Underwater Bubble Blowers User Group Thread NEW

[Richard Hall]

https://vimeo.com/47413620

This was shot with Frazier's EPIC, AquaVideo housing and a Sigma 14mm lens mostly 96 and 60 fps. It was a pleasure working with Frazier and Michael... can't wait to shoot with them again!

Cheers,
Rich

 

[Johnny Friday]

Rudi: maybe you should consider a weekly podcast.

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Fascinating post Rudi.

I had the extreme honor to meet Buzz Aldrin a couple of years ago, circumstances permitted me to chat with him a few short minutes. One would think, a man of such greatness, the national treasure that he surely is, the larger-than-life position he occupies in the American psyche, for what he accomplished, would be an intimidating experience. For me, it initially was. But, as we chatted, I came to recognize him as a very solid professional, firmly grounded in the most basic human principles of decency, honesty, and competency. One who found himself suddenly at the tip of the pyramid. Lit the candle, rode the rocket, the rest, as they say, is history. In his terse and humble way, he said as much. It was very evident to me, he has courage, in spades.

Shortly thereafter, I chanced to meet the Hollywood actor who played the guy who went to the moon, made a squillion bucks in doing so. Was gravely disappointed by that brief encounter. The question in my mind at the time, would you rather meet the guy, who played the guy, who went to the moon, or would you rather meet the guy who put his very large cohones out there on the razor's edge, and actually did it?

The lessons here are short, and to the point, and in so many words, ably illustrated by your post.

Lots of pioneering folks on this thread; inasmuch as I was honored to meet Buzz, I'm am also very chuffed at being able to contribute here in some small way, amongst the kick-ass explorers of our planet's inner liquid space. You all know who you are. Beers all round.

Carry on, this mission is still a work in progress. :beer:

 

[Mark_Thorpe]

OK Rudi, so what's your point? :laugh:

Nice book.

 

[Tom Hamilton]

Youse guys are feckin morons, too much nitrogen saturation methinks :hat:

 

[Martin Weiss]

I'll close this thread down for a week to let everyone take a deep breath and reflect upon how they want themselves to be perceived, and how they want to interact with fellow human beings.

I love the images you guys make, but this thread feels at times like a kindergarden without supervision.

 

[Martin Weiss]

OK, thread is up again. That was a quick week.

One extra rule: if you have made a new product, you can mention this once. Constant discussion of one particular product, and belittling of other products/manufacturers, will result in a ban.

Enjoy.

 

[Frazier Nivens]

Thank you Martin for opening us back up again, we all want to enjoy new imaging shot on Red and share new ideas, products, videos. Now let's all begin again with fresh new ideas and projects we are working on.

Best to all
Frazier

 

[Ross Isaacs]

arty:Bravo!!!!!!

 

[Michael Hastings]

OK, thread is up again. That was a quick week.

One extra rule: if you have made a new product, you can mention this once. Constant discussion of one particular product, and belittling of other products/manufacturers, will result in a ban.

Enjoy.

Aw, c'mon - I'd have to mention mine 300 times just to catch up to Pawel. :wink5:

 

[Mark_Thorpe]

Cheers Martin,
Divers have a pretty unique sense of humor. I'm happy you took that into account and opened this back up. Spend extended periods in isolated spots, wearing rubber suits and breathing a mixture of weird and wonderful gasses and that kinda does it for us.

Back to blowing bubbles.

Cheers,
mark.

 

[Ross Isaacs]

The non bubble blowers breath the Voodoo gas man :crazy: :lol::drool5:

 

[Johnny Friday]

Week goes by fast at RED.

...Here are a few frame grabs from a VW commercial i recently worked on as underwater dop. VW is sponsoring Discovery's Shark Week and the following are frame grabs off the Epic from the shoot. All topside shot by Discovery's crew and underwater shot by myself and Alfredo Barroso. Commercial or rather the numerous commercials i think air throughout all of Shark Week.

....I will state that what i have seen of the underwater did not enthuse me so much. I believe there was little or NO color correction done on many of the Youtube videos i've seen so far of the commercial. That may not be the case for the television commercials, but i've not seen any. I tried to keep creative control in my hands with coloring etc....but that was passed down the line and i think a rush job was done and therefore not allowing for what RAW can actually do....anyway, i took the liberty of coloring a few grabs while on the plane ride back...and was obligated not to share anything until after Aug. 12.

