Finally took the Canon HG21 underwater!

[robint]

I received my Ikelite housing last week and so this weekend took the housing diving for the first time. I did 2 dives with it and will post some video later this week.
Thoughts to share:
1. The Ikelite housing for the Canon HG21 allows the LCD to be open inside the case for viewing. This is one of the features that led to to buy the camcorder. It is possible to view the screen underwater, however, it does sit back inside the housing far enough that I had a bit of trouble at times seeing if the image was in focus or not. The auto-focus works but with poor vis, the camcorder did search a bit at times, so I really wasn't sure how much good footage I got until I removed the camcorder from the housing and played it back.

2. Actually getting the camcorder into the housing is a bit of a chore. It requires maneuvering around some of the knobs, as well as unhooking the wrist strap and folding it back underneath the mounting tray. This strap caused me much hair-pulling and cursing, the first several times trying to get it right. I don't like how hard it is to get the camcorder in and out - I would say it takes 5-10 minutes, rather than 1-2 minutes like my old rig. A bit annoying. :depressed:

3. The housing has knobs for using to scroll through the menu on the LCD toggle. Let me say I have lots of problems scrolling through these when the camcorder is not inside the housing! When it is in the housing topside I am able to barely make them do their job, but the icons on the screen are small and not easily seen through the back, especially at an angle. Underwater, forget it! No way any human can adjust anything or scroll through the menu. It just isn't possible. Nice thought Ikelite, but not functional in my opinion.

As I mentioned, I will be posting some videos. My hubby was teaching OW class, so I got the students topside and underwater, as well as the overall diving thing. I was very pleased with the camcorder performance, especially since we had very bad vis. I did 2 dives with it and to me it is head and shoulders above my old SD rig.

robin

 

[robint]

Here is the first video: OW cert class, July 2009 on Vimeo

Vis was horrible, maybe 20' at best and very milky due to so many divers, rain the night before, and also the number of "swimmers" who were causing crap to fall in the water as they climbed up and down on the banks. My husband is the instructor here and I always try to shoot a little video for his students, so this is it.

I will post more videos later to show how the camera performed overall underwater.

robin

 

[mobula]

Vis was horrible? ;-) It doesn't look that bad. In German lakes there is much less vis........

 

[robint]

Vis was horrible? ;-) It doesn't look that bad. In German lakes there is much less vis........

yes, for this place, a fresh water spring that is bottom fed, that was horrible. When vis is good it looks like this:

and

it is a fantastic place to teach for that reason! We are very spoiled by our vis. Here is a video I shot last year with my old SD rig: http://www.vimeo.com/1432688 Vis was perfect that day! Even at the bottom you can see how clear the water can be.

This weekend, however, the vis was like diving in milk and vegetable soup. Very ugly and very crowded. There must have been over 100 divers there and at least 50 in the water at any given time. I only did 3 dives as I hate it when I have to swim around people or get bumped into by people going up or down. :shocked2:

I will work on the other video a bit today so I can show how well the camcorder performed, even down at the bottom, 84' depth, with very little light. I was pretty impressed. It did much better in low light than I expected, but the low vis gave it a workout at times which was discouraging.

robin

 

[mobula]

Wow, during my courses I hardly could see my hand sometimes. So, your poor vis would have been nice vis ;-)

By the way, these are my first shots with the Sony EX1:

http://www.marinevideo.eu/mediadetails.php?key=d55ff3ef9495ae1b4735&title=Marisa+Johanna+Koop