Canon R50/Nauticam NA-R50 video setup

After dive trip update #1:

Overall a very good trip to Bonaire. Even the stony coral wasting disease didn't ruin the diving, although Bonaire (STINAPA) is being as proactive as possible about trying to prevent its spread. I hope they'll be successful but fear they may have a long hard road before emerging from the blight. In spite of the restrictions, the diving was quite fishy and good.

First a bit of an overall statement about the new gear: it's a keeper. In the coming weeks I'll be putting my well-loved Sony AX700/Gates setup in the classifieds.

As to the likes, there's the compactness and light weight. It was convenient enough that I could simply tuck it against my side, holding it with my left hand and giant stride. Not having to return to the boat to have it handed down was a nice advantage. Just step in and go.

The image quality (please remember I'm back to being a beginner) seems better than the Sony to me; especially the colors.

The macro mod to use the SAGA flip holder for the diopter seemed to work fine. Here's a sample:

To decode what you are seeing, please look at the text under the video. Watch it in 4K if you have the hardware. Also, I confess to using Topaz Video AI to sharpen it since the shrimp was dancing in and out of focus, but otherwise (colors) are as it came from the camera.

I'll add more in the coming week, but so far, so good!

Tom

Well done.
How did you get along with the stability of the camera?
 

Davide,

That was hard, particularly at first. The light weight definitely makes me pay attention to holding the housing still. I bobbed around and it was worse if there was surge closer to the surface or closer to shore.

I fondly recall Steve Fish and his 65lb housing which was so finely balanced and trimmed he could let go of it and it would remain stationary. No pitch, no roll, just stayed perfectly still. When he wanted to move it, one finger would do. Maximum envy. I have neither the budget nor the transport method to do that.

I had an Amphibico housing for a prosumer Sony camera that was much lighter but had similar buoyancy and balance. What a pleasure to operate! Sadly they went out of business.

The Nauticam NA-R50 is slightly negative as delivered. The added light and diopter flip adapter with lens are also slightly negative, so if I let go of the housing it tilts (usually) forward and sinks. Not nearly as wonderful. It requires conscious control and practice to minimize camera movement.

I intend to work toward neutral buoyancy and trim so the housing doesn't roll or pitch; that will take lots of trial and error with various bits of flotation materials.

As presently configured, if I concentrate on holding it steady it is OK - still not as if it is on a rail but OK. The wider the shot, the less movement is seen in the clip. Zooming in is less forgiving. I'm going to try a WWL-C to determine if the wider angle helps the apparent steadiness - it should. For macro your suggestion of a tripod or some method of resting the housing on a stable piece of dead coral or sandy bottom is definitely needed.

Tom

I need to add a comment about view finders.

I tried both the AOI and the Nauticam viewfinders mentioned in the parts listing above.

Early on I did a few dives with the AOI viewfinder. I found it difficult to use. Now that I have some experience with the housing I'll try it again on the next trip.

The Nauticam viewfinder is a lot easier for me to use even though I never really got the adjustable diopter on it set correctly for me. I need to work on that some more. I did use the Nauticam  viewfinder for 90% of the dives and most of the time it was OK. My view of the LCD was clearer than the AOI even though at times it seemed blurry. The diopter adjustment had a habit (operator error?) of becoming loose and adjusting itself. I also wish it was a bit more angled or even better, adjustable angle so as I try to video closer to the bottom I can use more angle - say 45 degrees.

I did try the LCD without any viewfinder and found it susceptible to glare, so I put the viewfinder back on. If there was a hood available I'd try that, although it would restrict the angle of vision; I'd have to hold the housing a bit higher than I like, but I'd still like to try it.

Tom

I just keep thinking of things...

SHUTTER SPEED

On the very first dive the LCD showed the shutter speed to be 1/25 instead of 1/125 which is my preference.

Spoiler: operator error :-(

I went through every menu option on the camera, highlighting the availability of all the options underwater, but not giving me any chance to change the shutter speed. That seemed like ten minutes but was probably more like five.

