Winter musings

Hi,

kc_moses, I didn't contact Reef Photo about the availability of the Nauticam NA-Z100. I will ask them. I have gotten a quote from them regarding a Subal housing for the FS7 before I started looking into the Z100.

Hi,

bubffm, I haven't decided against the FS7, I've had my heart set on this camera for topside video and underwater well before there was an underwater housing even available. Unfortunately my head is fighting my heart. After researching this camera to death and watching hundreds of videos and reading reviews and blogs for years. I believe this would be the best camera for topside video, especially now that they have come out with the 18-110 servo zoom lens. I've researched the Sealux housing for the FS7 and the Subal housing for the FS7, both look like great systems. I'm leaning more toward the Subal. What has me hesitating is, cost as the Canadian dollar is dropping like a stone.

The small selection of lenses for this camera underwater, most being F4. I didn't know if F4 is going to cut it in the cold dark water her in British Columbia. To get a good wide lens in F2.8 or faster you need a canon or other with a speed booster and that adds more issues.

I don't know how well this camera will white balance underwater. The reports of other new Sony cameras white balancing underwater have been poor.

Not being able to get a wide, medium and close shot all in one dive like you can with the Gates SWP44c. This would be nice, but not the end of the world.

The lack of underwater video online and not being able to rent a system to test make it hard to drop a large amount of money and be the Guinea Pig. The only video I could find is the Sealux promo video in a pool and video from a guy in England with the camera in an Equinox housing. Good looking footage, but I don't know what lenses were used. I tried contacting him and asked what lenses, but didn't hear back.

I'll tell you what my thinking was regarding the Z100. I have an Amphibico Phenom and the Sony Z1U. I saw a year or so back a guy in France managed to fit a Z100 into the Phenom housing and get the electronic controls to work the camera just like the Z1U. I thought if I got the Z100 I would try to get it to work in my housing, if it did, then I would just get the FS7 for topside work and have both. If it didn't work in my Amphibico, I would just get a Gates or Nauticam housing and it would be all good. I would get the FS7 later on and have the best of both worlds. Now with the Gates and possibly the Nauticam being discontinued it would be to risky to get the Z100 just to find out it wont work in the Amphibico.

One last thing I may try is the FS5 in my Amphibico housing. Its very small so should fit in no problem and its Lanc controlled like the Z1U. There is a rental house that has one for rent and they said I could come by with my housing a play around to see if it will fit and if the electronics will work. This would be a compromise as I think the FS7 and Z100 are far better cameras.

Hi Aquatic, many thanks for that detailed response. If you ever get around testing the FS5 in your Amphibico underwater, I'd be very interested to hear how it performs. I had the chance to play with it overland and really like it. What holds me back a bit is its limited in-cam 4k capabilities. Of course you can add an Odyssey and at the same time get some fantastic monitoring - but of course it adds to the bulk and expense...

BTW, just hearing form Sealux that their housing option for the FS5 planned for October release is a bit delayed. Didnt say by how much...

A first CAD picture of the FS5 housing out on their webpage, so release cant be too far off.... Monitor on the rear tilted slightly upwards. looks ergonomically very good.

Hi,

kc_moses, I didn't contact Reef Photo about the availability of the Nauticam NA-Z100. I will ask them. I have gotten a quote from them regarding a Subal housing for the FS7 before I started looking into the Z100.

 

Hi,

bubffm, I haven't decided against the FS7, I've had my heart set on this camera for topside video and underwater well before there was an underwater housing even available. Unfortunately my head is fighting my heart. After researching this camera to death and watching hundreds of videos and reading reviews and blogs for years. I believe this would be the best camera for topside video, especially now that they have come out with the 18-110 servo zoom lens. I've researched the Sealux housing for the FS7 and the Subal housing for the FS7, both look like great systems. I'm leaning more toward the Subal. What has me hesitating is, cost as the Canadian dollar is dropping like a stone.

 

The small selection of lenses for this camera underwater, most being F4. I didn't know if F4 is going to cut it in the cold dark water her in British Columbia. To get a good wide lens in F2.8 or faster you need a canon or other with a speed booster and that adds more issues.

 

I don't know how well this camera will white balance underwater. The reports of other new Sony cameras white balancing underwater have been poor.

 

Not being able to get a wide, medium and close shot all in one dive like you can with the Gates SWP44c. This would be nice, but not the end of the world.

