D7000 Underwater Footage

Hey everyone. After having just received my Nauticam D7000 housing, I thought I'd put it through its paces and shoot some underwater video. Though I am more of a photographer dabbling in video than a true videographer, I do think the D7000 does an excellent job of providing everything a wide range of video shooting options from fully-automatic to fully manual (and everything in between). While certain functions such as white balance are a bit unintuitive, the ability to control exposure, iso, and aperture on a DX chip is a powerful combination indeed.

This example video was taken in Lake Washington, just a few minutes from Seattle. We recently discovered this 65ft tugboat, the Louie, in shallow water after having sank under suspicious circumstances over 35 years ago. Visibility on this dive was approx. 10 feet, and the majority of the footage was taken with only ambient lighting (some shots were lit with a wholly inadequate 10w HID -- video lights are next on the list ). While I am still learning the intricacies of shooting this camera and video in general, I was relatively pleased with the results:

Great footage.

I am just itching to get my D7000 in the water. hopefully soon.

Cheers Mark

Hello

What lens did you use ?

nice picture

phill

Great video for first effort with a new combo.

How did you find the WB and focus ?

Hi, great shots!

which ISO-settings, exposure-settings, aperture etc. did you use? I guess you had high ISO and wideangle (fisheye?) to get such good quality in murky water with bad wiz?

Even

That's really well done Scott!

I'm shocked that this is your first attempt!! You worked the footage with the newspaper article excellently. Your clips were short and edited well, choice of music was superb.

Well done!

That lens work the scene really well.

Thanks for the kind words everyone -- it was fun clip to make

Here are the approx. settings for most of the clip.

Exposure -- 1/50th

Aperture -- 1/5.6 +- a stop or two

ISO -- 1000-1250

The lens is the 10-17mm Tokina fisheye zoomed in to about 15mm. Focus was actually very good -- there may have been about 0.5sec of focus-hunting at times, but honestly the camera's ability to focus while in Live View was much better than I anticipated.

I would say the WB is likely the biggest limitation I have found. It takes a minimum of 8 menu steps to set white balance underwater, and even then it's not ideal. Clearly on this dive I missed the white balance a bit -- it's something that will take some practice I think.

Outstanding work!!!

Your video is an inspiration for us that dive muddy wrecks.

Well done.

I would say the WB is likely the biggest limitation I have found. It takes a minimum of 8 menu steps to set white balance underwater, and even then it's not ideal. Clearly on this dive I missed the white balance a bit -- it's something that will take some practice I think.

WB has it's place. I don't agree that you should 'fudge' the camera into reproducing colours that simply aren't visable at that given point.

I think the green murk really bring this film to life. Look at a lot of the movies that are out now, you'll notice that they colour grade them with the shadows being that murky-green colour, adds a lot of mood.

With this in mind, I don't think you should go out of your way to put reds back in when it really isn't necessary. I film caverns and the water is very blue/green, but that's the way it looks when you dive it, so that's the way I leave it. (plus I have lights, so WB would be a total train wreck.)

I can understand if you have fishes as your subject as people generally don't want to look at green fishes and corals, but for what you have done, I think it's spot on.

You can put reds back in when you get your lights, speaking of which, do you have any in mind? It'll be a challenge to fill the wide side of that lens with light.

Love your movie... put a narrative over it and it's on History channel!

really nice!

I must have missed it, what is the name of the song/artist you used for the soundtrack?

Wowwww!

I was already thinking to change my D90 with the D7000 because of their video ability.

Your video convinced me to do this step-up! Thanks for posting this excellent video!

Chris

P.S. Anybody would like to buy a Ikelite D90 rig ??? ;-)

I must have missed it, what is the name of the song/artist you used for the soundtrack?

How to Destroy Angels is the group, headed by former NIN's Trent Reznor. Album is free for download online still I think.

Excellent editing, integrating topside archival photos with underwater video.

Also excellent color balance in extremely difficult conditions. You showed the wreck as it is, not like viewers might want it to be.

Excellent editing, integrating topside archival photos with underwater video.

 

Also excellent color balance in extremely difficult conditions. You showed the wreck as it is, not like viewers might want it to be.

 

 

Virtually no noise at high iso, even when viewed full screen. Very impressive demonstration of the capabilities of the D7000 system. Also very impressive demo of your video skill, both shooting and editing.

 

Two suggestions if you want to show it: 1. Narrate 2. Use royalty free music.

Wow, I am impressed. The yellow lightbulb really stood out for the true color. 8 separate steps for WBing is a bit off putting but you did a great job for both shooting and editing.

Can't wait till Eric gets his.

Steve