My Very First Video ever!

Hey everyone here is my first attempt at U/W Video, first dives with the rig, first attempt editing underwater video and very first attempt at color grading underwater video. Some honest critiques would be appreciated keep in mind this was my first time out with my rig, well my first time out with video underwater. My goal was to capture images and images only no story telling here, just a test. It's only a 32MB fiole so it should load right away.

I tried to embed the quicktime I made but for some reason it's resizing it and I'm losing pixels. So here's a direct link.

Username: Dive

Password: videos

and it's case sensitive

http://www.oocpromotions.com/thethickofit/...uary%202008.mov

Billy

Well Billy that's pretty good for the very first one. Congrats.

Most of your shots were pretty steady, what were you using?

Looked like you had a pretty wide angle lens on there as well.

You can load it up on my youtube underwater site if you like.

www.hdvundersea.com

Well Billy that's pretty good for the very first one. Congrats.

Most of your shots were pretty steady, what were you using?

Looked like you had a pretty wide angle lens on there as well.

 

You can load it up on my youtube underwater site if you like.

www.hdvundersea.com

Thanks Wagsy, I used this setup http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=22244 and I used some post tools to steady some of the shots. I was disappointed with my camera work but I'm sure most people are shaky their first time out. Any criticism or tips? Color grading actually took longer than anything else.

Thanks!

Billy

O sorry about that, should of put two and two together...the home made one...it was pretty cool that you made that Billy.

I was going to say did you use a steady filter as it did looked too steady

Maybe load up the same cut as shot so we can see the difference.

The Blue of the water looked abit strange.

O sorry about that, should of put two and two together...the home made one...it was pretty cool that you made that Billy.

 

I was going to say did you use a steady filter as it did looked too steady

 

Maybe load up the same cut as shot so we can see the difference.

The Blue of the water looked abit strange.

I agree 100%. In my original footage I think due to MWB plus the filter I was using produced water with a purple-ish gradient to it. It was kind of difficult to get rid of it, I should have used someone else's video as a reference to what good water color is. I also agree that some of the shots are way too steady and come off artificial. I spent some time last night trying to fix the ones that looked fake but I stopped at about 4AM (5 hours ago) and decided that at that point I would see who would notice the image stabilization(in other words I fell asleep). I'll post some side by side clips with reference lines so everyone can see how shaky it really is.

Thanks a ton for all of the help!

Billy

Billy, the magenta hue of the water comes from your MWB. If I remember correctly the WB sensor on the DVX100 is outside and not TTL. Or is that the HVX200? Anyhow, in post, I suggest you boost saturation and color grade back some blue into the water. You can use 3way in FCP or for more control Color. Looks to me a lot of your WB went to yellow instead of red/orange. You may want to dial that back in. It is also important to try get the sequences to at least be close in color.

Was your optical stabilizer on? If you look at 1.55-2.200, the bubbles on your lens jumps quite a bit and that's usually the OS at work.

I liked the turtle with folded fins... cool find. What was that octopus doing on your lens?

Billy, the magenta hue of the water comes from your MWB. If I remember correctly the WB sensor on the DVX100 is outside and not TTL. Or is that the HVX200? Anyhow, in post, I suggest you boost saturation and color grade back some blue into the water. You can use 3way in FCP or for more control Color. Looks to me a lot of your WB went to yellow instead of red/orange. You may want to dial that back in. It is also important to try get the sequences to at least be close in color.

Was your optical stabilizer on? If you look at 1.55-2.200, the bubbles on your lens jumps quite a bit and that's usually the OS at work.

I liked the turtle with folded fins... cool find. What was that octopus doing on your lens?

Hey Drew thanks for the critique, you've got a good eye. I was white balancing with a filter and I don't know exactly how that affects everything else.

As far as color grading goes I used the program Color for everything. It's much more powerful than the 3-way. If you haven't used it I highly suggest you give it a spin. The interface is kind of intimidating but once you figure it out(buy a book) you can do amazing things with it. Here's a before and after of one of my shots. This was a fairly complicated grade because I added 3 vignettes in order to remove the purple from the background on top of the primary grading.

I kept the color different on the sequences as a hint that they were different dives, it sounds like it came across as a continuity error though. Here are a few screenshots of what color looks like:

The image stabilizer was on but what you're seeing with the bubbles is actually the image stabilizer I used in post. Thanks for the help and if you've got anything else I'm listening.

BTW the octo was put on my lens by a buddy. I turned to film this big valley, turned back and he threw it on my port. I'm not a big fan of that type of thing but thought it looked cool to see it's suckers. I hope it doesn't offend anyone.

Billy

Billy did you have a wide angle on the end of the camera.

I have never used that program, "scopes" I take it it's a MAC one. The one I use I would just mouse click multiply times on the blueish areas and then I can adjust just that color blueish area. Drop anther filter on again and then adjust the fore ground. It's pretty easy to cheat now days.

Billy did you have a wide angle on the end of the camera.

 

I have never used that program, "scopes" I take it it's a MAC one. The one I use I would just mouse click multiply times on the blueish areas and then I can adjust just that color blueish area. Drop anther filter on again and then adjust the fore ground. It's pretty easy to cheat now days.

Wagsy, every single one of those shots had a bayonet mounted wide angle adapter 0.6x on top of the lens. That's why you don't see many closeups. Kinda makes it boring but I was excited to use the lens(adapter) for the first time.

"scopes" is just the title of that window not the program. If you look at the 3rd image down it also says "scopes." This program is called COLOR . In Color you can blow up your image to the full window size, it normally looks like the 3rd image displaying the image and whatever scopes you choose to display. I expanded it within just so I could get a large screen grab. I've got a dual monitor setup so one screengrab is for the left and one for the right.

Color comes standard with Final Cut Studio 2. It's a pro color grading program and a gift to have for those who know how to color correct. I've been learning color grading for a few years now and it really is an art. Color is a new adventure for me and I'm totally blown away by it.

Billy

Billy

Since you are using Color, you can finetune your primary grading of your foreground which is obviously missing red/orange and saturation. You can also readjust the secondary grading for hue in the blue water scenes to remove the magenta cast. You have left the gradation pretty well but have crushed the blacks. Realize when you compress for internet, the blacks will automatically be crushed anyhow.

Billy

Since you are using Color, you can finetune your primary grading of your foreground which is obviously missing red/orange and saturation. You can also readjust the secondary grading for hue in the blue water scenes to remove the magenta cast. You have left the gradation pretty well but have crushed the blacks. Realize when you compress for internet, the blacks will automatically be crushed anyhow.

I was not aware how video is affected when streamed. This was my first attempt at using color, I know I'll get better with time. Next time I'll definitely have some sort of reference to base my grading on. Thanks for the info, I'll probably go back and re-grade this for practice, I want to get it right.

Billy

If anyone's interested I went back and did a 3rd color grading pass on this video and swapped out a shot. You can find it here: http://www.oocpromotions.com/thethickofit/...20Streaming.mov

Username: dive

Password: videos

It is case sensitive,

Billy