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When I have been on my most exciting deeper dives...whether a wreck like the HydroAtlantic at 165, the Hole in the Wall at 145, the RB Johnson/Cory'n Chris at 285 or some deep wall drop offs...the most exciting visual was the structure and the large life...there was no thought about missed colors...there was more sensory overload from all the experiences you are getting at a depth where few people have ever been, and where if you record that to a camera, there would be the desire to capture this biomass and this structure, and to convey the enormity and the scale.....again, it does not need all the reds and yellows when it shows so much "never-seen-before" life and structure. Things like the RB johnson where a wall 80 feet thick of solid amberjacks, blanket the area just above the mast of the RB at around 200 feet deep--like a dense layer of clouds.....and then on falling through this Amberjack layer, you can see the entire length of the two ships, on top of each other, and the full vertical expanse to the bottom , covered with different layers of predator and prey...schools of each, all the way down to the bottom at 285 feet. Capturing the ambience is not about color, it is about scope and perspective. Color would never be possible underwater, for the lengths of view that are so fantastic....Am not sure. Even to your eyes that scene looked green and blue. Usually my video contain more tones than my eyes saw during the dive and this is because of filters and lights
Black and white seems appropriate and 4K with a camera with good noise performance would also be indicated. Possibly a larger sensor as well to help with dynamic range and noise
Nice clip Ron I think with a good ISO performance this should work well with the LX100Big wreck dive, black and white. BUT, old low resolution standard definition camcorder. 2 out of 3 ain't bad.
Nice clip Ron I think with a good ISO performance this should work well with the LX100
Are you hanging on to the LX7?
I am voting for more color depth instead of higher resolution or better packing. Of course, 4:4:4 (at 8 bits) is better than 4:2:0 at 8 bits. But there is a much bigger difference with 14...16bit "RAW" color information per channel.
The problem with 8 bit video in poorly lit ambient light scenes is that the video information occupies a relatively small range of bit values. In post, there is the temptation to enhance the otherwise dull scene with some color grading. But this soon causes the "color steps" to become visible and this ruins the attempt. The eye is extremely sensitive to unevenness in color grades because this is the primary method of how the eye/brain detect the shape and texture of things. The normally accepted 3x8 bit color space is just on the border of being sufficient for topside purposes.
I am very tempted to try out Magic Lantern on my Canon 5DIII, but, I haven't yet dared to. Plus there is the problem of very high media costs and severely Limited shoot times.
Here are samples of videos shot with higher color depth and how much you could post process the video. These samples were shot relativelt shallow. But still I would expect almost similar enhancement (with much less reds) deeper too.
[video=vimeo;47351101]http://vimeo.com/47351101[/video]
The following video explains color grading underwater footage and how you can make dull scenery beautiful in post:
[video=vimeo;32137186]http://vimeo.com/32137186[/video]
I am relatively new to scuba and want to be able to take good videos.
The comparison videos are stunning. What a difference.
What tools are needed to do post processing of videos to give it more color?
Any pointers and tips would be grateful.