First dive with the Nauticam NA-GH2P + 2x SOLA 2000

Friday I got the Nautigam housing so I had the chance to bring it with me underwater.

Unfortunately I had already organized a couple of deep dives with my friends so it wasn't the best circumstance to test a brand new equipment: too many things to pay attention to: buddy, gases, scooter, depth... but I did not resist bringing the new housing and lights with me.

The Nauticam dealer was so kind to lend me two h20-tools carbon fiber arms (two segments each) to test the buoyancy of the whole setup. I will mount the camera on the scooter so I'm trying to have it neutral.

Unfortunately these arms have the ball joint slighty smaller that the joint on the Sola and the Nauticam handle. Moreover the arm ball joint hasn't the o-ring while the Nauticam and Sola lights have it. The result was I fought all the dive trying to get the proper light orientation (2x L&M SOLA 2000).

The lumix 8mm fisheye has a huge angle so the lights must be moved back to fill the scene. Was nearly impossibile with this combination of handle - arm - light - clamps. Anyway, due to the overhead dive I filmed just for five minutes getting some sickening shots.

The housing is gorgeous. commands are perfect at depth. I need just practicing with the full manual controls and proper lighting filming in shallow water without the hassle of technical gear.

I loaded the GH2 with the latest Driftwood SEDNA A settings, (150 Mbs INTRA), 24p, 1/50, mostly ISO 500, Lumix 8mm wide open F3.5 (it's quite soft at the borders). All the shots taken between 60 and 75meter (195 - 246 feet). At F4.5 the lens seems quite sharp at the borders.

Unique problem for now is the weight: housing, tray, handle, arms and lights are about 700gr negative.

[vimeohd]39181036[/vimeohd]

Lol straight down to 75m with a brand new camera. I like your style

8mm is very wide. Lumix 7-14 f4.0 may be a better choice for general wide footage but it's expensive.

For hand-held use I would just add buoyancy tubes. Personally I like the added bulk since it makes handling steadier. Not ideal on a scooter though, due to the extra drag.

Overall it doesn't look that sharp even in the centre. You have some ghosting in your video. If you pause at 01:48 you can see it in the rear of the scooter and the lanyard. Maybe that's inevitable with 24p, or maybe it's been introduced in post. It doesn't look like simply motion blur but more an effect of how you've encoded the video? Unless shooting specifically for film, I think I would go with the fastest framerate the cam would give me.

Lol straight down to 75m with a brand new camera. I like your style

Hi Nick, thank you for your feedback.

This was shot on Sunday. On Saturday I made a quick shore dive without the camera till 15 meters and another one with the camera calculating the weight. Then I made a tech dive without the camera. On Sunday I bite the bullet

8mm is very wide. Lumix 7-14 f4.0 may be a better choice for general wide footage but it's expensive.

Yeap, double the price of the 8mm. I know a guy with the same setup except the lens which is a lumix 14mm (28mm). He returned from a trip at the Solomon. I'm curious to see his footage.

For hand-held use I would just add buoyancy tubes. Personally I like the added bulk since it makes handling steadier. Not ideal on a scooter though, due to the extra drag.

I would have gone with locline or similar but I made some test in murky water and I got a lot of backscatter so I would like longer arms. Maybe it was the first time using clamps and ball joints, maybe it was for having different ball size and type but really was a PITA.

Is it me?

On my previous housing I had two locline and they worked like a charm. With locline or similar would impossible adding some extra buoyancy and the housing it's so small that there is no space for adding some thalagal...

Overall it doesn't look that sharp even in the centre. You have some ghosting in your video. If you pause at 01:48 you can see it in the rear of the scooter and the lanyard. Maybe that's inevitable with 24p, or maybe it's been introduced in post. It doesn't look like simply motion blur but more an effect of how you've encoded the video? Unless shooting specifically for film, I think I would go with the fastest framerate the cam would give me.

I really I don't know. I shot in 24p. I should try the NTSC High Bitrate Mode 30fps progressive stored as interlaced. (Progressive Segmented Frames).

