L&M Stingray G2 issues... or are they?

[drbill]

Awesome, hope it works out. Those Powerex batteries are the best. Dr. if you don;t mind can you post some of your work when you film the squid eggs. Thanks

Although it was shot in SD with an earlier rig (Sony TRV17 and Top Dawg housing), I have a short video on YouTube of the market squid mating and eggs here:

YouTube - Concupiscent Calamari: Market Squid

Really looking forward to filming them in HD with the new rig!

 

[MSPDiver]

thanks very cool

 

[drbill]

Finally had decent enough conditions to test the new rig. I didn't bother with MWB on this dive as I wanted to compare results from my old rig (HC-7 in a Top Dawg housing) with this rig. Based on my subjective evaluation, the resulting footage was a decided improvement. The pea soup green cast in the footage from the older rig was gone. The new footage did have green color to it, but it was far more natural and the water was green with a fair bit of green in the subjects.

Will test out the MWB with the rig on my next few dives. I think I'm going to like the upgrade.

 

[BDSC]

The one push MWB works sweet. You're gonna like it for sure.

 

[drbill]

Looking forward to using it this weekend if weather permits. I did some post processing of stills from the CX550V and the HC-7 videos. It was quite apparent that the CX550V images had better color balance than the ones from the HC-7. I've "always" thought (well, ever since the purchase) that the HC-7 was either overtuned towards the green or maybe even had a faulty CMOS chip in it. In three years of filming with it I got very little footage I was happy with.

 

[BDSC]

Funny you should talk about the HC7 and green footage. When I got my Stingray + housing, I bought from the same person their HC7 camcorder. Now up until I got my Stingray +, I had the older Stingray with an HC32 or something like that. While I couldn't do WB with it, I still got pretty good footage in the Caribbean.

Well I only took one trip with the HC7 set-up and new Stingray + housing and that was to Belize. Almost all my footage had a green tint to it. I tried everything to try and correct it. Turn the thing on and off UW hoping the auto WB would kick in or something. Never had that happen before.

So when I returned L&M had just developed the ability of "one touch" MWB and so I sent in the handles on my Stingray + and bought a CX520. Now I shoot the best footage I've ever had. It makes me wonder if there was something about the HC7 that caused the green footage because you are not the first person I have seen mention it.

 

[drbill]

I've always wondered about the HC-7's CMOS chip or the processing electronics. I heard several people complain about the ugly green hues. I was able to get a more pleasing look out of my footage by adjusting the hue in Adobe Premiere Elements (using settings between 10 and 30 depending on depth and visibility).

I also tried using the AWB to correct it by turning it off and back on while pointing at a white subject, but that did nothing.

Sony Tech Support did offer to test the color imaging of my unit, but I didn't want to send the camcorder in and be without it for several weeks.

 

[BDSC]

Well now you can just keep you HC7 for topside shooting and let the CX550 do the rest!

 

[drbill]

That's what I had planned... but it is so quick and easy to download the footage from the CX550V's flash memory compared to the tape drive on the HC-7 that I'm getting lazy. Can cut nearly an hour out of the editing process.