Finally I resorted to reading all the labels on the outside of the housing to see if there was one I missed. There was only one knob located on the top right of the housing that was unlabeled so I tried it. Presto! The shutter speed changed!

Interestingly the shutter speed changed more than once later on probably due to handling but it was a few seconds to put it back after I let it teach me how to do that.

EXPOSURE

On a possibly related note I had the camera set to Manual with AUTO ISO and observed good exposure most of the time.

A problem arose while trying to video goatfish on white sand: overexposure. I haven't figured out how to reduce this problem, but I'm working on it.

6 hours ago, wydeangle said:

A problem arose while trying to video goatfish on white sand: overexposure. I haven't figured out how to reduce this problem, but I'm working on it.

It means camera reached the minimum ISO and still the image was too bright for the current aperture. You must close the Iris.

R50 has no IBIS so you have to be very good and stable.
I would keep the whole kit negative by about 200 grams but try to take great care in trimming the assembly. I can tell you from experience that the greatest vibrations come from the wrists trying to straighten/tilt the housing.
For macro shooting, a sort of basic stand/tripod that allows you to hold it stably on the bottom is a must.

After Bonaire where I got dozens of clips I made this observation: the image quality (IQ) of the Canon R50 in the Nauticam housing does not appear to be as sharp and clear as the AX700/Gates combination I formerly used. During frame-by-frame playback, the AX700 yielded a series of very good photos. With the R50, it looked more like a good HD playback, not 4K. Less IQ for sure, at least as presently set.

I don't know if it's the lens/camera quality, operator ignorance or what?

I have a WWL-C on the way. I'll try that to see if it improves the IQ. Lots of the R50 footage seemed to have low contrast and the bright sand bottom sometimes blew out the clip by overexposing it. I can't find a minimum ISO setting for video, so maybe there's some learning on my part that has to take place.

The dancing shrimp video linked above had the same IQ deficiency. I looked at some older AX700 footage of similar macro - actually with the same exact macro +10 lens - and it was better: better definition and better depth of field.

So maybe I need more learning experiences, or maybe I'm comparing a $2K camera with a sub $1k camera and lens combo, and the IQ is just going to be a bit lower...

All suggestions will be listened to!

Tom

On 6/21/2023 at 8:04 AM, Davide DB said:

It means camera reached the minimum ISO and still the image was too bright for the current aperture. You must close the Iris.

As I wrote, probably you had an aperture too wide. The camera had  fixed shutter and aperture so once it reaches the minimu ISO thers's nothing it can do to expose correctly.

e.g. here in the Med sea at 6 meters in a sunny day (end of May) , not so good visibility, a WA shot with WWL-1 my settings were ISO 400 (minimum for V-Log) 1/50 F11. I was exposing ETTR so with a normal color profile probably F14 would have been perfect.

Regarding Auto ISO: I wrote in another thread that I have this feature on my GH5 and GH5M2 and I tried several times hoping it would simplify camera use under some circumstances. I was wrong. Maybe it's the Panasonic implementation. I don't know. I used it only on WA shots and I was never happy with the results.

11 hours ago, wydeangle said:

The dancing shrimp video linked above had the same IQ deficiency. I looked at some older AX700 footage of similar macro - actually with the same exact macro +10 lens - and it was better: better definition and better depth of field.

if you still have the AX700 you could easily compare their quality in your backyard...

Bye

You mention less depth of field.  The Sony is a 1"sensor with a 2.7x crop factor and the R50 is a 1.6x crop factor.  Depth of field scales with crop factor so if you shoot at f11 on full frame for example you get the same DOF on the SOny chip at f4 while the R50 APS-C sensor needs to be shot at f6.8.  To convert from Sony aperture to Canon aperture you multiply by 1.7.  So multiply the aperture used on the Sony clip by 1.7 to get the aperture required on the Canon chip.

I would also think the definition of the individual frame would depend on a number of factors including of course the shutter speed used and the amount and type of compression as well as the lens in question.

OK.

Operator ignorance!

