Water Baby!

Hi all

Not a film, but just wanted to share a few underwater clips of our 9 month old daughter learning to freedive! It was quite a challenge getting these shots - they say never work with animals or children eh?

Gracie Underwater

Cheers, Simon

Hi all

 

Not a film, but just wanted to share a few underwater clips of our 9 month old daughter learning to freedive! It was quite a challenge getting these shots - they say never work with animals or children eh?

 

 

 

Cheers, Simon

Never one to pass up a good pun in a title in a post are you Simon?

Great video, she looks very comfortable and happy - your work with animals and children both show that the saying is wrong.

That's awesome - good job. Our baby's first lesson is today!

Cheers

James

Fantastic!

What's all this old school 4:3 stuff Simon???? ; )

She loves the water, but it was her first time in an open air pool and the sun was very bright so it took her a few days to get comfy. The water was a bit cold for her to be honest as it maxed out at 27degreesC, which is 5-7 degrees lower than she was used to, so we had to be careful how long she stayed in. She started lessons when she was 10 weeks old so it has taken her 6 months of lessons to get to the stage she is at now where she can stay under two or three seconds. Most days she had fun, some days even I had fun

As for the 4:3 Johnny - the three clips I posted were all captured using the V1 slo-mo, so the res is too low for HD. I turned them into 4:3 while trying different options. I've got 16:9 shots and some full HD 16:9 shots that I'm still working on. Will try to post more when I get a chance to do more with them

Cheers, Simon

Awesome, Simon...

As for the 4:3 Johnny - the three clips I posted were all captured using the V1 slo-mo, so the res is too low for HD. I turned them into 4:3 while trying different options. I've got 16:9 shots and some full HD 16:9 shots that I'm still working on. Will try to post more when I get a chance to do more with them

 

Cheers, Simon

Ahh I see said the blind man.... great shots mate. You must be super stoked being a Dad!

You must be super stoked being a Dad!

Time to start saving for her housing Simon. It will be here before you know it.

Cheers,

Steve

Cool. Someone should use a still from that footage on a grunge album cover.

What's that slomo mode Simon? Is that like 50p at lower res or something?

Awwwwwwwww Gracie !!!

The look of pure amazement on her face was enchanting... Such a sweet video

Well done to you and Zoe mate that was lovely to see and has helped with my hangover ...

Dive safe

DeanB

Nice to hear that I was able to help with your headache Deano. I know how serious some of your hangovers can be!

Nick the V1 has a slomo mode that will basically give you 3 seconds of footage at x4 the frames, so you end up with 12 seconds being recorded to tape. The drawback is that you get a big hit on resolution. It records as 1080i50 HDV, but it is nowhere near HD quality. I'm not sure of the exact resolution but it seems fine as SD and I've had it accepted as SD. The V1 also has a setting for 6 and 12 seconds, but you get a further hit on resolution with those which basically makes them unusable. I've slowed down the footage even more in post with optical flow settings in Motion which seems to work well. Not super slomo, but not bad considering the kit I was using. I also shot at normal speeds with a very fast shutter and I'm now playing around with slowing the footage down in Motion. This has given me no where near as large a reduction in speed, but the images are at full HDV res. Still working on those.

Glad you all enjoyed the clips!

Cheers, Simon

Absolutely adorable...way to go. I will see if I have an extra BC for her to use.

Steve

Hey looks abit like the Nirvana pic.

Cute, amazing how they hold their breath. It's only for a few weeks or something hey, then they forget.

Yeah you're right Wagsy. They do forget how to close their epiglottis after 6 months or so, unless they have been in advanced freediving training like Gracie has !

Cheers, Simon

Very nice, Simon!

Managed to find some time to put some music to Gracie underwater over the weekend

Cheers, Simon

A weekend well spent Simon. I challenge any one to watch that and not smile from ear to ear.

Thanks!

Steve

Hey Simon, if you expect most of your viewers have pretty reasonable bandwidth, you can put...

yt:quality=high

...in your list of tags on the edit video screen, then the video will default to HQ. That's what I'm doing now with my new uploads where YouTube have encoded a 640x480 HQ version as well as the fast'n'fuzzy version (talking about 4:3 SD here). It particularly pays dividends if the viewer clicks to go full screen.

Hey looks abit like the Nirvana pic.

Cute, amazing how they hold their breath. It's only for a few weeks or something hey, then they forget.

 

Soooo Wags... are you going to put Little Wags or Kelly in the drink before 6 mths?

Actually Simon, since you like experimenting, try using 50p at 1/500 and use FCP's or Motion's engines to do the slomo. You'll get much better resolution than slow shutter mode with the V1.

Just remember to keep the water out of little Gracie Spear's nose if it's chlorinated pool. It can cause some issues with sensitive tissue.

Thanks Nick for the YT tip.

Drew - I actually managed to get some footage in all different modes and at all different frame rates, but I've only had a chance to play around with the smooth slow clips so far. Will post some more when I've had a chance to play around with them. In all honesty if I'd realised the resolution hit was so big with smooth slowmo setting I'd have left it alone, but it looked so good on the lcd! If I can't get good enough results from motion with the full res clips then I may even invest in that Twixtor plug in mentioned in Chris' post!

Cheers, Simon