 

The lack of underwater video online and not being able to rent a system to test make it hard to drop a large amount of money and be the Guinea Pig. The only video I could find is the Sealux promo video in a pool and video from a guy in England with the camera in an Equinox housing. Good looking footage, but I don't know what lenses were used. I tried contacting him and asked what lenses, but didn't hear back.

 

I'll tell you what my thinking was regarding the Z100. I have an Amphibico Phenom and the Sony Z1U. I saw a year or so back a guy in France managed to fit a Z100 into the Phenom housing and get the electronic controls to work the camera just like the Z1U. I thought if I got the Z100 I would try to get it to work in my housing, if it did, then I would just get the FS7 for topside work and have both. If it didn't work in my Amphibico, I would just get a Gates or Nauticam housing and it would be all good. I would get the FS7 later on and have the best of both worlds. Now with the Gates and possibly the Nauticam being discontinued it would be to risky to get the Z100 just to find out it wont work in the Amphibico.

 

One last thing I may try is the FS5 in my Amphibico housing. Its very small so should fit in no problem and its Lanc controlled like the Z1U. There is a rental house that has one for rent and they said I could come by with my housing a play around to see if it will fit and if the electronics will work. This would be a compromise as I think the FS7 and Z100 are far better cameras.

Regarding the F4.0 lenses.. I think you need to consider the depth of field you're going to need when shooting in a dome port with APS-C lenses. From experience, F4 is going to give you very soft corners in a dome port. Even F5.6. I think you're going to find it hard to use an aps-c sensor with wide apertures behind a dome port unless you have nothing important in the corners.

Now this could be very nice indeed for underwater "swim'n'gun" shooting if someone would make a housing for it that supports a good wide-angle, zoom-through port.

https://www.videomaker.com/videonews/2016/12/panasonic-unveils-the-hc-x1-new-power-and-versatility-in-a-camcorder

Now this could be very nice indeed for underwater "swim'n'gun" shooting if someone would make a housing for it that supports a good wide-angle, zoom-through port.

 

https://www.videomaker.com/videonews/2016/12/panasonic-unveils-the-hc-x1-new-power-and-versatility-in-a-camcorder

Hmmm, that really does sound promising. I hope that their underwater white balancing is decent. That is often tricky to get right, but the rest of the specs look very good indeed, and the price is reasonable as well. It will be interesting to see who comes up with a housing for it.

Now this could be very nice indeed for underwater "swim'n'gun" shooting if someone would make a housing for it that supports a good wide-angle, zoom-through port.

 

https://www.videomaker.com/videonews/2016/12/panasonic-unveils-the-hc-x1-new-power-and-versatility-in-a-camcorder

Yes 4k at 60 frames sounds great - I just wonder how much it will be compressed at 150 mbps.

However the main downside for me would be that you can't take off the handle / audio-unit. Therefore any housing would as a result be quit bulky.

Yes 4k at 60 frames sounds great - I just wonder how much it will be compressed at 150 mbps.

Yeah I guess the Z100 still "wins" in that respect as it has an equivalent 150 Mbps UHD mode, but also can shoot XAVC Intra 4:2:2 VBR at up to 600 Mbps max. (and true 4K).

If I had a lot of spare $$$$ laying around not knowing what to do with them, I'd consider this

http://www.gateshousings.com/pro-action/

A GoPro for Pros :-)) But seriously - its a cute little setup at just 13kg including cam / batterie / monitor for an ARRI or RED. Not bad.

Hmm.. yeah, the Panasonic HC-X1 look nice, but aside from the 1" sensor, the Sony z100 seems to do everything it does and more..

I'm looking forward to seeing the final price on the gates proaction housing, but at the end of the day, I suspect it'll be around the same price-point as Nauticam's Weapon LT housing, if not more expensive. If you have a lot of time on your hands, Bubffm, I encourage you to read the REDUSER Underwater Bubble Blower's thread -- chock full of information about shooting Red cameras underwater, and underwater filming in general.

One of the themes that comes up repeatedly in that thread is the lack of good optical solutions for shooting a RED (and by extension, a DSLR with interchangeable lenses) underwater. Most rectilinear lenses don't do well underwater behind domes, especially smaller domes. Fisheyes are better, but then, most people don't really like fisheye distortion for moving shots. Resolution-wise at least, something like the z100 with the gates zoom-through port may well produce sharper images than even an 8k Red Weapon, and obviously have a much broader range of focal lengths covered on the same dive.

