UW-Video in Photographic quality? is it posible?

I offen think to make the junb to the videoside but I am always scared about the quality off the videos.

I am speaking about colors , contrast, saturation....

For those off you that are working with Digital video under water I like to ask sou something.

Is it posible to have videomaterial with availabe light that looks like my photos att www.tripledepth.com ?

I mean if u use filter, manual white balance and a sophisticated exposue its must be posible.

Are there camcorders that are good enough for this king off work?

Lambis

absolutely... your pics at www.tripledepth.com are gorgeous, but with enough money and talent you can certainly get the same or better on video. it's a combination of camera / housing and POST editing that make the magic.

there are lots of super talented folks on this forum and i try to learn something new everyday from all of them. 1 don't want to step on anybody's toes or make judgements that this is better than that or such, but for a great review and some awesome examples go to http://www.ningalooreefteach.com./FX1.htm - this is the kind of stuff I'M aiming for.

Lambis

The best way to do it is called 1080P, but that's in the realm of HDCAM and 200k in pocket change.

HDV has raised the resolution of video to 1440x1080i. But compression is high and color is still 4:2:0PAL or 4:1:1(NTSC). Good news is that in post, it is possible to give video a certain film look (flatter, lower contrast, saturation). It just takes time and very big and fast computers. In my mind, even HDCAMSR looks like video if lit badly. Have you watched Flightplan, Star Wars III and Matrix II and III? All HDCAM and HDCAMSR products.

I have see and analyzise the hollywood movies and I have use before in Post editing programs like Magic Bullet to archive a Look in a Film.

I was thinking mostly in the lower price range.

I still havent see a footage with the HC-1 & gel filters & available light.

Thanks for the FX1 link... great stuff. I think this will be a good solution

For your scenarios, I doubt you'd get the results you want with available light unless you keep above 40m. I was able to shoot at 48m in 40m+ viz and just barely had acceptable gain noise on the video of the PD170 which probably was around -6db at least. I was amazed but the HDV cameras being at least 1 -2 stops less sensitive, I doubt it will be able to do that without a lot of gain noise. My experiments so far with the Z1 shows it to be 1-1.5 stops less senstive at -6db. Others say around 0.5 -1 stop.

I was thinking to shoot between 0-15 meters max.

No lights for this kind off filming becauce freedivers dont like it :-)

The most important question is, I think, the quality off the Video

HDV

Manual White Balance, for me thats the key

Exposue control . Maybe a good auto exposuse.

ND filters if posible.

Curves inside the camera. On my Nikon d70s I have a custom curve that i have prepare .. in this way i archive, in combination with filters and white balance, the sometimes , plastic, painting look that i whant.

Lambis

Hi Lambis

You have some great shots there, I love blue water like that. How deep were you guys getting.

If you go here http://www.ningalooreefteach.com./images/sample.jpg you will see a Nikon D70 image with a HDV and normal DV video grabs inside. It will give you an idea of how big images from HDV are. All though alot larger than DV, HDV is still under the 6 meg D70 image. A full HD camera would be better again but as Drew said, very $$$$$.

You can drive the HDV camera just like the Nikon, manual white ballance, shutter, exposure, picture level control etc if you have the right housing, but it still will not be as good as a 6 meg RAW taken with the D70, however it's way up on normal DV for grabs.

Wags