[/url] Lemon Sharks Circling Boat by RedCineUnderwater, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url] Luke and Mobile Shark Observation by RedCineUnderwater, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url] Lemon Sharks up Close by RedCineUnderwater, on Flickr[/IMG]

[/url] Luke Dropping into Water in VW by RedCineUnderwater, on Flickr[/IMG]

 

[Frazier Nivens]

Great stuff Johnny..which lens did you shoot that with. shot on EPIC?

Frazier

 

[Johnny Friday]

Frazier: those grabs taken off of Epic at 5k HD....shot majority on Nikon 16-85 and then a bit on Sigma 15mm fisheye. On the Red 1, the Tokina 10-17 fisheye was used exclusively....shots above are all Nikon 16-85.

...to me: the Nikon 16-85 is a great do all lens, but NOT as sharp as the Sigma 15 or Tokina 10-17. BUT--fine for web and tv in my opinion.

 

[Rudi Herbert]

Johnny,

If 16 mm is wide enough for you, then you should try the Nikon 16-35 F4 VR lens, arguably the sharpest wide zoom Nikon has ever made. It is actually sharper than the king of sharpness, the 14-24, but at 16 mm wide, you get far less distortion than at 14. It is also shorter and lighter than the 14-24, although at 5 inches long, it is, by no means, a small lens. It also accepts filters at the front, which is something most wide zooms don't do, and since the filter thread is the standard 77 mm, you could use UR Pro filters on it. Yes, the filters don't come off, but it is far easier to remove the red cast from surface footage than to not have it underwater. This is a great way for those who are undecided about the use of filters to test and see. This would be, easily, my lens of choice with a full frame sensor, and will be if we ever get one. Unfortunately, 16 mm on a S35 sensor is not wide enough for most of the things I shoot, but I cannot recommend this lens enough. It is sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp....

 

[Dave Blackham]

Has one one used a Nikon 14 24 behind a dome and had it pin sharp as yet ?

 

[Frazier Nivens]

Shooting EPIC up at the sun is a bit of a challenge for me, I stop down all the way which is not the best and sometimes even that's not enough, at Tiger Beach so shallow it's difficult to not get burned out. How do you handle it Johnny, I usually stop the camera when shooting silhouettes, stop down and then begin rolling again, if I try to follow a animal from the bottom and it swims overhead and I get the sun in the shot my shot goes hot and without lots of care in post it's hard to bring back when the sun gets in the shot.

But your silhouette of the lemons looks great.

Frazier

 

[Pawel Achtel]

Pawel, since you are critiquing, here is a 1:1 grab of a shot from red 1 m sensor using 18-50 PL lens....Now i took a center crop at 1:1 and fail to see your logic how this image is soft because it is NOT a Nikonos 15mm lens. My coloring and transcoding may be off from 3-4 years ago, but i don't see what you seem to see. And if we don't see it how do you expect an audience to see it? I probably was off slightly focus wise...but i also recall being near f 2.8 and f4 split...not making any excuses, but I also know the limitations of this 18-50 lens and also what each of us is up against when it comes to getting proper focus with this large a sensor.

[/URL] Red 18-50 PL by RedCineUnderwater, on Flickr[/IMG]

Johnny,

I know those images look sharp to you, but to me this image is exhibiting severe chromatic aberrations, probably over 5 pixels. 5k/5 results in about 1k horizontal resolution (a very rough guess)

The reason to evaluate images using charts is that you can see these defects more easily and gives you ability to precisely quantify, compare and discuss the optical quality of the optics. Otherwise, it turns into a discussion about colours with a blind.

 

[Johnny Friday]

Yes, i know or Knew of the issues you pointed out....i shot this back in i think 2008 or 2009 and colored it using my archaic skills at the time with a lot of auto functions....this is what caused what you pointed out,,,,i have the original tiff some place, but not worth digging out...feel free to blow up some others if you like.

I'll say my coloring and post skills are far from even intermediate...just enough to KNOW that i am no colorist. That said, my skills in this area are much better...and i think i colored that image as follows: frame grab to jpg then color using auto tools in some photoshop-like program, then saved as a new jpg...Point taken Pawel, but still does not take away from what the camera/lens combo can produce--my post efforts however as you pointed out are very poor indeed. I usually try to color all of my work nowadays...