bghazzal

Great news for the AOI, finally something which can help with the corners then. I've also tested cropped wide in the past - while it's certainly done with a sensor crop, there's something else at play when switching fields of views and the fisheye-style distortion is difficult to correct in post. It's clearer on land footage comparisons vids like this one:

Thanks - sorry to hear the forum swallowed your post, had that happen a couple of times as well, it's weird... I would be very concerned about lag - I have used the Panasonic wifi control app a couple of times on land with my phone and laptop, which works fine to control the camera, but lag was really noticeable, and it didn't seem like a practical remote display solution because of that. The other issue i can see is battery usage and possibly overheating. Wifi functions typically use a lot of battery, which is really of the essence for video, and typically generate quite a lot of heat ( when using a smartphone as a wifi hotspot for instance). This could definitely be an issue UW, on both sides of the loop. It's a very tempting approach for cameras that don't offer practical HDMI options (compacts, some action cams for instance), but probably needs to be tested on a case by case basis cheers

Here's a small macro clip where I tried working with slightly different subjects and angles, sometimes a little more abstract. Shot in Amed, east Bali, in 4K 30fps, CineD profile, edited/graded in FCPX Equipment used: - Panasonic Lumix LX10 (LX9/LX15 in some locales) compact camera in a NALX10 Nauticam housing, AOI UCL-09 +18.5 diopter, Inon UCL-165M67 +6 diopter and Nauticam CMC-1 (the skeleton shrimp clip if I remember - I just got this lens and will be working with it in the coming weeks) - Backscatter MW 4300 video light and two Archon D11V2 video lights - Homemade quadripod cheers ben

Welcome Andrei, glad you made it to the otherside safely

On the budget side, I'd stayed at the Ibis Budget in Clarke Quay a few years back and that was quite alright for the price, considering it's Singapore Our main port of call in the area is actually Kuala Lumpur, which is a bit more messy, but also more budget friendly and a bit more fun for us (and the food is amazing - like in Singapore, it's a mix of Chinese / Malay / Tamil-Indian, but they've started incorporating Levantine food as well since the population movements caused by the Syrian civil war. It's taking a unique local twist... ) Can't help more on Singapore you need any tips on KL don't hesitate.

Yes definitely the warping is really terrible on the side - it's been like this since the stabilisation was introduced on the 5, and really shocking coming from the 4.... Lots of improvements but also corner distortion when panning. I wonder if the Inon/AOI lenses will help with this, as this would be fantastic. I think linear fov is fine though - you can always switch to wide for a larger view but in many situations I prefer linear and rarely shoot in wide. I'm not using the gopro these days but these are some of the last clips I shot when i was working in Palau last year, showing different WA shooting scenarios, all in linear. These are on the GP7, not on the GP11, but unless i'm mistaken I don't think the field of view options have evolved much since linear was introduced on the GoPro5 to replace the medium fov) The warping corner distortion on the Jake seaplane shots on the 2nd vid is pretty horrible for instance, it really stands out when there is a little camera movement, panning especially. If this is has improved on the new models, it would definitely be a major reason to upgrade. cheers

Great - happy it worked out in the end! Looking forward to some first impressions/feedback on the lens, see how the trout footage compares to what you shot so far.

Thanks Bill, this is really interesting, and really like the alternate tale on the role of lure lights. Nannette's blackwater vids are fantastic - if you don't mind, I'll post some links here for reference: It would be great if you could also share some technical info on how she approached these blackwater video shoots on the Sony handicam (basic settings used, light positioning for instance), and generally what seemed to work best in terms of getting good shots on video, where to wait etc.... Thanks again! Ben

I don't know, but it seems to work for the proud owner, since he had it made this way 😄 this is his work: https://www.instagram.com/diveivanov/?hl=en the ball ends are all used as i know he has both strobes and video lights on his kit. cheers

Thanks for sharing. On white balance, if you work on the footage in post (which is time consuming, especially if you're planning on sharing the footage with customer, so maybe not really what you're after...), you can get good results by setting to native then white balancing in post (if you don't have a grey card to show the camera you can balance on sand, bubbles, tanks, this usually works well). Results are quite different. To give you an idea, here are some examples shot nearby on the Sea of Cortez when I was working in LaPaz - so somewhat similar sea conditions to yours, but also with greenish water early in season. They're shot in ambient light flat profile (but on a GoPro7 with a UR-Pro Cyan filter) and white balance is rebalanced in post, as the first step of the colour grading process. Sea lion and sardines Green turtle at La Salvatierra (this one is interesting colour-wise as it's deeper, on the sand, so 18m+ / 60ft depth) Sea lion morning routine School of jacks in Cabo Pulmo I suspect the GoPro 11 would give really interesting results when white balancing in post. cheers ben

