Ron:
I wanted to compliment you on your videos. It is easy to see that you have put alot of time into your creations from great composition to editing and selecting a soundtrack. I have been using canon products since the late 70's. I am just now going through the laboriuos process of scanning all of my slides.
I am seriously thinking about purchasing some video equipment. I will most likely go with the Canon HF 10 and the Ikelite 6090 housing and have several questions:
The housing comes with a filter for blue water so I assume that this is a red filter. Is that correct?
Does the housing provide connections for video lights? I dive off the east coast, near Atlantic City NJ, and would like to purchase them at a later date.
Have you ever shot video in the waters off the east coast and if so, can you recommend a specific filter?
Finally, I noticed the topic of ports comes up in various threads. Will the standard accessories for the housing suffice for know and can I add different ports at a later date? I would rather start out simple and make changes as I gain experience.
Thank you for your time.
Greg
Greg, since I am one of the few here using Ikelite products, let me answer you questions.
Yes, the filter that comes with it is Red. You use it anytime you are over 15' deep in ANY water to restore of the red back into the picture. When you are over 80-90' you will take it off as it will deminish the light available and not effect color anymore as everything is solid blue at that depth anyhow.
Yes, Ikelite makes lights. I bought a light rig to use recently and it is made for the housing, attaches easily, works well. BUT be aware that lights only work when you are close to a subject, like under 5' away, just take the red filter off when you turn on the lights or your vid will be pink. Otherwise you will use the red filter for color in all you vids. The only people who have lights that will light up a whole reef are the people like Howard Hall who has a huge spotlight system run with cables from the surface to power it!!
As far as the ports go, the port that comes standard on the Ikelite housing is fine to start. It is perfectly suited for the camcorder as is. The other ports that are now made are to fit a new Wide Angle lens that will fit
onto your camcorder inside the housing. There isn't enough room inside the housing to fit the lens so they have made these new ports to accomodate the size. If you are new to videography, I would recommend you start with the original housing and camcorder first and learn that. Then you can think about adding the WA lens and port later. They aren't necessary for you yet.
Hope this helps. And yes, I agree, Ronscuba's videos are FANTASTIC! He is one of the people who inspired me to get into video.
robin
