video setting.....

[roflcopter]

I will be traveling to Truk / Palau in a few weeks and have never used my camera for video, only stills. My setup is as followed:

Ikelite T2i housing with canon rebel t2i
Ikelite DS 160 x 2 strobes
Sola 1200 ball jointed to the top of the housing that ive used on night dives on occasion.

My question is this : what would be proper video settings? I will be adjusting white balance with Final Cut pro but are there any specific settings that will give me better results instead of full auto video mode?

Thanks!

 

[matdiver]

I will be traveling to Truk / Palau in a few weeks

Lucky you!
I use a GH2, not a T2i, but I've been on the Ocean Hunter in Palau 5 times now, and I think I've got a pretty good idea of the sort of challenges we have in Palau. Basically, there's so much of everything, that you could easily miss that great shot whilst you're fiddling with full manual controls. For most of your day dives, I would suggest the following settings: manual white balance (essential - don't leave it purely to FCP correction), shutter 30 or 60, (to respect the 180 degree shutter rule), and auto ISO and aperture. Auto ISO might seem surprising, but my thinking is that if you're at 10m filming a manta underneath you, which you track with your camera as it nicely arcs its way to the surface, the exposure would be completely messed up if you didn't let the camera adjust the ISO and aperture automatically. True, there may be step changes in the aperture in the raw footage, but they can be easily smoothed out with key-framing in your NLE. Maybe no self-respecting photographer would use auto ISO and aperture, but video and stills ARE different!
Then there are light-challenged sites, like Blue Holes, where you would really want to keep the ISO in check to avoid noise - maybe 1600. Night diving is obviously easy, as you don't have to compete with ambient light. Still stick to shutter 30 or 60.
If you check the link in my signature, you'll see some of the stuff I've filmed in Palau. You'll have a great time there!
Cheers,
Matthew

 

[fishstix]

Matdiver- what is the 180 degree shutter rule that you refer to?

 

[matdiver]

Fishstix,
it's something I found out about here:
What shutter speed to use? - Video Gear and Technique - Wetpixel :: Underwater Photography Forums

and there's more technical background stuff here:
How to Choose Shutter Speed For Video On Your DSLR

Seems like high (= more than twice the frame rate) shutter speeds in video lead to jittery footage. Not long after I got my camera I found this to be the case with a speed of 1/200, and there's nothing I could do about it in editing software.
Matthew

 

[roflcopter]

Fishstix,
it's something I found out about here:
What shutter speed to use? - Video Gear and Technique - Wetpixel :: Underwater Photography Forums

and there's more technical background stuff here:
How to Choose Shutter Speed For Video On Your DSLR

Seems like high (= more than twice the frame rate) shutter speeds in video lead to jittery footage. Not long after I got my camera I found this to be the case with a speed of 1/200, and there's nothing I could do about it in editing software.
Matthew

Thanks Matdiver! Are you by chance on reddit? I asked for some advice there also and a guy named matt was very helpful! cheers!