Gates Deep Red in water tests

[H2O Photo Pros]

I have had the privilege of spending the last couple of days with one of the Gates Deep Red housings and a Red One with an 18-50 lens. Yesterday I spent a good 4 hours with John down at Gates going through the set up process, and today we did some in pool testing and trimming of the buoyancy. All seems to be dialed out nicely now and ready for tomorrow where we will be taking it out Catalina to do some cold water tests as well. I have some video clips shot on the EX1 of our buoyancy tests from today...and will be shooting the same in the ocean tomorrow. Will report back with more details on the housing.

Here are some initial thoughts after a few hours in the pool today (more details to follow tomorrow).

1. Housing is very manageable in size. For anyone that has used a larger housing from Gates (Z1U, EX1, etc) you will find the housing to be somewhat comparable in the handling (side by side pics coming this weekend). The Red is noticeably wider than the other housings, but length was not significantly different. The ergonomics and controls that John has engineered are fantastic. The large control wheels are very easy to use. The housing requires a lot of weight (mounted both inside and outside of the housing) in order to achieve slightly negative buoyancy.

2. The Red LCD is amazing and sharp and the housing built by Gates for it allows access to the controls on the top, thus providing use of two more assignable controls. Id pay for a monitor like this to use with my EX1 it was so amazing!

3. Set up is much more intuitive than any housing I have ever played with. To do a thorough set up, its a solid hour and a half or more (from camera prep to housing assembly and seal check).

Ill have more details tomorrow night after a day at Catalina. We do not have the rig set up with lights, so its going to be a nice test of the low light capability of the camera itself.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Cool stuff Mike, now if I can only scrape up an extra $50k.....

 

[TheBigPhillyFish]

Cool stuff Mike, now if I can only scrape up an extra $50k.....

+1 there bob.

I heard they are or already did scrap the Scarlet project.

 

[BeckyKagan]

Cant wait to hear more Mike. I'd love to get in the water with it. I've used the Red One on land.

guys 50k + is cheap compared to a Sony 900 in a housing. The size is so much more attractive and the price tag!

 

[H2O Photo Pros]

Well it certainly was a fun, and LONG day. We didnt make it back from Catalina until 8:30 last night. The camera was fantastic and we got it very well balanced in the water. Ill post more details over the weekend and am going to pull a couple of still frames of us using the Deep Red off our EX1 footage.

 

[drbill]

Good to see you and Jacalyn yesterday, Mike. I've started robbing Catalina's only bank so I can afford the new setup. I got $4,978.32 yesterday (all they had) so I'll have to do it a "few" more times to get enough. Maybe by then the price will drop!

 

[uzun]

I've often been curious of these larger sensor cameras and their UW abilities. With such large sensors are they much better under low light conditions? Do you wind up getting a lot more color in deeper dives than with smaller sensor camcorders? With additional low light sensitivity I would imagine you can white balance deeper than you can with smaller camcorders, potentially allowing for more colorful wide angle scenes in deeper water than you would expect from a consumer camcorder. Is that the case?

I would love to see some wide angle scenes at depths of 45'-70' with either the EX1 or Deep Red or any other large sensor camcorder, compared to similar footage shot with something like a Sony SR12 or HC7/9.

-Roger

 

[H2O Photo Pros]

Hahah great as always to see you as well Dr. Bill! Thanks again for your participation!

Roger, more info is coming, but to tell you the truth, the low light performance of the Red was disappointing to me. We shot it without lights, and also shot two EX1s at the same time. The EX1 low light performance is just stand alone of all cameras Ive ever played with. More info to come.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Wouldn't it be great if we had such performance of the EX1 in a package the size of the Gates HC7 housing! Hey, one can dream...

I saw an EX1 on the Peace this weekend (Santa Cruz trip). Thing is HUGE! One guy actually temporarily "lost" his P&S camera housing and strobe UNDER the EX1.

 

[drbill]

I dove with another videographer who used the EX1 while I used my HC-7. To be fair he had 20w LED video lights and mine were not charged. However, the EX1 resulted in incredible results... I didn't think we were on the same dive when I saw the colors his camera recorded and the distance to which the camera and lights were effective. Just blown away by it.