Palau GH5

[matdiver]

At the beginning of this year I went back to Palau, again - I love that place!
I was on the Ocean Hunter III liveaboard, and spent an extra night at either end of the cruise at the Palau Royal Resort. Here are some of the highlights from the 32 dives I did:

First time using the GH5 in the ocean. Manual white balance with red filter, usually pointing the camera at the lightest part of the water surface. I used 4K 50 fps most of the time, and rendered the video at 1080 50p.

Matt

 

[deltron]

Great Video! What lens were you using for this and were you using autofocus??

 

[matdiver]

Thx deltron!
I was using the Panasonic PZ 14-42, (f3.5-5.6). It's a really versatile lens, and pretty much covers all my needs. Also, you can set one of the fn buttons to control the zoom, so you have it under your thumb rather than having to rotate a knob.
I used autofocus throughout, generally using the "lock" ("AFL") button. I honestly don't see the problem with AF on this cam. Sure, if you're trying to film a shark a few metres away in the blue with particles in the water focus will probably hunt, but everyone knows that already. Instead, you just point at the reef or another diver and lock the focus. The depth of field I got with aperture at f5 or f6 meant very few out of focus shots. I also found that the auto focus was fine when shooting at different parts of the reef.

Matt

 

[deltron]

Awesome, thank you for the thorough response! I have a GH5 myself and seeing how well your videos came out gives me more of a reason to get a housing for it. Looking forward to seeing more videos from you

 

[lwang06]

Awesome video I'm thinking of upgrading my compact sonyrx100m2.... not sure if I like photography or videos more (use a gopro)...

Can you share the specs of your rig... as I'm still learning about the camera etc

 

[matdiver]

Hi Iwang06,
thanks!
I now have a pretty expensive set-up: Panasonic GH5 + PZ 14-42 lens, Nauticam housing, Aditech red filter, and old old Kowalski Maxum 1250 halogen light. The whole thing would be upwards of 5000 dollars, I guess. However, I can't think of anything that I would change with either camera or housing. Being able to shoot 4K, 50p/60p and get a really good manual white balance at depth is just fantastic. I'm more into videos than stills, but I think this cam can do both (I can't!).

 

[elbig]

Awesome! Thanks for sharing.

 

[Scubanoobi]

Nice video, I have an LX10/Nauticam package, I think the custom WB is very similar between the two cameras. How much color correction have you done in post? I'm able to pull a lot of color back in Davinci Resolve on what looks like pretty bad footage out of the camera (at < 50 ft). I'm just wondering how much you've done. Here is an example (45ft, no red filter, manual WB):

 

[lwang06]

Again I'm still learning, nd I've read about the awesome white balance on the camera.. so if that's the case why the need for red filters and lights? I was assuming just having 2 video lights would suffice or I've seen other videos with no lights

 

[matdiver]

@Scubanoobi - I did very little colour correcting in order to "bring back the colours". Actually, following some helpful criticism from the guys over on wetpixel, I even reduced the red on a lot of the shots because the water looked too violet in places. In my experience, MWB is far better than trying to fix everything in post, and every camera model seems different. Why not try experimenting with a filter? On my Vimeo page there is an explanation of my MWB technique, here:

Some "raw" test shots of MWB here:

Not all filters are the same. I find UrPro and Aditech work well.

Matt