Video Guidance

[RICoder]

I'm going to go with Rick on this one, only in that on my last trip (to St. Croix) I took longer clips, like about 2 or 3 minutes at a time, and I got much better footage. It seems to only make sense that just leaving it on will help, since I am forever having to fidgit with it to take the video....and I don't mind sitting at the computer as a means of extending my dive time

 

[marshallkarp]

My housing does not allow external control, so I turn the camera on, close the housing, and it is always on. Last year in Nassau, a big happy face dolphin swam past me and I turned quick enough to get the shot. If I had to wait to turn the camera on, I know I would have missed it as it happened so fast.

Needless to say, I am looking at an hour's worth of video for a few good shots. First, I use the camera AV port to feed the DV tape footage into my big screen TV. I use the remote to fast forward, reverse, and slowmo to see what looks good and I note it. Next, it is download into the computer where I edit the parts that I want.

Very time consuming, but it works for me.

 

[simonspear]

I'll throw my hat into the allways on debate.

Personally I don't, and that's largely because I was initially advised against it, but with hindsight I honestly would never get the time to edit a video from the reels and reels of footage shot. On an average 1 week trip I can easily still end up with 3-4 hours of footage, which if I'm lucky I can make a 20-30min video out of. Even being selective still gives you lots of junk!

If your housing does not allow you to access controls then you obviously have to leave it running, but if you do have controls then the other thing to consider is that if you do a 60 min dive then you've used a tape up. That means you have to open up your housing reload and reseal. That's never a good thing to do in a dive environment and can lead to all kinds of fogging situations and even floods. One more thing is that I bet normally if you don't have time to turn your camera onto record for something, then the overall shot wouldn't have been that great anyways. There are of course always exceptions to this!!

In the end people will find what works best for them. No one does everything exactly the same, you can only get advice and work out what's best for you.

RICoder was initially asking a few questions about colour and shakiness on the end video. These are discussions all of themselves, but there are a few pointers. With colour then if you have access to white balance you need to do this frequently, some would advise before every shot, but at least on every depth change. If you are still not happy with the end result then you can adjust colour with editing software after the dive. Most NLE editing systems will have some colour correction tools. It's hard to get it perfect, but with practise it's possible to get something that you're happy with.

As for shakiness then moving over from photos you have to remember one thing in particular. A photo is a split second capture while a video is taking 10 or more frames in the same amount of time. You have to have great buoyancy control to get a good end result and even then you'll still end up with stuff that looks like you're in a washing machine! Don't give up though - diving with a camcorder will make you more concious of your buoyancy and movements in the water - as a result you'll become an even better diver and as a result of that you'll shoot better video. It's a win win situation!

Ok I've rambled on enough now!

Cheers, Simon

 

[Rick Murchison]

The "on all the time" vs "clips" contest isn't that hard to resolve... alternate methods from dive to dive (or day-to-day) and the pros/cons of each will surface soon enough... and you'll settle on what works best for you and your circumstances. Obviously if you're changing tapes between every dive as I do, you must not let your level of care slip through familiarity or you will have fogging/flooding problems. But the same level of care used every time will get the same results. So far (I'd never assume It'll never happen) I've been able to avoid those problems by religiously carving the time out of the surface interval to get the camera and housing off the weather deck and into a place where I can perform the operation undisturbed and dry.
Buoyancy control has been mentioned; work on fine finning - sculls, backfinning, turns in place etc.
Some other general guidance...
Go slow; concentrate on making camera movements slow, especially vertical or horizontal movements. Even zooms in and out are more pleasant when slow, usually. Hold the camera as gently as control allows. Tense muscles make for jerky movement. If the camera has a tendency to rotate when released, consider the use of small trim weights. I like mine to be very slightly negative, but to just sink gently without significant roll or pitch if I release it.
Get low.
Get close.
Given the choice of the same subject deep or shallow, take the shallow one, surge permitting. White balance can only compensate for so much...
Take the time to get your eye away from the eyepiece so you can enjoy your dive in real time as well as on video later
Rick

 

[sharksdelight]

I would have to agree with what Mike said. Just letting your cam roll is a waste of tape, time in the editing bay and extra wear on your recording heads and transport. When I see a shot coming up, I hit record and then make any adjustments which leaves me plenty(sometimes too much) of preroll and post. I always batch capture clips rather than capture an entire tape though I know several who would rather capture the entire tape and then cut.
Steve:14:

 

[Rick Murchison]

I would have to agree with what Mike said. Just letting your cam roll is a waste of tape, time in the editing bay and extra wear on your recording heads and transport. When I see a shot coming up, I hit record and then make any adjustments which leaves me plenty(sometimes too much) of preroll and post. I always batch capture clips rather than capture an entire tape though I know several who would rather capture the entire tape and then cut.
Steve:14:

If I can wear out a set of recording heads underwater I'll gladly buy a new camera
Rick

 

[limeyx]

The "on all the time" vs "clips" contest isn't that hard to resolve... alternate methods from dive to dive (or day-to-day) and the pros/cons of each will surface soon enough... and you'll settle on what works best for you and your circumstances.
..

Rick

I'm forced to shoot short clips due to the brain-deadness of iMovie such that if you include even a single short subsection of a clip in the movie, the entire clip is stored on your hard drive. I don't really have a full 12G per dive day.

 

[sharksdelight]

Ah then, time to move up to Final Cut Pro;-)
Steve:14:

 

[Rick Murchison]

I'm forced to shoot short clips due to the brain-deadness of iMovie such that if you include even a single short subsection of a clip in the movie, the entire clip is stored on your hard drive. I don't really have a full 12G per dive day.

Hard drive space is pretty cheap these days. You can get an awful lot of video on a 200G $150 drive. If you're using a notebook you can get an Ethernet/USB II 250G drive for $200 at Sams.
Rick

 

[limeyx]

Hard drive space is pretty cheap these days. You can get an awful lot of video on a 200G $150 drive. If you're using a notebook you can get an Ethernet/USB II 250G drive for $200 at Sams.
Rick

I have a 500G drive with currently 280G of dive videos on it.
Luckily I can put the footage back to tape after I edit it, so I might be trimming some of that.