Too bad there don't seem to be any used z100/housing packages on the market right now. I guess Gates probably hasn't produced so many? Apart for Josh Jensen, I don't know anyone else who shoots a z100 underwater...

However the main downside for me would be that you can't take off the handle / audio-unit. Therefore any housing would as a result be quit bulky.

Ahhh, I missed that. Yes, that would be a major problem. Good catch.

Hi all,

The Gates Z100 housing is indeed sold out, and we have no plans to make more at this time. That said, if someone insists on the Z100 as an acquisition platform, we can discuss options to make one as a special run.

And FWIW, those of you shooting on a proper video system like the Z100 appreciate and understand the benefits: Long battery life, recording bitrate / color space, instant auto-focus, versatile zoom range (especially when paired with a proper zoom-through port), external monitoring, and more. But many people have moved to DSLR / Mirrorless systems. Some have legitimate reasons e.g. shooting photos / video both topside and underwater. Others have done so because it's popular. Still others simply migrated to photos because it's easier. Video acquisition, editing and storytelling is hard by comparison to the instant gratification of photography. So kudos to all of you that take on the task of filmmaking.

J-

So, I'm back from Cuba and am resurrecting this thread. I had my L&M housing serviced between Roatan and Cuba, and I'm not at all happy. I won't go into detail right now, but will wait to see what if they do anything to satisfy me.

Anyway, I am now re-considering my options. I have thought about it, and my requirements for a new camera would, of course, be image quality (including color depth) but also include the ability to zoom (does not need to be a power zoom, but could be manual), good image stabilization, good white balance, and good continuous auto-focus. On the DLSR side, both the Nikon D500 and Panasonic GH5 look good (some of my friends are also suggesting the TG5), but I'm still not completely sold on the DSLR route. If I stay with a dedicated video camera or camcorder, is there anything coming out soon that I should be thinking about?

Also, I just noticed that Backscatter has a Gates housing for my current Canon HF-S30 for $1300 - that's really quite an affordable option, although I would be a generation behind current technology.

So, many thanks for the interesting thoughts so far, and any help with my current dilemma.

Wow. 1 year later and still no real successor to the AX100. Sad! I think Sony have bypassed the semi pro camcorder market now and making us got with the Alpha and FS cameras.

I'm still happy with my GH4, but now have the GH5 (can't afford the housing just yet) and from some of the stuff I've seen posted (not all of it thou) they have really nailed the underwater MWB issues so look forward to getting it underwater later in the year.

I think (and I'm guilty of it too) that content is still king and it's not all about the latest camera, and I bet the footage from your current Canon would knock the spots of some of the crap I film :-)

Regards - Richard

Wow. 1 year later and still no real successor to the AX100. Sad! I think Sony have bypassed the semi pro camcorder market now and making us got with the Alpha and FS cameras.

Regards - Richard

Not to talk about easy switching between standard 4k and slowmo FHD (impossible on the FS5, supereasy on GH5) and a lot ofher smaller points, like programming different shooting modes (impossible on FS5, supereasy on GH5) etc... The only thing I truly miss (overland) is the build-in automatic ND fn the FS5, that is really extremely useful!

But for the time being, I will spend the nearer future with the GH5. Am I sold on the 'DSLR' format? Clearly not. The camcorder remains to have significant ergonomic advantages - I just have my doubts about future options for that format for the higher end consumer market.

So, its probably RED or GH5 for now

I think (and I'm guilty of it too) that content is still king and it's not all about the latest camera, and I bet the footage from your current Canon would knock the spots of some of the crap I film :-)

 

 

 

Regards - Richard

Hi Richard,

I doubt that - I've seen your work that you have shared here. Thanks for your thoughts.

The camcorder remains to have significant ergonomic advantages - I just have my doubts about future options for that format for the higher end consumer market.

 

So, its probably RED or GH5 for now

Bubffm,

Yeah, that is exactly my dilemma, I'm afraid. Thanks for your thoughts.

I just saw this, and wondered what everyone's thoughts are:

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1361409-REG/canon_2214c002_gx10_camcorder_with_8_29.html

Thanks.

From a quick look, it only seems to record 8bit internally. But certainly interesting to note that the camcorder format appears to be still alive.

I agree, it appears to only record 8-bit internally, but does offer the option of 10-bit recording with an external recorder. Yes, Canon does seem to be moving the camcorder format forward for now. Like you, I was worried that it was going to be abandoned.

Well, for now I have moved to the GH5, whether I have left the camcorder camp for good remains to be seen