PD 170 video setup

Hi everyone

I have a Sony PD 170 DV cam with a custom built housing.The problem is the housing does'nt come with a manual white balance function so it cant be done underwater also it has a large port for a wide angle lens so i cant get any red filters to correct the colour to fit.

Now this leaves me with an unbelievable problem.All the pictures are coming out blue or green depending on what ocean im in.I know there are techniques to do this on land to correct this problem like white balance at the surface and so on.Who has this problem and how have they corrected it.Im going to the Red Sea in December and i dont want to be the only person coming back with "Blue Sea" pictures excuse the pun.

Thank you in advance for you help guys

Travy, pls use the video forum for all video related questions.

The PD170 has great bandwidth for WB... I believe it's 2000-12000°K at least. I never used a filter until past 15m(50ft) because of it. You can set push the WB to overcompensate at max but your clips will be red.

Or you can just color correct in post.

I have the similar VX2000 and the footage can get really nasty monochrome green with huge areas of blown out pale green/white if I don't use a filter and/or manual white balance.

You should be able to get a screw-on 58mm blue-water colour correction filter for the PS170 that will help a bit. Try UR-Pro. That's no substitute for being able to manually white balance but it should help. If there isn't room for that you could get a Magic Filter which is a thin flexible gel filter and cut it to size to fit in the front of the camera. Bear in mind that colour correction filters will cut out some light so will cause extra visual noise at depth (e.g. 30m+) where your camera uses a lot of gain to compensate. Also that shallow footage may be too red, but that is very easily corrected on the computer.

Thanks guys

I spoke to the manufacturer and they are gonna install a push rod to do the white balancing.So that will help.However i can only use my PD 170 with the wide angle lens on underwater so nothing can screw on in front of it(like a colour correction filter)Maybe the magic filter i can put on the inside of the port?im not sure.

But with the push rod,magic filter and colour correction in post will definitley solve it.

Do alot of video shooters colour correct their images in post?I mean is this a common thing or what?Would really be interested to find out?

Thanks again

Actually i stand to be corrected i can i may just get away with a red filter and wide angle lens.The wide angle can screw into the thread of the red filter.It will be a tight fit between the port glass and the wide angle but it may just work.

Whether to manually white balance or to correct in post is one issue that the experienced shooters here tend to be divided on. Personally I manually white balance as much as I can but still need to correct some shots as well.

The Magic Filter, or just a piece of appropriately coloured gel lighting filter, would fit between your camera and the wide angle adapter. It's very thin.

You are going to be very limited on how deep you can manually white balance without the filter. You need the filter to help the camera by shifting the colour temperature into a range the camera can white balance from. Also the colours will be "richer" if you manually white balance with a colour correction filter in. You would think that in theory the result would be the same, but it isn't.

Putting a threaded filter between your camera and wide angle adapter might give you vignetting (black corners) or distortion issues. If you go that route then take a good look at the footage on the computer to check and either zoom in a little from wide to compensate, deal with it in post (cropping, inverse barrel distortion etc.), or just ignore it. TVs crop a fair amount of vignetting out anyway.

Actually i stand to be corrected i can i may just get away with a red filter and wide angle lens.The wide angle can screw into the thread of the red filter.It will be a tight fit between the port glass and the wide angle but it may just work.

I had the same filter/WA adapter issue. My Adapter has a bayonet mount so a threaded filter wouldn't work. I took a Blue water filter and matched it to a studio party gel and taped in on the plastic on top of the camera's lens. The Gel I use is called "bastard pink"

http://www.filmtools.com/31-lee-s779.html

I bought it from this place but actually went into their store and matched the color. It's a whopping $6.60 a sheet and I can cut about 100 filters out of it. Much better than having a custom 102mm filter made for probably about $750 and produces an identical result. I use it for both blue water diving and semi green water diving out here in cali.

Billy

I had the same filter/WA adapter issue. My Adapter has a bayonet mount so a threaded filter wouldn't work. I took a Blue water filter and matched it to a studio party gel and taped in on the plastic on top of the camera's lens. The Gel I use is called "bastard pink"

 

http://www.filmtools.com/31-lee-s779.html

 

I bought it from this place but actually went into their store and matched the color. It's a whopping $6.60 a sheet and I can cut about 100 filters out of it. Much better than having a custom 102mm filter made for probably about $750 and produces an identical result. I use it for both blue water diving and semi green water diving out here in cali.

 

Billy

Hi billy

I did the same thing today,i did,nt realize that i have a whole box full of stusio gells which i could play with.I found two gels that i have from Lee Filters and Rosco filters that are quiet close to the correction filters from UR Pro and Magic filters.Im going to test them out and maybe they might work you never one.Experimentaing is fun.

Hi billy

I did the same thing today,i did,nt realize that i have a whole box full of stusio gells which i could play with.I found two gels that i have from Lee Filters and Rosco filters that are quiet close to the correction filters from UR Pro and Magic filters.Im going to test them out and maybe they might work you never one.Experimentaing is fun.

Very cool! I was in Film Tools for about an hour comparing different gels and even trying to combine gels to produce the same exact color and density. The closest and easiest thing we found for a single gel was Bastard Pink, but they have so many we could have easily missed a few, or maybe we just became numb from looking at so many. Good luck and let me know what the conclusion is.

Billy