I keep mine on my arm, with the watch face facing inside, but recently came across this homemade contraption which looks interesting:

Wow - even more interesting - i googled it apparently it's dusky sharks and sandbar sharks mostly https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissacristinamarquez/2019/02/12/escaping-the-cold-sharks-huddle-around-thermal-power-station-in-israel/?sh=74f606973180 There's also a video of Orot Rabin : This sent me down a rabbit hole on the eastern side of the Mediterranean - apprently duskies and greys are also frequently spotted off Beirut nowadays, something I no clue about... There's a video was taken off the bay of Jounieh (!!!), apparently. and there are plenty of others sighting videos on Youtube, and some dive sites off Beirut are even called "shark point" nowadays: https://seaworldblog.wordpress.com/2013/07/27/did-you-know-that-lebanon-is-also-a-destination-for-scuba-diving/ There's definitely something going on.... thanks for sharing this!

Is this in the Red Sea? What sharks are showing up?

Take a look at this 😉 https://youtu.be/MxjbnBCYiMY?feature=shared&t=77

Welcome - looking forward to seeing some Gordo Banks footage if you have some! 😃

As a sidenote, in the video world, FCP is also a very common, well-established abbreviation for Apple's editing software, Final Cut Pro - since version 10 it's also commonly abbreviated as FCPX

Nice catch! And nice extended battery housing... Budgets are often tight these days, and there's quite a lot of subcontracting going on in the documentary world, with teams working as independent production companies- I think this might also be the case for some BBC projects... When I was in Palau we actually had a BBC team over to shoot the moorish idol spawning - wasn't helping out on their boat as I had other work obligations on those days (😢) but did see them setup. Red Komodo in a Nauticam housing if i remember correctly and... GoPros (but I think i was only the 8 or 9, not the latest), on a plank contraption for in-water shots from the boat. Hopefully their sequence will make it onto the next Blue Planet, as intended!

Yes, you're right Davide - I have more than enough light for smaller subjects, it's just an extension of this medium range which is tempting... But then again it doesn't happen that often, and frankly I'm not sure what a more wide angle like positioning of 2 cones of 4300lm lights - instead of single frontal one as the main light source - would have achieved. Good chance it might be wider but also less concentrated. The grass is always greener on the other side I guess... And I do have two smaller video lights on the side already, which opens up a lot of options when you have the time to try things and play with the positioning - in this case the crabs were already deep into it when I got there, so I just had time to quickly adjust exposure and the 3 lights to form a light pool and then it was all about following them around... The sequence was shot at ISO 125, so I have a bit of room, not to mention that I'm actually using a slightly tighter angle than the 180° rule as I find that it's actually more flexible and works well for critters (I think i was at roughly 100° but mum's the word 😉)

Biased, but I would suggest to add the Lumix LX10 to the list for video 😉 Older camera, but still quite a few tricks up its sleeve for moving picture enthusiasts.

Thanks Tim, this kind of team work isn't always easy but this was a fun little project to work on together! Yep a winner would have been great, but the fight just dwindled out at some point and each went their own way, so I guess it was a draw.... 😄 Regarding the diopter, the Inon UCL165 is really flexible on my setup, I can still focus at roughly 1m distance, and the advantage is that if subjects get closer, I can keep focus while zoomed-out a little. But In this particular case, I think I just made my life more complicated actually since I wasn't zooming in and the focusing area was pretty clearly marked by the lights... I shot the mimic octopus vid just straight from the port for instance, but that did get wider at times as it was much more mobile and frequently moved away into ambient light only. I agree the circle of light works well in this specific case, ring-like indeed! I'm also trying to imagine what the same area would look like if instead of a single central 4000 lumen light I had two side-mounted ones. Given that these are not very powerful lights, it's difficult to visualise what two crossing cones of light would give in this kind of scenario, as opposed to a central spotlight...

Agreed with all the above, but the burning questions on everyone’s lips are now: - will the BBC keep using gopros or the latest gopro killer cams?! - and if it's the former, to what model have they updated their GoPro sets? 😁😁😁

Awesome! That's a really lucky moment - I've seen quite a few of these bigfin reef squids hanging around near the moorings in the area, but never hunting, and much less a peacock mantis shrimp! Great shot, and really one of those "in the right-place-in-the-right-time moments" !