All experienced photographers are permitted to laugh derisively at an ignorant videographer ;-(

Today's revelation was to discover that the camera was not automatically managing the aperture as I thought it was. This explains the overexposure that occurred while trying to video goatfish on white sand.

When you set the R50 to manual video mode, the only thing that seems to be automatic is ISO. The  upper limit is adjustable, but I assumed the lower limit was basically zero. Not so. I  chose manual because I wanted constant shutter speed - I prefer 1/125 of a second for the 29.97 frames per second rate. I know most videographers use 1/60 of a second but I'm hoping for minimum motion blur.

What I was blissfully ignorant about was that the aperture was staying wherever it was defaulted.

Now today I learned (too soon old, too late smart!) that I must set the aperture manually. On the R50, this is done by using the up-arrow (the little circular control with the SET button in the center) to highlight a little box around the aperture setting in the viewfinder, then use the little wheel on the top right of the camera body to adjust the aperture.

EUREKA! Can't wait to try this under water!

First of all, thank you very much for this thread and the thoughts and experiences regarding the new Nauticam housing for the EOS R50. My wife and I were diving in the Azores in mid-July, and for the first time, we brought along the R50 in the Nauticam housing. Here are the experiences my wife had with her new camera while filming in auto mode and auto ISO and taking photos:

1. Autofocus of the R50 underwater
During our six dives with Mobula rays at Princess Alice dive site, we noticed that the AI autofocus, which is supposed to recognize animals, performed poorly underwater. Unfortunately, it repeatedly lost focus for a brief second, even though it had recognized and focused on the Mobula rays immediately. The water was not particularly turbid or dark, so it shouldn't have been a significant challenge, but the AF ruined 50% of the shots.
Things improved when we deactivated the AI autofocus. With animal and eye detection turned off, the autofocus performed well in 95% of the shots. At least the AF without AI and "subject recognition" worked almost perfectly during our two dives with blue sharks.

2. The standard lens
The "low-light capabilities" of the R50's standard lens forces the camera to use high ISO settings quickly. This was expected. Nevertheless, the perceived image noise is weaker compared to my GH5, which also needs to go into high ISO ranges quickly when using the 2+ Keldan filter. However, the GH5 has even worse AF performance and ruins more shots. But that's a different story...
What's worse with R50/Nauticam combination is that the Canon standard lens is not dustproof, and the R50 doesn't have internal sensor cleaning. This means all shots are ruined with previously unnoticed sensor spots unless you perform a test with a high aperture setting against a white wall and have the sensor professionally cleaned before diving. At least auto ISO adapted very well to different light situations.

3. Colors, manual white balance
Underwater, the R50 delivers the same exceptionally good colors as all other Canon cameras, assuming you set the manual white balance correctly. Unfortunately, this can only be done by taking a prior photo and navigating through the menu, as has been the case for a few years now. Why, Canon? It was much easier with the Powershot G7X back in 2014.

4. Major issues with the Nauticam housing
A significant disappointment was the Nauticam housing. During the first dive with sharks, the water alarm went off, indicating supposed vacuum loss and water ingress. However, this wasn't accurate. The "vacuum" was still present, and there were only a few drops of water inside the housing.
This was likely due to condensation formed by the camera running and "heating" for an hour during the shark dive, combined with relatively high humidity on our dive boat and cool water temperatures (21 degrees Celsius / 70 degrees Fahrenheit).
How can condensation form in a vacuum?
When we asked our Nauticam dealer, they confirmed that there's no vacuum in Nauticam housings, just a slight negative pressure of 0.1 to max. 0.2 bar.
During the second shark dive, with the alarm deactivated, the front fogged up after half an hour, despite us trying to keep the inside of the housing as dry as possible beforehand.
Another problem we encountered was that once the water alarm went off, we couldn't turn it off for the next week. To get rid of the alarm for the next dives, we had to completely deactivate the safety feature. Only a day before the end of our vacation was the inside of the housing dry enough not to trigger the alarm.

In summary, the combination of the R50 and the compact Nauticam housing raised high expectations for us, which were unfortunately quite disappointed.

Best,
Andreas