First UW Video Camera

[bfisher]

I dug out my latest video of Bonaire and chopped out some of the scenes. No transitions and no music. Just something to look at to see what can be done with an HC7. I'm using ULead 11.5 and it has a direct link to Youtube. I have the scenes rendering as we speak so we'll see what comes of it. I picked the highest quality setting in my editor.

Again, I did no WB underwater as my housing doesn't have that attribute. My vids were done almost exclusively with a red filter (blue water) built into the housing. I did WB in my editor and in many cases I even toned down the color as the color was too vivid for my tastes. Sorry, but what is seen in magazines is not what is seen underwater.

We'll see what comes of this and maybe I'll have to post on vimeo. First time for me so please have patience. I'll post the link when I get it.

Barry

 

[bfisher]

Sean,

And anybody else interested. Try

YouTube - Bonaire sample clips

I watched it and can now attest tha youtube does make things a bit fuzzy. Like yuuk!!!!!!!

Maybe I'll try Vimeo later.

For everybody, any and all hints, help, and or constructive critcism is welcome. Just realize that these are just a few clips from a 45 minute movie.

 

[ronscuba]

Colors look pretty good ! Nice to see the software editing companies have been working hard to improve color correction capabilities.

I'm a big fan of using manual white balance, but unfortunately getting access to it UW has become difficult and expensive. Results like yours shows the gap between MWB UW vs in editing is closing.

 

[Maui Bound]

Seansrs36

I have the Sony HC9 with the Gates Underwater housing and Greenforce Squid 50.

I am very pleased with the performance and quality.

You can probably skip the lights and save some cost. But I do recommend the wide angle port.

 

[Video rookie]

Barry-

That was quick, and nicely done. Your software color correction actually worked better than any of previous examples I've seen, or else the software that others are using does not offer the AWB feature. I won't include any links, but there are some really "blue" underwater videos posted out there....

Sean-
I also recommend the Sony cameras, since they seem to have a wider variety of housing options available, depending on your budget. The Seatool that Barry has is a very nice looking and small housing, but as mentioned lacks the MWB. You will find more features usually means more $$. A gently used system is always a good option also to get more bang for your $$.

 

[bfisher]

Nice remarks. I do have to admit that it took me a long time to figure some of this stuff out. I started by trying to manually color correct every scene. You can imagine how long this took. I was completely new to this video stuff. Got to give some credit to Perrone Ford for some of his advice and moral support. I learned a lot from him. I was pretty frustrated at the time.

As for the editing program? I do have some issues with it. For some reason it really butchers my music, giving it clunky sounds. When I'm editing a scene it jerks forward in the viewing screen, like it's advancing frame by frame or something. Is this normal with all editing programs?

And then there is rendering time. This 45 minute video took a little over 13 hours to render. Burn time is a couple minutes. This on a pretty modern computer with a 2.4G Intel Quad Core, 3G of DDR2 800 ram, etc, etc.. This little 10 minute clip you guys are seeing took 2 hours to render. Is it the editing software? You think I have enough computer.

Don't get me wrong. This was pretty good program to get me started as I needed something almost as dumb as I was. Now I've reached a point where either there are not enough options in transitions and such, or I still don't know how to get everything out of what I have. Still, render time is killing me.

I had Pwer Director 6 before this and it was a total disaster. Then I tried Sony Platinum 8 and this was too much for my pea brain at the time. I think I'm ready to try it again. I need something a little more upscale, but...........not too upscale. Little steps at a time. Maybe Adobe Premiere 7 or something like that.

The other problem I have is the hard drive. I need another one to store all this stuff. I'm not helping myself having 300G if video, music and other stuff on my little 500G hard drive. Come to think of it, I could go do that tomorrow. Go get me a 1.5T hard drive.

 

[ronscuba]

Do you already own Sony Vegas platinum or were you playing with the trial version ? If you own it, might as well learn it. The basics are pretty easy and there are enough of us using it to explain the basics. I think Perrone Ford uses Sony Vegas too.

 

[bfisher]

Do you already own Sony Vegas platinum or were you playing with the trial version ? If you own it, might as well learn it. The basics are pretty easy and there are enough of us using it to explain the basics. I think Perrone Ford uses Sony Vegas too.

Don't own it. Was using a trial version, but I didn't have enough experience at the time to cope with all the options. Not usre I do yet, but at least I know now that I can learn. I have a lot to learn. This is only my third video ever, so I'm still a relative rookie.

I don't know whether to consider myself lucky or cursed. On some trips I get buddied with another photo/video geek called Mark Etter. This is his main hobby and he is good at it...really good. I've known him to spend 3 hours removing some backscatter from a still he wanted to keep. He's a perfectionist that's been doing video for 12 years. Top notch gear and Adobe Premiere Pro +. Point is, he is my mentor and I try to emulate his video results. It's never going to happen, but I learn a lot from him, too.

That brings up something that Rookie said above about all the "blue" videos. I know if you have little or nothing but blue water to look at then that's likely what the results will be. But in most other cases there should be color when there is still "blue". I wonder whether these people don't know how to color correct. Maybe they don't know that it's even available or maybe their editing program doesn't perform such acts.
I know, from a personal standpoint, that if everything I shot was just going to look blue then there wouldn't be any purpose to it.

Don't know how much viewing you happen to do, but the clips I posted look a ton better on HDTV. I sometimes make a two versions of movies. One for standard analog TV (4x3)and a toned down version for HDTV (16x9).

Music is what takes the real time. Anybody can add any kind of music. Getting the right music for the right scene and mood is another matter. Aagain, I learned from Mark. I listen to about 20 hours of music a week always looking for that something special I might need later. I've got over a hundred somgs in my editor and never seem to have that perfect song I need.

OK, I gotta git for a while. It's nice chatting with ya.

 

[lemon]

nice video. i'm going to have to get to this bonaire place one of these days!