Anyone Actually use a Sony HC7 Underwater Yet?

[pakman]

Well I'd love to hear your feedback/ opinion on those 2 HC7 housings!

I'd love to go with the Amphibico but the lack of manual white balance has me leaning towards Gates. Supposedly the auto WB on the HC7 isn't that bad but it seems every pro that I've spoken with say MWB is a must. While the HC7 isn't geared for "pros" and I'm quite the video noobie, I'd rather not buy something now that I will regret in a year or 2 as I climb up the video learning curve.

I guess the only other options to have MWB on the HC7 are the Ocean Images and the Ikelite.

 

[limeyx]

I've used a housed FX1... quite a beast to tote around even underwater. I'd miss a lot of shots with a housing that large. To get the footage I try for, I need a small housing which can fit into tight quarters and the Top Dawg is fairly good at that.

Agreed (although the Bluefin/FX1 is pretty stable underwater -- unless I am the one in control

I am considering the topdawg/HC7 as a small HD solution that I would partially fund by selling off my Mako/PC-350 setup.

 

[H2O Photo Pros]

Both the Amphibico and Gates housings are very nice. One great feature of both, is neither one of them require you to purchase an external monitor! The Gates uses the Open LCD design of the HC3, and the Amphibico comes with a 3.5" monitor back! The newest version of the Amphibico has an angled-up monitor for easier viewing underwater.

If you are looking for MWB capabilities, then yes the Gates is the way to go! We ordered all of our stock housings with the MWB control because it doesn't make sense not to take advantage of that option. The other nice thing about the Gates is the variety of port options. There is one to fit the need and budget of everyone.

The biggest thing is of course the mechanical vs. electronic. Depending on the port chosen, the Gates & Amphibico housings are similarly priced. However for the Gates, my recommendation is to go with the WP25 port which gives you approximately 90 degrees of coverage, and up to two thirds zoom through capabilities. Its the best all around port for the diver to be able to shoot excellent wide angle and macro all on the same dive. Of course, if funds allow, the SWP25 is always great with 110 degrees of coverage and full zoom through capabilities...which means those blennies and shrimp will look nice and big on your 50" Plasma

 

[pakman]

OK... bought the HC7 today... only had a short time to play with it... Gotta a lot of reading up to do...

now the next step... getting a housing... [gulp]

 

[H2O Photo Pros]

Congrats on the new camera! Time to get it wet!!

 

[Diverbw]

OK... bought the HC7 today... only had a short time to play with it... Gotta a lot of reading up to do...

now the next step... getting a housing... [gulp]

I have been watching this and other forums about the housing for the HC7 also. I would love to hear what you think about the camcorder.
Are you planning on lights also or do you think they are really needed.

 

[drbill]

One of my dive buddies (Scott) and I are going to dive later this week, he with his HC3 and me with my HC7 and try to compare results when filming the same subject at the same distance, etc. Will let you know what we find.

 

[pakman]

Diverbw, I've only had a chance to test it briefly topside. Very nice little camera. But to be honest, this is my first video cam, so take my comments with a large dose of salt!

Daylight shots with this are amazing when I played it throught a HDTV monitor. I also tried it a bit inside in low light. Again, I really don't have anything else to compare it against. There is noticeable noise in certain lowlight scenes (as expected). Seems when the gain spikes up to 9-16db, it's very noticeable. But unlike the prosumer models, not sure if there is any way to adjust or limit the gain. The only controls are a general exposure, shutter, and various scene settings (disabled the slowcolorshutter).

Once you get used to the touch screen, using the menu buttons is pretty easy. You can also customise the menu list and set, for example, the manual white balance button to the start of the screen. The one touch manual WB works really well. I also like the spot metering and focus, using the screen. I've assigned the manual focus to the front manual button/ roller. It takes awhile to get used to that little roller for finetuning focus. But I think most likely it would be used underwater to let the camera focus in on auto, then hit the button to lock focus...

I do plan on using it with lights u/w... On a good note, I tested a single 21W HID with a homemade diffuser and there are no noticeable hotspots while shooting in a completely dark room. So I think I'll give this single light a shot until I can afford a dual light system...

 

[hortoni]

Hi All,

I just got back from a cruise in which I was able to fit seven dives in. I have a HC7 and the Amphibico housing that had it's first outing during these dives so I thought I would give some feedback.

Please bear in mind that this is my first video setup so I can't really compare it to other setups but I have been doing still underwater photography for a few years.

Overall I'm thrilled with the picture quality. I have a 120" high def projector/screen at home and when I plugged the tape in through the HDMI port I was amazed at the level of detail. I've seen other non HD UW footage and there was no comparison!

Because I have no MWB control I filmed auto/daylight. The colors didn't pop but I just started editing in post and I'm very pleased. I had the camera to a max depth of 90 feet and visibilities ranged from 50 feet to over 300 feet (yes, that is 300 feet! absolutely awesome in cozumel)

The only thing I have noticed is I picked up some overexposure off the back of a silver air tank. This was at 80 feet and I'm sure it was just a result of the water being so clear. If you looked up you would swear you were only about 10-20 feet down.

The biggest problem I encountered with the amphibico was that the camera didn't always turn off when I hit the switch. I wouldn't call this a malfunction, it was just that you really need to make sure you press the button all the way down and verify shut-down on the LCD screen. I ended up with many extra minutes with the camera swinging from it's teather caught on film. Show that on a 120" screen and you better pass out the barf bags.

I can say I was incredibly impressed with the LCD screen batteries. The screen itself was just "ok". I used energizer rechargable nimh batteries for the screen and was able to power the lcd for 3 dives. The impressive part is that after the second dive I accidentally didn't turn off the camera and it recorded 40 minutes of the inside of the rinse tank. Even with all that, the lcd screen continued to function well and the low battery warning was not on when I opened the housing at the end of the day.

Color rendition on the lcd screen is not the best. The first day of diving I stopped using the red filter too early because everything looked great on the screen. Only when I hooked it up to a TV to review the footage did I realize this was a mistake. After the first day I added the red filter anytime I was below 25 feet and the results were much better. I was shooting ambient light only.

As for low-light performance, I can't comment much. We did some swim-throughs at 80 feet that really cut the light down and the camera handled that easily. I didn't notice any added grain in these "low light" situations. I think a good set of lights would have helped some of my close up images but I don't feel that I lost anything by not having them. I would suggest to stay off the zoom control. All it really did was amplify the shaking of the camera though I was impressed at how far I could zoom.

I'm thrilled with my purchase! Many thanks to Mike at H2ophotopros for helping me get this setup. For those considering the amphibico or other housing with no MWB I think you will do fine as long as you are not looking for perfect color saturation. I had no problems editing in post to make the colors pop out.

Overall I shot about 45 minutes of video over the 7 dives in Roatan, Belize and Cozumel. I'll probably end up with 5-10 minutes of "decent" video when I'm done editing but that wasn't the camera's fault!

 

[drbill]

Some day they'll have a film festival featuring the best sequences of the inside of rinse tanks. Been there, done that. Actually, the boat DM hit the switch each time to turn on the camera by mistake. I've learned to shut off the camera before reboarding the boat.