video

[jonnythan]

I'm slightly curious about buying my club a video cam. Being this is a club, we have little to no spare money.

What would I need to spend, and what should I look at, to get pretty much the cheapest possible underwater video cam?

 

[Dee]

Sorry...no video cam experience!

 

[Diversauras]

Cheap video that is. As in most things, you get what you pay for.

Quality of the reproduction is important and you should be looking at one of the DV formats.

Three chips instead of one will give you more resolution and better control of the color.

A cheap housing will keep the cam dry and make it hard to hold steady, a well designed housing blances the cam under water and gives you a place to mount the lights.

Without lights you really don't ger anything usable on a regular basis.

I haven't bought a camera and housing in a couple of years but I would think the 4K is the minimum you'd spend for anything even close to good quality.

I just want to know what technique will be used to get this thread onto the DIR topic?

Let the games begin...

 

[jonnythan]

Well, I never specified what "cheap" means

I can't imagine I'd "need" to go to DV. A DV cam alone is at *least* $800, right? A digital 8 should have perfectly usable quality at around $400.

Besides the video cam, don't you just need a housing? I don't plan on making video of wrecks at 100 feet, more like taking a cam for the OW checkout dives at 20 ft, using a camera in the pool to possibly help out with the OW classes, etc. Isn't it possible to get this for more like $1000-$1500?

If I'm totally insane, just let me know. Obviously I know nothing about video

 

[ronrosa]

Yes, you can go digital 8 to save some bucks.

You can also find a quality housing for less than $1,500 (Ikelite, USVH).

You can get great footage w/o lights as long as your housing has a red filter and you are shallower than 60 feet. You can always add lights later.

 

[Diversauras]

8mm and Hi 8mm is an issue with drop outs and maintenance, the problem is in the format. DV doesn't have the same inherent problems. 8mm is an old format and on the way out, DV is new and supported.