Nikolausz

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.

It's my long time favourite movie. I've watched it many times.

Tamron 60mm would be fine

With wide angle lens with bigger fish (Pike, catfish) it works quite well. I will test macro (30mm and 90mm) in December in Bali.

The Sony 11mm F1.8 SEL11F18 is actually a rectilinear lens, but I can also recommend the SEL1118 F4 optically stabilised zoom, which is good when you have enough light and it gives you additional flexibility. There is a new version (E PZ 10-20 mm F4 G) but I don't have any experience with it. I think A6700 is an excellent choice. I use A6400 but I would prefer A6700 if I would start from scratch. For macro I use the 90mm lens but I think it's not the best choice for blackwater video. I also have the 30 mm macro, which could be an interesting choice for close-up but not good for extreme macro. A really good macro lens around 50mm is a bit lacking. Optical quality is there but according to my research AF is not that fast and accurate.

As I remember, it was a good strategy to have another diver approaching from the other direction and keep them in a "cross-fire" to avoid them to turn.

Amazing footage. Zeus faber is my favourite fish from the Mediterranean. I took some nice photos of them in Croatia, quite long tome ago. I remember they always just turned away a bit to ruin the shot.

I've just seen this video on Ikelite YT page. There are some interesting inside about the techniques used and some really great footage.

probably that's the easiest way

Any suggestion how to watch it from Germany?

When I started underwater image making more than 20 years ago the choice was easy. Equipment to take high quality photos was relatively affordable that time, compared to professional video cameras. I could afford buying the same films used by David Doubilet, and similar quality lenses, but a good digital camera was way beyond my budget. My photos were crap not because of the equipment I used but the potential was there. I had some friends involved in videography but the image quality they produced was just bad and mainly due to technical limitations. Photos from the 80s were good, still keep up today's standard, but if you check some films from that era the quality was really bad (even from big production companies). My hobby was a bit on ice during the digital transition, although I bought a Sony A100 with ikelite housing, due to my growing family I had not that much time for travelling. I wanted to further simplify my system, so I switched to Sony NEX-5 in a cheap housing, when I realized the red button to take videos. First I was not hooked. It actually happened when I got a GoPro as a present and started to use it in local lakes, mainly as camera trap. I think GoPro was very important milestone in underwater videography and it "democratized" underwater filmmaking. Such affordable camera with so much potential. Of course, most of the divers used these cameras completely wrong and tons of crap videos have been produced to torture other dive buddies, but the technology has improved (image stabilization, better WB, additional correction lenses etc.) and now it's easy to make OK small films. These cameras are still used by big TV production companies and many blue chips nature movies include footage from "cheap" action cameras. So today, in my opinion, it's cheaper to buy a capable video camera than a photo camera. Another important technology improvement was the headway of LED technology in video lights, which made those lamps also affordable. Meanwhile the underwater strobes for photography have not improved that much. I think, making good quality videos with story, narration, capturing behaviours etc. is still very challenging, while taking good photos is easier. I see many very good photos but not that many really good videos. Image making for profit is difficult for both photo and video but some say video is more profitable.

I wrote the following under Matthias Lebo's video, and this is my short opinion: "DJI has really bad corners (otherwise colours look good), iPhone is the most versatile and it has a bit more background separation, Insta clips straight out of the camera are the best, but GoPro is surprisingly good, when there is enough light (but I would use a default -0.5 correction)", which resonated well with the viewers of the channel. I would add here for more advanced users that due to the accessories and the GP Hero Labs, 10-Bit, and post processing options, GoPro is still a good option, but maybe not the best option. DJI, as a company, has the best potential to grow as the best small camera for content creators but the underwater issues are not properly addressed for advanced users. Somehow AcePro2 handles these issues better (especially the bad corners with underwater mode, compatibility with AOI lens), so if I should choose a new action camera, AcePro2 would be my choice. Currently I use a GP Hero 12 and I don't feel the urge to upgrade, because the pure image quality increase is not that big. I still think that a GPHero 12 with an AOI UWL-03 has way better image quality than any of the new generation cameras without such correction lens. Low light issues I can address with external lights and some post processing. Just for curiosity I tried GP 12 during a night dive (it's usually not recommended) and the results were quite OK (still not comparable to my APS-C camera results):

Yes, I used only the SEL11 for this video. It's a perfect for wide angle videos (on APS-C). Now, I 'm looking for something similarly priced good quality around 20mm.