for the REDMOTE you would have very complete control with a simple housing.

The issue will be whether there is clearance between the back of the lens and the OLPF on the camera.

 

[Roberto Lequeux]

Do you guys really use the Canon 10-22mm? Isn't that one too slow for underwater? I mean, I am sure there are waters depths and times of day that will let you blow out the whole frame at f3.5 but go a little deeper, murkier, or later and you are in trouble. Isn't f/2.8 already close to dangerous for the bulk of your UW work?

 

[Michael Hastings]

Do you guys really use the Canon 10-22mm? Isn't that one too slow for underwater? I mean, I am sure there are waters depths and times of day that will let you blow out the whole frame at f3.5 but go a little deeper, murkier, or later and you are in trouble. Isn't f/2.8 already close to dangerous for the bulk of your UW work?

That is kind of a misconception. Depends on the water, but most of the better dive spots are pretty bright - i.e. NOT California (just teasing, you guys) - Caribbean and places like Palau. F8 was pretty standard for Ektachrome shooting in the film days at 50-60 feet.

I was at F8 to 11 shooting sharks in the Bahamas at 45 feet with the RED1 on a slight overcast day. On a full sunny day you might need an ND. (ND is pretty commonly necessary for HVX200, Z1, etc. shooters.)

For Alaskan shoots of large animals like Johnny and Ken were doing, you need a pretty fast lens. But even in fairly dark areas, for macro and fish shots you would use lights also which would bring up the levels past 3.5.

But with that said, one of the reasons I really like my Zeiss t2.1 10mm even though it is huge is because it gives a full stop more light than the 2.8 lenses and it is great to have when you need it.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Do you guys really use the Canon 10-22mm? Isn't that one too slow for underwater? I mean, I am sure there are waters depths and times of day that will let you blow out the whole frame at f3.5 but go a little deeper, murkier, or later and you are in trouble. Isn't f/2.8 already close to dangerous for the bulk of your UW work?

Roberto,

Many will disagree with me, but I in turn, disagree with the obsession of shooting WFO all the time. From my still photography days, I learned to shoot at F5.6 and 1/60 second aperture in the first 50 ft/15 meters layer of water from surface to that depth, and this is on 50 ASA film! You'd be surprised how much you can get away with, if you know how to frame your subjects and use all that diffuse light around judiciously, and, if you add a strobe or lights, then you're golden. Now, that's film, but the strength of digital is that it allows you to see more into the shadows, so you can really push your exposure and never need to go below F4. But for the life of me, I've never understood how people can so easily accept shooting wide open when no matter the lens, even a Master Prime, this will produce the worst results in terms of sharpness. So we spend all that money on a lens and then use it at its worst setting? Remember, underwater, you'll have a subject or subjects, whether animals or humans, somewhere in the foreground, and the rest will be a blue backdrop that does not need illumination, so a few good lights underwater, especially if you know how to diffuse them so they look natural, are all you need to bring your subjects into sharp relief from the background and still use your optics at their very best. Even when shooting for films, we used 1 or 2 divers loaded with light banks, and they would position themselves at either side of the photographer, and we would have enough light to shoot whatever we needed and never go below a sharp aperture. And again, I'm talking about 200 or 400 ASA film, that's it, so with digital sensors that customarily rate at 500, 600 or 800 ISO, I don't see why anybody would not be able to plan themselves so they don't need to shoot WFO.

But of course, that's just me...

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Hey Mike,

My wife keeps asking me how either of us manages to get any work done when we're always up to speed with Reduser ...... What do women know, right?