Hello all, Taking a break from tiny subjects here in east Bali, here’s a little clip of two fighting Rough Box Crabs (Calappa gallus) using holds and projection techniques in what looks like some sort of crustacean jiu-jitsu! To give some background to the clip, I stumbled upon these two ruthless opponents in the shallows a couple of weeks back, and stayed with them for a while, as the fighting was quite relentless and quite fun to watch... Technically, my LX10 kit was set up for macro, but its buoyancy is now quite neutral (only a tad negative), which allowed me to simply fold-up the quadripod legs and follow the action hand-held. It was tricky at times, as they were going quite fast especially during the chases, and I did feel the limitation of having only a single Backscatter MW4300 light, here in 4300 lm wide-angle beam mode. While it certainly would have been nice to have a slightly larger pool of light to keep medium-sized subjects like this in the spotlight, in the end I actually also like the fact that they’re moving in and out of the shadows like this. The camera was shooting in manual focus, at f/11 with the Inon UCL165 +6 diopter on. It’s all shot in 4K 30fps – I considered dropping down to 60fps so I could have access to slow-motion sequences but ended up shooting the whole sequence in 4K 30fps, and it turned out ok, and I didn’t need to crop or stabilise in post. While I liked some specific sequences in the footage from that day, I wasn’t was not quite sure how to approach the edit, and was initially planning on working on a much shorter clip showing only the "action highlights", to avoid boring viewers with a single subject. After drifting through various musical choices (including Japanese kabuki theater music), I settled for a percussion-only track to edit on, and started cutting away in FCPX (Final Cut Pro that, not the Fisheye Conversion Port 😉) But then my wife stepped in, saying she thought my sequences were too short, and that itwas better to give it time to let the action develop - she then offered to work on the first edit instead. When I first watched her initial proposal, I thought it was too long at first, but ended up keeping most of her original structure and just shortening some sequences. For me what stands out the most in this clip is her audacious proposal to keep the 1”20’ uncut long shot sequence, from the 40 seconds to 2-minute mark – (her "Touch of Evil" opening shot moment, one could say ) This was something I wouldn’t have done (applying the mantra of our attention-defficient day and age, too long = boring!) but she insisted on leaving the sequence uncut as is, to let the viewer watch the action develop in real time (and, herm, also something a bit more mysterious about respecting the crabs... 😅) Anyhow, in the end I grew to like it as well, as keeping it as a single long uncut shot does help really follow the tension and dynamics of the fight - and even if it's a bit on the long end and not really in zeitgeist, these little guys are quite fun to watch! cheers! ben

Thanks for sharing this. Really interesting, and looking forward to following the next generation of cams. I think the main issue for scuba users is that we've been, from the start, shoehorning actions cams into a use that they're not primarily designed for (despite the jack-of-trades marketing) - to some extent this is true of most imaging equipment, but I feel this is more present for action cams. The only scuba-centric action cam type device was the Paralenz, and that didn't go too well. What would really make things go forward for divers is a drift away from the action cam model, to a more neutral video platform, and this seems to be happening to a certain extent, though it's not clear because manufacturers are still holding to the action market which was behind the cams'inception to begin with. At some point this will create friction, as there's only so-much you can do in terms of miniaturised lenses, sensors etc... There is a tension building between user expections in terms of imaging quality and flexibility, and the specific requirements of action cam you can mount on your helmet to go mountain-biking or snowboarding... At the moment it seems manufacturers are trying to make it work for everyone, and counting on the addition of external accessories to extend options, which is interesting, but I feel that at some point the cams will have to grow-up litteraly, physically increase in size and weight to reach the next level, which might mean splitting the range to a proper action-cam segment and a more all-purpose compact, rugged video camera for quality content production. At the moment we have action-cams, phones, rugged oddballs like the TG7 and old aging dying compact-camera and then bigger cameras (which is what a lot of content-producers are still using for their channels...), and no device-to-rule-them-all.... To return to diving, it's interesting that the added accessories are really moving action-cams away from the compact action cam form, which seems to show that while there's a gap with massive photo-rigs, there is some leeway... As i've said before, i'm really looking forward to seeing actual quality scuba diving footage shot on the new action cams, which is still a rarity - I think this is due to the fact that most users willing to spend time working on their underwater footage end up frustrated with the limitations of action cams, and quickly end up looking for something else.

Going to be very difficult to rewire my tired brain from FCP = Final Cut Pro to FCP = Fisheye Conversion Port... Good thing we're at FCPX now... 😅