This is my first underwater travel video. It was shot in one week on the „Blue Storm“. We did a liveaboard and visited Deadalus and Fury Shoals.

The camera was a Nikon Z6II with an Isotta housing and two no-name lights. The lens was a Sigma 17-70mm 2,8-4f lens. Color Grading was done in DaVinci Resolve.

I would love to hear you feedback and opinions! :)

Edited June 17Jun 17 by danka94

Really nice video. Excellent editing and colors. I like the backlighting you tried to achieve.

Perhaps, if I may suggest, the music is a bit off-mood. It has a crescendo of strings and tension that's hard to follow with the images. The visual climax is reached with the sharks. But, of course, these are very personal preferences.

The lens seems perfect and very versatile for the video. What dome port did you use?

54 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

Really nice video. Excellent editing and colors. I like the backlighting you tried to achieve.

Perhaps, if I may suggest, the music is a bit off-mood. It has a crescendo of strings and tension that's hard to follow with the images. The visual climax is reached with the sharks. But, of course, these are very personal preferences.

The lens seems perfect and very versatile for the video. What dome port did you use?

Thank you very much for your feedback, Davide :) The lens was great for this trip. Unfortunately it is a DX lens, so no use for my Z8. The Z6II cropped in for 4K 60fps, so it was no problem back then. The dome was a 6,5 inch glass dome.

The editing and music selection wasn‘t actually done by me. My best friend is editor. I have a similar opinion as you do, when I watch the video now. I think it is too long after the sharks. But we saw so many incredible things, it had to fit everything haha

Edited June 17Jun 17 by danka94

15 minutes ago, danka94 said:

Thank you very much for your feedback, Davide :) The lens was great for this trip. Unfortunately it is a DX lens, so no use for my Z8. The Z6II cropped in for 4K 60fps, so it was no problem back then. The dome was a 6,5 inch glass dome.

Great combo indeed for video

16 minutes ago, danka94 said:

The editing and music selection wasn‘t actually done by me. My best friend is editor. I have a similar opinion as you do, when I watch the video now. I think it is too long after the sharks. But we saw so many incredible things, it had to fit everything haha

These videos aren't just for aesthetic purposes; they also serve as a magnificent memory of our holidays!

Ciao

Really nice, great shots and lovely naturalistic colours, lighting, contrast - Nikons are less common for video, so it's really interesting to see what is possible to do with one! Did you manually white balance regularly or just set it to something?
I really like the turtle sequence.
Some of the hammerhead shots are a little too far and deep and really contrasts with the lovely closeup encounter you have 50 seconds in - it's good to have some wider shots but maybe a few have been left out in the edit (though I totally understand the desire to include more of this trip highlight), same goes for a couple of the slightly more shaky shots around 1:30.

Otherwise same remark as Davide on the music - this is highly subjective of course but the're a bit too much of a manic crescendo for the images in my opinion. For a first vid, it's really great and I look forward to seeing future ones!

cheers

Edited June 18Jun 18 by bghazzal

On 6/18/2025 at 10:48 AM, bghazzal said:

Really nice, great shots and lovely naturalistic colours, lighting, contrast - Nikons are less common for video, so it's really interesting to see what is possible to do with one! Did you manually white balance regularly or just set it to something?
I really like the turtle sequence.
Some of the hammerhead shots are a little too far and deep and really contrasts with the lovely closeup encounter you have 50 seconds in - it's good to have some wider shots but maybe a few have been left out in the edit (though I totally understand the desire to include more of this trip highlight), same goes for a couple of the slightly more shaky shots around 1:30.

Otherwise same remark as Davide on the music - this is highly subjective of course but the're a bit too much of a manic crescendo for the images in my opinion. For a first vid, it's really great and I look forward to seeing future ones!

cheers

Thank you :)
Yeah I think Nikon stepped up their video game A LOT in the last years. The Z8 and Z9 are one of the best mirrorless cameras in the moment regarding especially video. 12 Bit intern Nikon RAW in 8K 60 fps or 4,1K 120fps is absolutely massive.

I had a white balancing card with me and tried to adapt WB to the depth I was at.

Regarding the wide and shaky shots: Yes you are right. I now would select fewer shots for the video. Also making it a little bit shorter.
@Music: We tried something to something different ;)