bghazzal

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... 😅

Great thanks for sharing - lovely shot of hunting action there as well, in the right place at the right time 👍 😀

Great thanks- this sounds like a very similar setup to what my wife tells me she did while working a trip from Thailand to Myanmar (not Smiling Seahorse, but Andaman Queen) a few years back Floating buoy, line shining into the buoy for the captain to follow, weighted line down to 25m and lights roughly every 5 meters - she doesn't remember the position of the lights though. She says it was full of squid ink when she entered - divers were already down there and squid probably got spooked But no pictures so didn't happen 😁

- edit - diopter found 🎉

Now that's a fish!!!! 🤩 The section starting 40 minutes in certainly is - seems to work well enough with only the massive lights they have on the main camera + hand held light btw....

Hehehe, yes, that's a pretty good summary of what seems to be rather contradictory statements...😆 I also think camera light power won't be too much of an issue - bumping the iso and also shutter speed a little (the 180° rule of shutter doesn't really affect closeup UW footage, frankly there's no Saving-Private-Ryan-battlescene-effect when shooting critters...), and aiming for a form of lightbox (two weaker lights to the side, almost earmuff style and one light central and angled above and down) should work i think. It's the setup I use primarily for macro now and it's fairly flexible. Using only a +6 diopter (or none?) should give enough range inside the light box. Main issue should be getting /. keepign the critter in the focus / light area and finding the right angles to light it, keep the fluorescence without overexposing, and also.... keeping steady enough, which is going to be hard work and might require using the Aquatilis Laundry Basket© technology or similar... Not having access to 4K 60fps, still haven't made up my mind whether going for 1080p 60fps for slow-mo or 4K 30fps which is what I normally use - I have both dialed in as presets, so I guess I'll see in situation, if I'm struggling to keep critters in focus/lit, I might go for slow-mo mode instead. The other main issue will probably be backscatter and also swarming, based on night dive experience - I think this is where the idea of having powerful lure lights come in handy, to keep the swarm focused on the lure lighting rather than on the camera video lights. The Backscatter MW4300 has a red light function which might come in handy for this, we'll see. But there are lot of particules in the water at the moment, so it will be difficult to avoid backscatter unless it clears up a little, and the surge is going to make things difficult. It's really dark now in the current moon-phase but I think I'll wait a few weeks for the next new moon, hopefully the surge will subside and I can also work on the lure light, see if I can borrow something (very tempting to buy another MW4300 for this purpose, with the added justification of having a wider light box for normal macro, but vade retro spending-demon....) But maybe i'm overthinking this, and a couple of narrow-beam dive lights might work to attract critters, I don't know - based on previous experience wide-angled video lights are really a bug magnet UW. But yep, it's all speculation until you've actually gone in and tried it... Which I'm excited to, enough to overcoming my usual night-diving laziness .... I'll update my findings - if enough critters showup (which I guess it's also linked to cycles and planktonic movement, something Simon Buxton touches on in the Boot talk), I'll probably keep at it a little to experiment, see what seems to work best.

Nice find Davide - true, it's a little odd.... Quite a contrast with the land footage indeed - maybe this came from the idea to balance things out / merge with the drone shots of the whales? Nice looking camera and op otherwise! On parting, here is a touching scene that will resonate in the aching hearts of many camera enthusiasts.... 😍

Nice, thanks - but it's a bayonet system, right? The specs read QRS-2 Bayonet System, which mean that any 52/55/67mm threaded filter would need to be made to work with a bayonet mount first.

Similar concerns on ocean temperatures raised in this article, also pointing to links to extreme weather patterns - extract: Astounding’ ocean temperatures in 2023 intensified extreme weather, data shows The oceans absorb 90% of the heat trapped by the carbon emissions from the burning of fossil fuels, making it the clearest indicator of global heating. Record levels of heat were taken up by the oceans in 2023, scientists said, and the data showed that for the past decade the oceans have been hotter every year than the year before. The heat also led to record levels of stratification in the oceans, where warm water ponding on the surface reduces the mixing with deeper waters. This cuts the amount of oxygen in the oceans, threatening marine life, and also reduces the amount of carbon dioxide and heat the seas can take up in the future. Reliable ocean temperature measurements stretch back to 1940 but it is likely the oceans are now at their hottest for 1,000 years and heating faster than at any time in the past 2,000 years. The most common measure of the climate crisis – global average air temperature – was also driven up in 2023, by a huge margin. But air temperatures are more affected by natural climate variations, including the return last year of the warming El Niño phenomenon. (...) The new study, published in the journal Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, used temperature data collected by a range of instruments across the oceans to determine the heat content of the top 2,000 metres, where most of the heating is absorbed, as well as sea surface temperatures. In 2023, an additional 15 zettajoules of heat was taken up by the oceans, compared with 2022. By comparison, humanity uses about half a zettajoule of energy a year to fuel the entire global economy. In total, the oceans absorbed 287 zettajoules in 2023. These figures are based on data from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences. A separate dataset from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration found a similar increase and identical trend over time. The ocean surface temperatures in 2023 were “off the charts”, the researchers said. The primary cause was another year of record carbon emissions, assisted by El Niño. Over the whole year, the average temperature was 0.1C above 2022, but in the second half of 2023 the temperature was an “astounding” 0.3C higher. The scientists said the record level of stratification and reduced oxygen in the ocean would have “severe consequences” for ocean plant and animal life. Marine heatwaves struck across the oceans in 2023. A separate report, by the consortium Global Water Monitor (GWM), found some of the worst disasters of 2023 were due to unusually strong cyclones bringing extreme rainfall to Mozambique and Malawi, Myanmar, Greece, Libya, New Zealand and Australia. Prof Albert Van Dijk of GWM said: “We saw cyclones behave in unexpected and deadly ways. The longest-lived cyclone ever recorded battered south-eastern Africa for weeks. Warmer sea temperatures fuelled those freak behaviours, and we can expect to see more of these extreme events going forward.” https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/jan/11/ocean-warming-temperatures-2023-extreme-weather-data

Interesting, but hmm, not quite there yet indeed - specs do mention "custom WB" but I'm guessing this is just setting the kelvins... and no aperture control or zoom (which the TG series does have for instance) Quick browse for UW content brings.... well, nothing more than some pretty bad footage or spec-compare vids. And then.... I stumbled onto the Sony Malaysia promotional (?) video which is rather hilarious: Not super convincing, but hey, sexy-shrimp shot at some point, interesting - they're pretty small how did they do that with this lens only... And then looking into the comments, turns out the video is mixed footage shot with a RX0ii and.... the RX100 V.... They even had to edit the title.... Oh my.... Talk about shooting yourself in the foot there.... 😅🤣🤭