Video Etiquette

[Ministryofgiraffes]

Yes to wrecks, as long as there is little to no sediment in the water, but also for palegics. With a very wide port and filters on your lens and also on the Keldans, it just about gets up there. In essence it’s more for foreground and background balance and even colour across the full scope. The filters do drop down the output, but you don’t want the palegic swimming up over you and having the whites ‘red out’ closer to the camera.

Nice on reefs, but would have to be very clear to rock that much light and have the benefits outweigh the scatter. I use them in that config ‘more’ in open water. Never with macro. I sometimes may use 2 X8’s at lower power, but I’m paranoid about accidentally cooking something, so I usually snoot and strobe.

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

I should add.. regarding the ‘etiquette’ on a subject when there is a group...I can’t tell you how many times I have, when everyone has been piling in trying to shoot a subject all at once, just quietly floated off in the other direction and found something twice as rare or beautiful to shoot alone

the mermaid will always show up behind everyone fighting to get a shot of the 10’th ray of the day

 

[Nemrod]

I find them (bright video lights) annoying but I do not do video except my GoPro. And the lights for it are relatively small and I do not run them constantly. I have had people complain about my camera strobes. You get people with different interests and all packed into a boat or otherwise diving together not always by choice and predictably there is friction. Whenever I can I dive solo or with my wife or with other UW photogs. However, that often is just not practical.

I am pretty protective, even aggressively so of my camera rig and equipment and I find that annoys other people/divers. For example, I will point out to a diver who just rinsed his/her snot filled mask and defog in the camera rinse tank or people piling their gear on what is supposed to be the camera equipment table and even has a sign on it saying so. I will not say who but, lol, a spouse of a well known fella and students knocked my entire camera to the deck damaging a strobe and scratching a dome. But, then, WTH, right afterwards I dropped it a second time on my own accord and damaged the other strobe and put another scratch on the dome. I think some folks if not most just do not understand the cost of the equipment but more so how difficult some of it is to acquire at any cost and that it may not be replaceable! I try to stay out of peoples way underwater and on the deck but I live large I have been told and can take up a lot of room. In other words they want to pile their crap on the camera table. Live and let live, put cash away to replace broken gear.

N

 

[Bubblesong]

Can you post a 1 min video clip for us to see what you get for your 30,000 lumens?
I have seen great macro taken with bright ring light set ups.

 

[Ministryofgiraffes]

Can you post a 1 min video clip for us to see what you get for your 30,000 lumens?
I have seen great macro taken with bright ring light set ups.

sorry, I missed this..

I can, but Florian does a better job of it here:
‘these are the older keldans which were 10k each, the new x8s are 15k each. You lose a bit if you are using the filters, but you get the idea.

in the last clip in Socorro though he was shooting with 40k. 4 x 8x keldans

 

[CWK]

Can you post a 1 min video clip for us to see what you get for your 30,000 lumens?
I have seen great macro taken with bright ring light set ups.

I have two Keldan 4X with 9,000 lumens each on float arms, plus one Big Blue Black Molly II with 1,800 lumens on the cold shoe. Macro would only require the Black Molly II on a low power setting - say 900 lumens or less. But for wide angle that is backlit against the sun, the two Keldans at full 18,000 lumens may be insufficient if the subject is not close enough. Take into account that my video lights are angled away from the centre to minimise back scatter.

 

[wetb4igetinthewater]

Predators love them. They light up the pretty little tasty fishies and disorient them

That's why the seals at Cove 2 in Seattle are so fat. Popular night diving site and they do love us divers.

 

[Ovahimba]

Can you post a 1 min video clip for us to see what you get for your 30,000 lumens?
I have seen great macro taken with bright ring light set ups.

I took this video clip a few weeks ago. As I bring the lights up to the coral wall, the colors pop out. Even with these lights you still have to get close, inside of 3 feet. As I rotate away from the wall slightly, you can see the wall turning blue. The same rules apply as your strobes which give out a more intense pulse.

I found the fish would to be more skittish deep where there was less ambient light than in the shallows where the bright lights would not stand out as much.

From my few encounters with manta rays, they seemed neither deterred nor attracted to the lights.

I couldn't get near a school of swirling jacks with the lights on, but turned off I could drift right into the middle of them. I'm not sure if I upset anyone on that dive but sometimes you never know.

An upside to bringing up issues like video lights is the dive coordinator will likely to put you in the smaller group, with maybe older, less experience divers. These divers also tend to be less aggressive and less likely to get in your way.

One technique mentioned was to keep the lights on most of the time with the camera pointed down when not in use. There is a downside to this as any moisture or debris can drop onto the inner surface of your port, which will ruin your images. This happened about 3 times on my dive trip. Balance that against the time it takes to press three buttons if a big animal swims by.

A previous poster mentioned that Bigblue probably exaggerates their specs. This is likely true. For example they state beam angle to be 160 degrees. I tested them in a pool and the effective coverage was more like 90 degrees.

Good Diving

 

[Nemrod]

I was with a group of divers once some years back. It was just before lobster mini-season. We made some dives, I knelt on the sand momentarily, I was having an issue, lol. Anyways, one of the folks complained to me about it. So, hardly three days later, this same person was literally tearing the reef apart to pull a lobster from it's hole on the same reef that I had gently touched down upon the SAND! He who is not guilty cast the first stone but be judged by the almighty.

I think if you approach your photography with sensitivity to the environment and the critters welfare (no chasing for example), try to be a good dive buddy for everyone and let everybody have their turn with looking at an interesting find and doing your best to otherwise stay out of the way, if they have a problem with that, I would tell them to take it up with somebody who cares, because I would not. It is a big ocean, tell the busy body to go occupy some other space in it.

N