Nikolausz

My major problem with the smartphone photography/videography is that my phone on a trip is more valuable tool to risk a flooding. I use it for entertainment, check news, contact family, check-in flight, store documents etc. So finally it means, I would need a separated dedicated phone as underwater camera. In such situation, there are better small cameras. How much does a iPhone 15 Pro Max cost? In Germany it's 1100 euro. My Sony A6400 is currently 670 euro (30mm macro is 220 euro), which is a way better camera system. When smaller cameras considered, in my opinion, a Sony RX100 camera would be still a better more versatile choice than the best current smartphone. I haven't seen any decent macro videos from smartphone, while many fantastic footage Sony RX100 cameras. Lack of flash support is another issue with smartphones.

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I've just posted a 3-mins version. I can imagine a shorter version would even work better Cheers Marcell

Thanks. The closeups are taken with the 90mm macro lens, in some clips I further cropped. This was the most difficult, because the eels always moved out of the frame or the focus plane. So I have only few short close-up clips. After I uploaded this film I immediately started to cut a shorter version (3 mins). Probably, I will replace this video with it. I was really happy to see those behaviours in the film materials.

Thanks, I dedicated two dives just for the eel garden and used several cameras (Insta360 X2, GoPro 12+AOI wide lens, A6400+30mm macro (first dive), 90mm macro (second dive). With the smaller cameras, they were out after 1-2 mins.

One of my role models in underwater videography is Howard Hall. He has many underwater films without any narration, just long sequences of pure fantastic underwater scenarios with some neutral background music. Many people find them boring but I frequently rewatch them. There are few on Amazon Prime (Coral kingdoms, Bejeweled Fishes etc.) but he also uploaded many full movies into his Vimeo page: https://www.howardhall.com/short-videos/ I have recently filmed an eel garden in Bali and uploaded a long 7-mins video with some slow background music, which is, I hope, still interesting and I relaxing to watch. Later I'm planning to edit a shorter version of it to include in a narrated movie about the underwater life of Bali. There are still lot to explain for non-divers about the behaviour of garden eels. I also use very short clips edited for phone users. But personally I still prefer long natural history movies with some interesting good narration (there are bad examples as well).

Yes, my own videos. Jokes aside, I actually prefer the slower natural history themed blue chips videos

If I were you, I would go for the AOI UCL-03 when your aim is close-up (real macro is hard with action cam) due to the narrower field of view. You can also improve your action cam picture quality by using the AOI UWL-03, so you can focus closer and can achieve close focus wide angle pictures.

Since I had only 3 black-water dives as a newbie the whole thing was a big experiment for me. First I used 2 "naked" lamps with 90 degree wide light spread (modifying a bit the position, front and side lighting). Second dive I used both lamps with optical collectors (relatively narrow beams), which was good for searching, then I used them for side lighting. It looks a bit too harsh in some footage and easy to overexpose the subject with a direct hit. I had the 90mm macro with me but I excluded it, since the difficulty to use it for videos without a tripod (my buddies used it for photos and it worked great). So the only option for me was the 30mm macro, which is an underrated lens in my opinion. I also tried it in manual focus mode (locked after pre-focusing) and trying to follow the subjects. This is not a bad strategy with slow-moving subjects. The AF is a bit unreliable, it easily distracted by other things and also not super fast. There was swarming around the lights used on a rope for reference points and to attract bigger fish on the swarming zooplankton. Sometimes a bit of swarming was around my lamps but I just swam away to switch to some other targets. Altogether, it was a fantastic experience but I don't think that I cracked a tiny bit the perfect technique, so I will still follow this thread and hopefully I will be better prepared for the next black-water dives.

Thanks, but I went mainly for easy targets.

This is a short video of the blackwater material I shoot in a recent trip in Bali, Tulamben (3 BW dives). On the one hand, it was extremely amazing experience, on the other hand, it was really difficult to record usable footage. I think I still haven't solved the proper technique. I used a Sony A6400, 30mm macro lens with 2 Weefine smart focus 7000 lamps (with or without optical collector).

Originally I planned to add a monitor to my housing (cheap version of housed smartphone via wired wifi connections) but I realized during my recent Bali trip that an upgrade of my housing would make more sense to have a better ergonomics and avoid many small annoyances with my current seafrogs case.

I also observed with GoPro+AOI that the infinity and even subjects 3m away are out focus, which is actually not that bad.

In my opinion, you need tripod for macro videos with any camera

I haven't seen this BTS video yet. Thanks for sharing it.