Scotland Basking Shark trip video

[youtubehd]GwGH1CguXSw[/youtubehd]

I enjoyed that, thankyou.

Cheers Pete.

Thanks.

Some of the underwater clips were taken with Panasonic GH2, I can see some serious color banding.

Lovely! It's such a magical part of the world when the weather is on your side!

Cheers, Simon

Still, great stuff. Is the banding issue typical of the Pana GH2. It's a cam I am not really familiar with.

Steve

Still, great stuff. Is the banding issue typical of the Pana GH2. It's a cam I am not really familiar with.

Steve

The banding tends to occur when there's a lot of single color in the scene...e.g. blue or green mid-water. Shooting at wide aperture in low light conditions seems to worsen the banding.

It's an issue in the GH2 (hacked or unhacked makes no difference) when using the AVCHD codec...due to Panasonic's idiosyncratic (i.e. not very good) implementation of H.264/AVCHD.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the actual camera hardware, even though it's 8 bit color. Using the GH2's MJPEG codec (in a hacked camera: HBR @ 1080p and 4:2;2 color) virtually eliminates color banding.

Great video. Love the Puffins

Any particular version of the Hack?

regards

David

Any particular version of the Hack?

 

regards

 

David

I'm quite happy with Driftwood's Orion v4b. Also worth trying (I haven't yet) is one of the "Low light MJPEG" hacks from LPowell.

There's so many flavors of the hack now that it's a matter of doing your own tests. Fortunately applying/changing the hacks only takes a few minutes.

"There's so many flavors of the hack now that it's a matter of doing your own tests. Fortunately applying/changing the hacks only takes a few minutes.'

Too true...I have tried out a few. They are like a basket of fruit. Different flavours and colours

My second-hand GH2 is one of my best value purchase ever. Never had so much fun with a wee digicam before.

Just the other day I was trying out a TV lens like those on ENG camcorders. Boy was I surprised. F1.6 (3.2 using the 2x extender) par focal zoom from 8mm to 117mm (approx 20 to 235MM). The lens is also free as it came out of an old broadcast cam. the B4 to 4/3 adapter is worth more than the lens. Now I must built a tube housing and a few controls to see if this contraption works well underwater. Oh I could slap on a 67mm achromatic +10 wet dioptre and the rig could take unbelievable close up. So thanks goodness you have found something that could improve the banding problem. I think good optics and lighting makes a big difference. Most of my test is still land based and with old lenses but will no be long before I take it down underwater.

Cheers

David

Here are couple of pictures. Sorry for hi-jacking this thread....too lazy to start a new one

Brillaint vid, thanks for sharing, must get myself up there next year! Who did you book the trip through?