I just copied the clips in Edius, added cross fade between them and exported in mp4 without color correction. I have to do some serious test dive in shallow water

Really thank you.

best

I really I don't know. I shot in 24p. I should try the NTSC High Bitrate Mode 30fps progressive stored as interlaced. (Progressive Segmented Frames).

I almost always have a hard time getting good results with 24p, and much prefer 30p in general. On anything where I know I'm going to have some motion on the screen, I prefer that extra bit of sharpness in the motion. To me, the only reason to shoot 24p is if you know you're going out to film, or if you have a client that demands it. Aesthetically, 30p still has enough of the progressive flicker to feel good to me.

Maybe that's all just habit ingrained from the days where I had to do 3:2 pulldowns on 24p footage all day long, though...strictly my opinions here!

Yeap, double the price of the 8mm. I know a guy with the same setup except the lens which is a lumix 14mm (28mm). He returned from a trip at the Solomon. I'm curious to see his footage.

Conversely 14mm is probably a little narrower than optimum for general wide use. I also read some criticism of the sharpness of the 14mm lens, but I think that was people comparing it to the 20mm, which is supposed to be a fantastic lens topside, and that might not be so critical underwater.

I would have gone with locline or similar but I made some test in murky water and I got a lot of backscatter so I would like longer arms. Maybe it was the first time using clamps and ball joints, maybe it was for having different ball size and type but really was a PITA.

Is it me?

On my previous housing I had two locline and they worked like a charm. With locline or similar would impossible adding some extra buoyancy and the housing it's so small that there is no space for adding some thalagal...

Are you using solid carbon fibre arms? If so, maybe you can try the cylindrical sealed buoyant ones. Otherwise maybe you can build some sort of frame around the housing or brackets from the top of the handles, to mount some buoyancy tubes. A lot can be done with sheet stainless steel and jubilee clips

I really I don't know. I shot in 24p. I should try the NTSC High Bitrate Mode 30fps progressive stored as interlaced. (Progressive Segmented Frames).

I just copied the clips in Edius, added cross fade between them and exported in mp4 without color correction. I have to do some serious test dive in shallow water

If you put that 24p clip in Edius in a 24p project and step through it frame by frame, do you still see that ghosting on the scooter and lanyard? I'm interested to know if that happens in camera or in post.

I almost always have a hard time getting good results with 24p, and much prefer 30p in general. On anything where I know I'm going to have some motion on the screen, I prefer that extra bit of sharpness in the motion. To me, the only reason to shoot 24p is if you know you're going out to film, or if you have a client that demands it. Aesthetically, 30p still has enough of the progressive flicker to feel good to me.

Next dive I'll try the 30p settings.

Conversely 14mm is probably a little narrower than optimum for general wide use. I also read some criticism of the sharpness of the 14mm lens, but I think that was people comparing it to the 20mm, which is supposed to be a fantastic lens topside, and that might not be so critical underwater.

Lumix 20mm F1.7 is really a great lens, maybe underwater it's useful only for large critters. This is a frame grabbed from a shot with the INTRA codec, nearly wide open (F2) at iso 800. The focus is very narrow but it's more like a photo than a video frame.

Are you using solid carbon fibre arms? If so, maybe you can try the cylindrical sealed buoyant ones.

Yes, I'll try with the Stix buoyancy system.

If you put that 24p clip in Edius in a 24p project and step through it frame by frame, do you still see that ghosting on the scooter and lanyard? I'm interested to know if that happens in camera or in post.

You were right. It seems that Edius is adding the ghosting somewhere. I checked the project properties and everything seems ok.

This is a crop from the original MTS file, no ghosting:

This is a crop form the Edius rec window. I see the same ghosting also on the play window and it's there on the exported mp4 file and of course on Vimeo too.

Got it.

My Edius project was true 24p while the camera (as 99% of them) is 23.98p

Later I'll try with a new project with the correct settings to confirm that ghosting is gone.

Bye