First UW DSLR Footage - Nikon D7000

Took our Nikon D7000 underwater for the first time in our new Aquatica housing on Thanksgiving morning. Just a simple shore dive in Laguna Beach. Conditions were far from perfect, but good enough to play around with the camera for a bit. Pretty happy with the video quality. Look forward to shooting it on some more exciting dives in the coming months. For 1080p HD, select the "HD" option (if you have a fast connection), otherwise turn "HD" off.

[vimeohd]32901420[/vimeohd]

That looks encouraging, I have the same camera and housing. Was this with a tokina 10-17? Did you manual focus with a hyper focal distance dialed in?

Yeah, Tokina 10-17mm. Mostly shot at 10mm. I basically kept in around f/4.5 and as near to base ISO as I could (100-400). I focused a couple of times at something a few feet away, and then just left the focus alone. That kept infinity to within about a foot of the port in focus. I'll play around more with it as time passes. Otherwise, I left everything else in manual. Can't wait to see what we can get in better conditions!

Footage looks good, I actually think the footage looks better than 5/7D stuff. Some shots were just a little bit too 'fisheye' but overall I am pretty impressed with the camera.

Edit:- Just noticed the name of the dive site

Footage looks good, I actually think the footage looks better than 5/7D stuff. Some shots were just a little bit too 'fisheye' but overall I am pretty impressed with the camera.

I'd originally hoped to pair this with a Nikkor 10-24mm, but alas, a good deal came along with the 4" dome port, so the fisheye lens got the bill. I agree, a few parts are a bit too "fisheye" for my taste as well, but overall, I'm quite happy the effect isn't as noticeable as I'd thought it might be. I got a good chance to shoot this lens topside this past weekend. At 17mm, there's *much* less distortion. I'll try shooting some video at that focal length next time and hopefully capture a more rectilinear look.

Thanks for the nice comments about the footage!

Edit:- Just noticed the name of the dive site

So watcha do to get a site named after ya?

If anyone has video with the Tokina shot at 10mm vs. 17mm, I'd love to see it. Otherwise, will try to grab some samples this weekend (if the winds stop howling here in SoCal...).

Looks good!

What lighting did you use?

You should come to a meeting,

http://www.ocups.org/

I used two 35W HIDs with video reflectors. There was a fair amount of ambient light as well; we were relatively shallow.

Will check out the link you sent.

Thanks!

Looks good!

What lighting did you use?

 

You should come to a meeting,

http://www.ocups.org/