Using lights & Filter

[mulla]

Hi All,

I've been reading various online documents about removing your cyan filter while using video lights.

I was wondering if anyone has any example of using lights together with a filter. I have the GoPro SRP fix with URPro CY Filter which works great to around 15m or so, but beyond that it's fairly dark and grey. Understand, lights doesn't work at distance but my concern is, if I take away the filter all my far away shots will be "blue", but I'm wondering if I leave the filter in just how "red / pink" will closer shots be?

Majority of my video is at a fair distance with the occasion under the ledge / close up shot, I'm happy to trade off slightly pink close ups to totally loosing red without the filter.

Removing and swapping the filter in water is not an option with the SRP blur fix.


Thanks in advance

 

[MaxBottomtime]

You should never use a red filter when using lights, or when divers in the frame have lights. Unless you are diving in great vis, filters make everything look pink and unnatural. I would suggest that you make two dives. Shoot close-ups with lights on one dive and wide angle, long shots with a filter on the other dive.
Here are two examples;
[vimeo]18710081[/vimeo]
Red filter used throughout the dive. Notice the red tint on the surface shots and in every shot where a diver shines a light at the camera or a subject.


This video contains shots with a filter and others with lights.

 

[mulla]

Thanks MaxBottomtime for the example videos. Gave me some valuable ideas on what to expect in the 2 different situations, will definitely do a few dives with lights filter and lights only and see how I go. Atm I'm waiting for a tray to arrive so I can mount the light and camera together. Then I can go diving

On the first video I can definitely see the effects of filter coupled with lights in a close up shot. It doesn't seemed to have much of an effect when subjects are a bit further away, most likely due to the lights not penetrating that far or they were off

Second video, everything looks blue / green until you close in to the sweet spot to get the effects of the lights.

 

[MaxBottomtime]

That's our water here. Visibility on the Star of Scotland shipwreck rarely gets over 5m.

 

[Marty Cerven]

I did see a great video a while back with a guy shooting with filters and lights for both photo and video with good results but needed to manually white balance the camera to each particular shot along with very good video lights. I cant find that video but will post it here if I do, its not easy to do but the results can be great if pulled off properly.

Not sure about a gopro as you can only WB in software and I don't have any video lights so I haven't done it myself but SW white balancing can be done easily at shallower depths with a filter. I guess if you lit the full scene and had a filter on the camera and made sure you put something white in the shot for balancing to later it could work, but as has been said its probably easier to just do a dive with lights and another with the filter you will save a lot of time in editing and close up shots with lights only will not need any correcting. The filters work best in good light and vis especially as you get deeper with the gopro if you haven't got much natural light the video will just end up too dark.

Ive been using the Colorista II plugin in adobe premier cs5 and it works very well with just an eye dropper for WB. There are many more things you can adjust but most of the time a simple click on white will fix the shot as long as you have enough colour detail in the shot. Here is an example screen grab from a video i did at just below the surface right is the original and left is the colorista corrected one.

The left top corners still has a little red in it but this is at less then 1m with a urpro cy filter, much better then the right uncorrected image. Its a little bit compressed for the web but gives a good idea of what can be done just with software.

 

[mulla]

Thanks Marty for the photo comparisons. That's my problem exactly with the GoPro, if it's a sunny day and I don't go below 15m or so, the colours are great and fairly acceptable. But when it's overcast or if I look under a ledge or go to 20m and beyond, all I see is "grey" in the video and hopefully the lights will change that.

I'll have a look at the plugin you mentioned too, since I haven't really done any editing work with my video besides cut and pasting sections together

Interesting choice of subject in the left photo btw

MaxBottomtime - The effects of lights in Stars of Scotland Compilation is interesting, the way you only see the true colour when the diver close up on a subject. Adds "atmosphere" to the video I reckon.

 

[Marty Cerven]

@mulla Just a random frame I picked lol. On overcast days with poor light you would be best not to use a filter with the gopro and just go with the clear lens with lights, its not the best camera in low light environments and the filter is blocking some of the much needed light which will just darken the entire shot.

I will be trying the HD2 soon and even though it's meant to be better in low light I don't expect it to work great in poor light with a filter. Even the best cameras need lots of natural light to make the best use of UW filters so its just one of the tricky things with getting good results UW with any camera. The better the camera the more you will get away with in not quite perfect conditions but mother nature plays the biggest part still.

Using lights is your only option in poor conditions and can get good results with close objects, seeing as the sun cant penetrate the water too well in poor vis your lights have no hope of doing a better job of it. Daylight you will be lucky to get effective use of lights up to 4ft with the best setup but that footage inside the 4ft zone should be very good, the same applies to ledges, overhangs and inside wrecks.

 

[buton]

so in conclusion

use filter when you dont have lights?

if using lights, do not use filter?

 

[mulla]

Marty - Be sure to post your HD2 results will be interested to see the improvements.

buton - That is the general consensus that I've read around the net and what all the knowledgeable members here are suggesting. I was just interested to see what the effects of lights+filter is going to be like. Hopefully I'll be able to test this out next week, no diving this weekend for me, boooo....:cussing: