Video lighting for nite dives

Although I had promised myself to hold off on upgrading my video light(s), that uncontrollable buying itch is starting to take over especially when I'll have a chance in a month's time to film those famous Cocos Island white tip reef sharks feeding at night...

Currently I'm using my old single 21W HID cannister light with a homemade diffuser as my video light. Does a very good job on macro and kind of OK job on close up WA shots... But I can see the wisdom in the advice given to me to upgrade to dual lights for a more even lighting and to elimintate the nasty green shadows...

Unfortunately I can't reuse the Salvo 21W HID head I have as it is an older enclosed lens design and team it up with another video HID head... So it'll go in my technical diving gear closet with my twin wings, etc... for the time being;)

Looking at what is available, I am having a hard time deciding if dual 10W will be enough or (despite the protest from my credit card) I should go with dual 21W or 24W heads. Of course there is the battery size and burn time tradeoff.

Anyways, what would help me is if people could post a link to some of their night video clips online where they have used either dual 10W HID's or dual 21-24W HID's, not for close up macros, but for medium wide angles so I can get a better feel for how much more coverage/ brightness the dual 21W HID's will provide vs dual 10W HID's.

I would just hate to purchase the dual 10W HID's now only to find in less than a year that I want to upgrade to stronger lights. Mind you, my camera is a HC7 which really loves good lighting...

Dual 10 watts will work at night with the little setups but stronger is better if you can afford.

You can always move one away to dim the light abit if needed.

Here is a clip we shot with twin 24 watts HID's with home made diffusers with the FX1.

We can hold the housing 1 metre from the sand/bottom and the light evenly covers the total area with a 90 degree port on.

http://www.hdvunderwater.com/podlives/flash1/lion.html

nice Wags... Was that with the two 24W Darkbusters?

now, anyone with some equivalent 2x10W HID nite footage?

Yep... cheap old Darkbusters

10 watt stuff is fine for macro/close stuff but pull back abit and they will struggle.

Have some wide 10 watt stuff but it's not on the computer.

10 watt stuff is fine for macro/close stuff but pull back abit and they will struggle.

like a shot of a pack of 20+ feeding whitetip reef sharks roaming through coral searching for fish... guess for that I'll just need to hire a full hollywood lighting team...

OK, joking aside... I forgot all about shawnh's excellent "realm of the sharks" on divefilm's podcast and on his website, which included the above white tip sharks at night. wonder what lighting he used for that scene...

Here is a post of a video of the dive I think you are talking about.

cocos sharks at night

Not sure what kind of lights he is using but coverage looks pretty wide and even.

I just got back from a 12 day trip to Cocos two days ago. One guy was shooting an HC3 with a small dive light at night and he got footage. You are going to want to stay a few feet away from the pack of whitetips, one guy on assignment from National Geographic got nipped on his fin strap.

If you have the extra money, get the bigger lights. But keep in mind that you will only need them for the night dives. During the day, it is all ambient light with red filter.

I got some good footage during the day with the HC7 and Gates housing with the SWP25. On each dive, once I got to depth I set the white balance, put the focus to infinity and went to town with the zoom as needed. However, there were times the full wide angle was needed. I really appreciated the SWP25.

those sharks bit the Nik V out of my hand...

strobes are fun with sharks..

Take your still set up on one night dive too

I just got back from a 12 day trip to Cocos two days ago. One guy was shooting an HC3 with a small dive light at night and he got footage. You are going to want to stay a few feet away from the pack of whitetips, one guy on assignment from National Geographic got nipped on his fin strap.

 

If you have the extra money, get the bigger lights. But keep in mind that you will only need them for the night dives. During the day, it is all ambient light with red filter.

 

I got some good footage during the day with the HC7 and Gates housing with the SWP25. On each dive, once I got to depth I set the white balance, put the focus to infinity and went to town with the zoom as needed. However, there were times the full wide angle was needed. I really appreciated the SWP25.

Mini Dive... Yup that is the issue... Lots of money for something I will really need just for nite dives.

ooh, you got the Fathoms SWP! $$$... But I have to say I've been pretty happy with the WP25, but that extra wide coverage from the SWP25 would be nice... I just can't justify the cost...

Yup that is the issue... Lots of money for something I will really need just for nite dives.

Stronger video lights generally give better, more even lighting in the footage. Lights are not only useful on night dives, but do bring out the colors on objects closer to the camera when diving a little deeper. I use the Halcyon Apollo dual 50W HIDs and am very pleased with them. The lights turns out to give a very evenly spread light and anything weaker would in my opinion not be able tio give the same result. Unfortunately they do not come cheap...

Sincerely

Anders

Well in the end I pulled the trigger on a 2x24W HID setup from Salvo as I could reuse my existing canister and battery and the total cost was less than if I went out and bough a brand new Nightrider/ Greenforce dual 10W setup. Though, Barry at Salvo did his best to tempt me with the new 2x35W heads... Scared I'd fry everything in sight with those... j/k

Anders - 50Wx2 halcyons?

Well in the end I pulled the trigger on a 2x24W HID setup from Salvo as I could reuse my existing canister and battery and the total cost was less than if I went out and bough a brand new Nightrider/ Greenforce dual 10W setup. Though, Barry at Salvo did his best to tempt me with the new 2x35W heads... Scared I'd fry everything in sight with those... j/k

 

Anders - 50Wx2 halcyons?

Congratulations on the new lights pakman

The way the night dive at Manuelita works is the whitetips are patrolling, and as you temporarily blind a fish, the whitetips take advantage. They get a meal and you get cool footage. Those lights should do the job

Anders - 50Wx2 halcyons?

Yes, The Apollo 50Ws do the job well, but one or two HMI lights would be a very nice addition...

Nick/Limeyx has the Salvo 24W lights, and he seems pleased with his. You can ask/pm him about his experience with these Salvo lights.

Anders

Word of Caution:

Take a look at what lens characteristics (speed) you are gonna be working with when filming wide at night time. The wider, if its an exterior fitting wide adapter, the more light needed. I have the Fathoms 120 Degree SWP44 and with the Green Force 250W HID's I get really poor performance especially in cave environments. I find myself filming at f1.6 with 18dB Gain so that the divers can be seen! When I switch to a Sony wide angle lens the story gets better and I can start locking down 0dB at night.

Wide lenses are great but they need a lot of light for optimum night time performance. You could always get a couple of these NewtLites, that is, if you've got a spare $12k knocking around!!

Cheers,

Mark.

Yes, The Apollo 50Ws do the job well, but one or two HMI lights would be a very nice addition...

 

Nick/Limeyx has the Salvo 24W lights, and he seems pleased with his. You can ask/pm him about his experience with these Salvo lights.

 

Anders

yeah, I have the salvo dual 24W

I have the "Older" and seemingly higher capacity Li-ion 9.6Ah battery that gives me 140 mins burntime (measured) compared to 150 from the specs.

I have been pretty happy with them overall. I had one ballast refuse to fire recently, and Salvo replaced it for free (Lights are probably 10 months old?)

I notice that I get a lot of blown out close footage (there is definitely an optimal distance ) especially in caves, so I am not sure how the dual 50's would go.

I was considering the 50's but I do most of my dives with camera, so I wanted something that I could get 3 dives on the lights.

I am happy with them overall, but would like to see the dual 35/50's in action!

My theory for the caves is as Anders hinted, to get a HMI or a single 50W and have another diver carry it to light the tunnel ahead of me.

I've used them in Lake Washington in vis so bad that if you cant touch it, you can't see it (pea soup) and got usable footage

Nick

Word of Caution:

Take a look at what lens characteristics (speed) you are gonna be working with when filming wide at night time. The wider, if its an exterior fitting wide adapter, the more light needed. I have the Fathoms 120 Degree SWP44 and with the Green Force 250W HID's I get really poor performance especially in cave environments. I find myself filming at f1.6 with 18dB Gain so that the divers can be seen! When I switch to a Sony wide angle lens the story gets better and I can start locking down 0dB at night.

 

Wide lenses are great but they need a lot of light for optimum night time performance. You could always get a couple of these NewtLites, that is, if you've got a spare $12k knocking around!!

 

 

Cheers,

Mark.

yeah, I had to use a lot of gain in the caves (although I was a moron and had the FX1 on auto, and didn't lock the gain to 12Db max)

Zero Db was a non-starter in the cave with Dual 24W

On auto I got usable footage when shrunk small, but at DVD size, you can see it's got that grainy/oily documentary feel