Programme about underwater Wales :(

Just watched a BBC Prog about Wales hosted by Iolo Williams ... A very nice production in a beautiful place but to me spoilt some what by the underwater sequences! The composition etc was fine! however the shooter must have used a DSLR the 'fisheye' barrel look on the wides and PTC was off putting and it was pretty unstable. I did not get a chance to see who the shooter was?

BBC, Please stick to designated Video cams or at least a less obvious fisheye lens!!!

Dean

No Doug Allen behind the camera then Deano

I looked for it on iPlayer but I couldn't find a link. Was the underwater footage shot while diving or snorkeling?

I spoke to a friend about it the other day and he seemed to think it was our very own Paul Kay! who shot the underwater stuff, I know he's a DSLR user so hopefully he can chip in and tell us the deatails As I said it was just the 'lens choice' that was off putting (whoops sorry Paul lol) that 'barrel' effect looks okay in Stills but personally I didn't think it worked...

Dean

The footage is right at the back-end of this:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0171...Wales_Lowlands/

Yes, the fisheye effect is very distracting. I shoot DSLR video with the Canon 10-22 rather than the Tokina but I'm waiting for a suitable port to be able to use the Sigma 8-16.

Yes, I shot the footage. The bulk was shot on an interesting day - boat problems - the fuel pump electonics failed a couple of hours before we were due to dive and was fixed by a boatyard 20 miles away in record time! Even so we were late and it became overcast and darker than would have been ideal and although vis wasn't bad contrast was low. There was enough of a current running to not help either - slack water around parts of Wales is a fuzzy concept. FWIW I did shoot on the 5D2 with the 15mm fisheye because that's what I had available... in an ideal world there might have been other options but coinciding equipment, a dive team and weather around Wales means that its just not that easy.

Yes, I shot the footage. The bulk was shot on an interesting day - boat problems - the fuel pump electonics failed a couple of hours before we were due to dive and was fixed by a boatyard 20 miles away in record time! Even so we were late and it became overcast and darker than would have been ideal and although vis wasn't bad contrast was low. There was enough of a current running to not help either - slack water around parts of Wales is a fuzzy concept. FWIW I did shoot on the 5D2 with the 15mm fisheye because that's what I had available... in an ideal world there might have been other options but coinciding equipment, a dive team and weather around Wales means that its just not that easy.

Hi Paul,

Thanks for the reply you were lucky to use your own kit! I usually have to use their supplied/rental stuff ... Having dived (not bleeding dove!) off the Welsh coast a few times I know it can change dramatically pretty quickly.

Dean

Hi Dean

You hit the problem squarely on the head - renting gear when a shoot could so easily get cancelled (boat/divers/weather/supervisor/lots of other things) is expensive and so solutions which are available are used. Also you have to bear in mind that the viewers are unfamiliar with the underwater world (especially around Wales) and fisheye distortion is often an unknown concept so is accepted readily enough. If only we lived in an ideal world.....

So it was not a BBC production then? Saying you would have had to hire stuff yourself as they usually supply all the gear for the shoot themselves so any cancellations would not matter in that respect... I hear what your saying in regards to lens choices although I would be pretty amazed to see loads of fisheye sequences all the time...

Dean

So it was not a BBC production then? Saying you would have had to hire stuff yourself as they usually supply all the gear for the shoot themselves so any cancellations would not matter in that respect... I hear what your saying in regards to lens choices although I would be pretty amazed to see loads of fisheye sequences all the time...

 

Dean

Independent production company. Some material shot previously and then one dive as detailed above. The other point was that the dive was not where we had originally planned it to be and we had no idea what we were likely to find(!) nor what conditions would be like underwater. The fisheye was probably the best lens even in hindsight...... It all good fun really.

So the Beeb provide you with gear for shooting? I thought still the guys owned their own.

So the Beeb provide you with gear for shooting? I thought still the guys owned their own.

All depends ... However The shoots I've been on all the gear is supplied I suppose if they have similar, same or more than likely better equipment in their stores then why pay for peeps to use theirs, not just BBC I was supplied by NHK as well ... I expect shooters still have their own gear as well bud

Dean

So the Beeb provide you with gear for shooting? I thought still the guys owned their own.

It also depends on budgets. Not all programs are sufficiently well funded for there to be hire costs and contingencies built in all the time. The 5D2 is sometimes acceptable when some underwater material is useful but the budget isn't sufficient to allow for hire costs and re-shoots. On some programs, much lowlier derived underwater footage is used. I suspect that interested parties (such as on wetpixel) tend to watch high end stuff and become rather more critical than lay audiences to whom additional, small underwater sequences simply add interest rather than needing to be of ultimate quality all the time. The cost of underwater filming in the UK is high due to the 'teams' who need to be used shoot underwater.

I suspect that interested parties (such as on wetpixel) tend to watch high end stuff and become rather more critical than lay audiences to whom additional, small underwater sequences simply add interest rather than needing to be of ultimate quality all the time.

I hope you are not implying that 'I' have been spoilt by watching big budget progs Mr Kay thus compromising my judgement ... My initial comment was about the lens choice on certain scenes (please do not take this as a personal attack) I just could not get on with the effect of a fisheye and some stability issues that a DSLR would have that 'maybe' a video cam wouldn't ? I expect the Prog you worked on had a bigger budget than some I have? Not that any 'money saving' Producer would ever admit it

Apart from this I thought it as a lovely programme

Dean

I hope you are not implying that 'I' have been spoilt by watching big budget progs Mr Kay thus compromising my judgement ... My initial comment was about the lens choice on certain scenes (please do not take this as a personal attack) I just could not get on with the effect of a fisheye and some stability issues that a DSLR would have that 'maybe' a video cam wouldn't ? I expect the Prog you worked on had a bigger budget than some I have? Not that any 'money saving' Producer would ever admit it

 

Apart from this I thought it as a lovely programme

 

Dean

No Dean I wasn't implying anything and I didn't take anything personally. I hope that wetpixelers in general are more discriminatory than lay viewers. But I do think that we need to be aware that added interest in terms of some underwater material has a role to play which isn't always the same as that of a big budget spectacular. One of the aims of the fisheye use was to provide overview shots - shots which are still rare from the Welsh underwater environment and which surprise many viewers who have no idea how much life is down there. Having given hundreds of talks about underwater Wales I am now very aware of how little people know about the local underwater environment. In an ideal world I would have liked a couple more dives to add different shots into the mix but the end result would have been a lot more cost and no increase in on screen time so it wasn't going to happen.

Re: quality. The last time I sold footage to the BBC they decided that it was fine to rip the footage off of the evaluation DVD, despite the fact that a ProRes file was available if they had wanted it.

Re: quality. The last time I sold footage to the BBC they decided that it was fine to rip the footage off of the evaluation DVD, despite the fact that a ProRes file was available if they had wanted it.

Use of stock Footage 'quality' itself highly depends on each programme ... I was asked by ITV for footage of the Stanegarth, all I had was about 6secs of real crap viz which was non composed and pretty grainy as I was testing the lowlight capabilities of my trv950 at 25M. They took it and broadcasted it without any grading etc!!! ITV local news good enough ... Planet Earth, don't think so

Dean

I was testing the lowlight capabilities of my trv950 at 25M.

LOL did it perform better than your A1 at 50m?? You really should have attempted a career in comedy Deano. You crack me up

LOL did it perform better than your A1 at 50m?? You really should have attempted a career in comedy Deano. You crack me up

Different conditions Stoney Cove vs South China Seas ... It's the way i tell em

Dean