Video - Ordinskaya Caves near Ural mountains

Here is the first episode of cave diving footage in Orda. Since I'll be working on the next episodes sooner or later, any comments and feedback will be appreciated. And yes, I am aware of the butt issue...next episodes will show some other angles as well...

Please feel free to view in full screen mode.

http://vimeo.com/77503064

Nice footage except for the butt effect

Which camera/lens/lightning did you use?

Nice footage except for the butt effect

 

Which camera/lens/lightning did you use?

Thanks for your comments.

The camera was my old Sony MC50E in an Aquatica/Amphibico housing. For this trip I preferred the video camera instead of my new Canon 5DIII for several reasons:

1) Less travel weight,

2) Takes less attention during dive, which is important in new caves without guides.

3) No limits on footage. I shot 60-80 minutes of video on an average dive.

4) Less drag. We swam a total of 13-15 kilometers in caves and I got blisters on my ankles.

The drawback is avchd and less tolerance for adjustments in edit. I really would want to shoot raw, but anything less than an hour of video record capacity feels crippled.

The video lights were the new Supernova Minis by Northern Light Scuba. We had 4 of them, each giving 8000 lumens. Measured burn times ranged between 78-128 minutes for LiIon batteries of allowable size for air travel.

I'm by no means an expert on video, but I thought the entire production looked very professional and was well done. My only nit would be the music for the closing credits - IMO it doesn't really fit with the dramatic epic-ness of the video and music used in the rest of the production. Also, the "butt issue" really isn't an issue for me, although I've seen and done (with stills) some work from the front of the divers and that looks good too - maybe a mix of perspectives is the answer. Regardless, I really liked the video! Great work.

Lee

I agree with the change in music for the credits. And Like others I kept waiting for a front on shot of the divers. Nice video, I really enjoyed it. The length is perfect.

Thanks for your feedback, newmanl and Ronyx.

The original idea of using more relaxed music for the closing credits comes from a couple of movies. The idea is to create contrast with relaxation after breathholding suspense. But, I see (hear) your point. So would it be better to continue with similar "epic" music until the very end?

I made a difficult balancing decision concerning the lack of frontal shots. I actually had frontal footage of setting up and removal of the jumps. Even with nicely lit faces, including my own;-) However, I was afraid to break the grandiousness of the opening sequences. Likewise, the very long closing shot which finally fades into black, emphasizes the darkness of the cave diving experience.

The next episodes will have slightly more angles...

Nice, atmospheric footage and I enjoyed the aspect ratio changes. The lighter music for the credit was strange, but might have worked if the accompanying footage was different and relaxed (e.g. all smiles while de-kitting), but it wasn't. Would have been great to see you all emerging triumphantly into the light at the end.

Beautiful! You're doing a great job of showing off some stunning cave. Can't wait for the next episode.

Here is the second episode. This was shot as we were returning from the Krasnoyarsk Circuit. The Basic Passage and Left Passage are near to the cave entrance and reachable by any full cave diver. The closing shots were taken by illumating the surroundings of the Sail Rock. After this sequence we continued the dive by visiting the Right Passage.

Great second episode! Again, no issue with the camera angle from behind the divers - it actually makes the viewer (me, in this case) feel like part of the team. I also really like the subtle lighting (leaving some dark areas) - makes the cave and video look the same as when you're actually diving a cave and the music choice is perfect. Very nice work, Richard.

Lee

There is some MAJOR breakdown in those passages....Yikes! Beautiful area, though.

Beautiful video indeed.

PS

Yesterday I was seeing it on my 46" smart-tv via the vimeo app and I noticed a lot of macro-bloks/pixelation in the low lights. Maybe you should reload with a higher bitrate. In some video vimeo encoding strives to renders low light details.

Bye

Beautiful video indeed.

 

PS

Yesterday I was seeing it on my 46" smart-tv via the vimeo app and I noticed a lot of macro-bloks/pixelation in the low lights. Maybe you should reload with a higher bitrate. In some video vimeo encoding strives to renders low light details.

Thanks Davide for your comments and feedback.

I'll need to pixel peep because I did not notice the pixelation on my monitor. Could you perhaps point out the time codes and areas where you noticed the pixelation? The mp4-files for Vimeo were exported from Edius with H.264/AVC Exporter Plug-in, Profile=High, CBR 15M bps, Quality=Superfine. Perhaps I should have used Profile=Main and/or a still higher bitrate.

During edit the foremost concerns were noise, color balance adjustment and image stability. With the exception of one shot, I did not apply noise reduction (yet) because I have not yet got enough experience with Edius. For most of the shots I did apply mid-range 3-way color adjust from green/cyan towards blue/purple, because the LED lamps did have a greenish color cast. This gave better results than by using the whitebalance tools. On the shots of the second episode I actually used an optical green water filter which also helped somewhat.

Hi Richard,

I use Edius too. Same export parameters as you except I use VBR with max 15Mbps for 720p and 25Mbps for 1080p.

On pc the video is perfect but on TV I see a lot of compression artifacts on all dark area not covered by your powerful lights.

I think there's nothing to do. Maybe trying to increase the bitrate but sometimes the vimeo encoder sucks in low light

BTW a little bit OT. I found that using a canopus HQX superfine 10bit project sometimes helps with color correction and maybe in the export too.

Bye

On pc the video is perfect but on TV I see a lot of compression artifacts on all dark area not covered by your powerful lights.

I think there's nothing to do. Maybe trying to increase the bitrate but sometimes the vimeo encoder sucks in low light

I did a bit of pixel peeping of the source material. The dark areas contain a bit of noise from the camera. I have earlier compared that my Sony MC50E produces slightly more noise than a EX1R under same lighting conditions. Normally this noise would be partially camouflaged by lit scenery or haze from on-camera lights. But, in my preferred setup of off-camera lights only, in an otherwise totally pitch black cave without any ambient light, the unlit areas are truely black (nice contrast). Unfortunately the noise shows up. The vimeo conversion seems to partially average the noise into pixel blocks in order to reduce bps. Perhaps this is more visible on large backlit LCD TV screens.

I guess that in this case increasing the export bitrate from Edius might not help.

I really should study denoising and perhaps apply some denoising with a luminance mask only to the dark areas.

BTW a little bit OT. I found that using a canopus HQX superfine 10bit project sometimes helps with color correction and maybe in the export too.

Not OT at all. Discussion still relates to the above videos and fine-tuning them in post production.

For color correction reasons I have been using project settings of 10 bit Canopus HQX Standard. I might have to try the Superfine format as well. Thanks for the tip, Davide.

 

The vimeo conversion seems to partially average the noise into pixel blocks in order to reduce bps. Perhaps this is more visible on large backlit LCD TV screens.

 

I guess that in this case increasing the export bitrate from Edius might not help.

 

I really should study denoising and perhaps apply some denoising with a luminance mask only to the dark areas.

 

 

Not OT at all. Discussion still relates to the above videos and fine-tuning them in post production.

 

For color correction reasons I have been using project settings of 10 bit Canopus HQX Standard. I might have to try the Superfine format as well. Thanks for the tip, Davide.

Nice to know there is another Edius user

The best denoiser is Neat Video that now it's compatible with Edius form 6.5. I made some test with the evaluation license and it works very well but I did not bought it. It's quite awkward because to get the best results you have to build custom device noise profiles for your camera. I sue a GH2 and I found some user who shared noise profiles for it and it was easier. The luminance mask approach would be the way to go indeed.

Byeeee