Going to Shoot a sinking ship

Dear All,

On the 19 th of may, the Bodrum underwater society in Turkey is going to sink a old Warship given from the military to them.

I was assigned 2 months ago to film a documentary of the story.

I am planning to place 2 Housed Cameras on the ship during sinking.

I need your advise to set the focus on these cameras because there is going to be lots of Bubble action going around at the beginning.

How far should i set the focus on these Cameras to keep the whole action in focus above and below water.?

And any advise on the white balance which is going to change drasticaly ? Should i keep it at Auto ?

Thanks for replying,

Tunc

Cool Job !

I suppose you have access to the ship now ? In turkey the weather is probably nice, and the water clear. If you use a reasonable small aperture, you can set the focus at the hyperfocal distance and everything from one or a few meters to infinitiy wll be sharp.

http://www.dofmaster.com/hyperfocal.html

I knew this bit on my old MF minolta camera, but have yet to use it UW. Since it is a lens issue, I am sure it counts for video as well. If you have acces to the ship before, you can experiment a bit.

Gerard

I would lock the focus on infinity and leave it full wide.

Leave the shutter, white balance and exposure on auto.

Shooting with the main up top camera...start rolling way before the explosion as they have been know to go off before the final 0 countdown and you will miss the shot....like I DID once

Place yourself under the sinking ship, it would look well cool silhouetted as it comes down towards you..

Make sure you get out the way though...

Just kidding.

Sounds great though

Dive safe

DeanB

Setting the focus at infinity might be a problem as while that will look great underwater, the camera probably wont' be able to focus on the virtual image when the camera submerges.

A good experiment would be to take the camera into a pool and focus on the far wall of the pool (infinity). Then turn the camera off, and look at the focus distance on the lens when you get out of the water.

I'd lock it at that distance for the sinking.

Pretty cool! How are you going to get the camera to fire? Are you going to program it for a timelapse sequence???

Cheers

James

Merhaba Tunc

I agree with James to a point. It all depends on where you position your camera and what sort of looking you want. Assuming a bow/stern config AND if you are using a WA converter, then you just have to ensure that the camera is focused on what you want. I would lock shutter speed at 1/100 and leave it in auto exposure at maybe -1 AE, esp if a SOny. Sony picture tends to over expose. At 100 you should get sharp enough frames for slomo and avoid motion stuttering.

Focus really depends on your WA converter and also the iris changes as it sinks. As James suggest, test to your WA config. Once you are happy with thefocus, mark and lock it down with tape.

Lyi Slansar

Merhaba Everybody , (means Hello in Turkish)

This is great advise you all gave me,thanks.

So as far as i understand ,

1- I should definetly do a pool test or a inwater test ,

2- Setting the focus to infinity could cause problems? Is that correct ,i was about to do that!

3-Unfortunatly i will have no accses to the camera after i have placed it on the ship and they tell me to leave ,I am planing to press record before leaving which i know is not very wise because it could happen that it can take a while until the ship goes down .

Maybe setting the camera to do long recording which doubles the recording time could be better.(of course resolution will suffer i think )

4-I am going to place one camera on the Captains Bridge,which is isolated and i will have the opportunity to recover the camera later.Also this location has the full view of the ship.

The second camera will be at the opposite of the first in the front of the ship looking back to the Captains bridge.

5- Of course these cameras will be one of the cheapests sony models a TRV 27E MinidDV with wide angle adapter,for topside shots i am going to use the Canon XH-A1 and the Panasonic HVX200,

What do you all think of this,

Drew where did you learn Turkish I am impressed

Best Regards, ( Selamlar)

Tunc Yavuzdogan

Tunc,

1. Evet, most definitely.

2. a WA converter creates an image that is different from where the focal point is. However, in your case, setting it to infinity shouldn't be a problem. Unless you want something closer in focus as well.

3. Yuk, LP recording does not change the quality of the picture, BUT LP does increase chance of drop out due to the slower tape speed.

HVX200 is great for overcrank... I'd shoot 60P at 1/250 for the slo mo. The A1 can be the master shot camera.

As for my Turk, I'm a Bebek veteran and I can say yuk saol, tesekurle and seni seveyurum.