Panning shots in video

Hi

Can anyone give me some tips - I am dreadful at panning underwater - the shots are too too quick! How do I slow it down?

John Dory

Hello John

Panning underwater, just move the housing around slower.

But its better to take a shot, then reposition and take the next shot instead of panning the camera around the place.

Hi Wagsy

Many thanks for getting back to me. I know the obvious answer is 'slow the panning down' - do you have any tips in achieving that, or is it just practise? The shots I have in mind are to pan carpets of jewel anemones

Thank you

John Dory

That's easy... put more drag on the housing. The more resistance, the smoother the pan. Wings are the easiest to do.

Although if your following a subject like fast moving fish then adding drag would be a problem... For scenics as Wags said just slow it down I'd have thought water would provide a good 'natural' resistance similar to a fluid head topside...

Dive safe

DeanB

That's easy... put more drag on the housing. The more resistance, the smoother the pan. Wings are the easiest to do.

Wings - -that sounds interesting. Are these cobbled together in Heath Robinson fashion or are they available commercially? Incidently I have a Light and Motion Mako housing, which is compact and fairly light (thus not a lot of drag in the water), if this has any bearing on the matter.

Thank you for your suggestions

John Dory

Another thing you can do to help is make the housing more negative, that is heavier.

One that is neutral or positive buoyant will be harder to keep steady-smooth than a slightly negative one.

Practise lots, to take good shots underwater you need to be at one underwater with yourself and all the marine life around you.

Maybe for that shot you could hold the housing underneath you and swim over them or hold the housing sideways and swim along the edge of them for a nice effect.

One thing you can try for camera steadiness is make a double bungie lanyard attached to your BCD and to each of your housing handles (so it forms a triangle) that just has a little tension in it when your arms are straight and the camera is at arms length. Then you just slightly push the housing away from you and it's steadier than if you're just holding it there with no tension. I use 5-6mm marine bungie. The length of the 2 bits of bungie is critical. This is the underwater equivalent of the taught bit of string that you can loop from the bottom of your camera around your foot when you're shooting topside and don't want to take a tripod.

But to be honest, even better than that is to get the housing perfectly weighted and trimmed so it requires the lightest of touches to maneouvre it. As the others said, a good deal of inertia helps, often created for you by lights, floats etc.. If you want more drag/inertia then try to make it work for you. e.g. rig up a underwater tripod that stays on the bottom of the camera rather than just adding wings etc.. Then it's down to just practice practice practice.

Wagsy's underwater "tracking" (sideways) or "dolly" (forwards or even backwards) shot is often better than panning for shooting stuff like carpets of anemones. Still, panning has its place but you need to think about where your pan is going to begin and end and, in general, decelerate towards the end of it. Just like topside, try to get your body facing in a comfortable position for the end of the pan, not the start.

I often combine an underwater tracking shot with a bit of a pan. For example swimming alongside a group of divers or school of fish and slowly pan the camera from the rear of the school towards the front. Panning the opposite way to which you or your subject is swimming doesn't generally work well.

Wagsy's underwater "tracking" (sideways) or "dolly" (forwards or even backwards) shot is often better than panning for shooting stuff like carpets of anemones. Still, panning has its place but you need to think about where your pan is going to begin and end and, in general, decelerate towards the end of it. Just like topside, try to get your body facing in a comfortable position for the end of the pan, not the start.

 

I often combine an underwater tracking shot with a bit of a pan. For example swimming alongside a group of divers or school of fish and slowly pan the camera from the rear of the school towards the front. Panning the opposite way to which you or your subject is swimming doesn't generally work well.

Thanks for the tips - I didn't think of tracking rather than panning as a technique - I will definately try that one. I also appreciate the starting/end point considerations.

John Dory