HMS Hermes - Wreck Video

Hi There,

I have finally got my act together and fixed my computer and got around to editting video footage of the wreck of the HMS Hermes which sunk off the east coast of Sri Lanka on teh 9th April 1942.

http://www.vimeo.com/16517573

I hope you enjoy the clip any comments would be appreciated as I am still learning about this video thing.

Matti

http://www.mattiovaska.com

I hope you enjoy the clip any comments would be appreciated as I am still learning about this video thing.

 

Matti

Must have been an exciting dive.

The video is fun to watch. I'd like to hear some narrative to understand which part of the ship we are looking at. Maybe you can add that in a future edit.

I have two comments, one on technique, one on technology.

One of the hardest video techniques underwater is trucking: holding the camera steady while finning or drifting past the scenery. Your lateral stability is fine but you might want to put a bit more practice into vertical stability. It is too easy to pivot the lens up and down, disconcerting to the viewer. Practice finning and holding the camera dead steady. Making sure your arms and hands are comfortable and relaxed is important. With a good monitor, you can use objects to guide the stability (e.g. keep one object exactly in one place in the monitor). Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying this is a big problem in your video but could be improved.

The second comment is about technology. It looks to me like your video camera is not handling the full dynamic range of lighting. Every time the camera points towards the surface, the highlights wash out. Is this problem endemic to the camera or something with the settings. Of course, dynamic range is a problem in some UW scenes but your camera seems to be struggling more than usual. Interestingly, I don't see the same issue in the still shots that you've included in the video.

Regards

Peter

Hi Peter,

Thanks for the comments, I was using my Canon 5D MKII in an aquatica housing with canon 15mm fish-eye with a kenko 1.4 teleconverter and the aquatica 4" dome. I know I need to improve on the stability and I am thinking of things that I can add to help with the balance. Maybe a couple of small pvc tubes attached to the strobe mounts with slide adjustment so that I can set-up trim to suit different port types ie 4" dome vs 8" dome?

There were a few things that I had to contend with on this dive. The dive wasn't planned to be a video dive it just ended up happening that way, first it wasn't planned to be a video dive except that I hadn't mounted the hot-shoe connector properely so the strobes would not fire, the second was the depth as the top of the wreck is 40m with the bottom at 52m (a deco air dive), third was the current though on this day (this was my first dive the wreck) it wasn't too bad but enough the you had to work.

A part of the wash-out would have been more user error and not changing setting but I was concentrating on the dive. So something else I need to work on.

I am thinking about have the plan of the ship to either show the path of the dive or just have it inserted a certain points still thinking on this. The wreck is resting on its port side which is fortunate for divers as it means the all the interesting bits are there for show ie the bridge, the various guns and the forward head and anchors. I included the stills to show some of the other things which were seen on the wreck.

regards

Matti

Hi There,

I have done a quick re-edit of the video clip with some additional photos and markers to let you know where on the wreck you are. Any comments on this would be appreciated.