How many tapes to take on a liveaboard?

[scubamickey]

I'm going to be taking a camcorder on my next liveaboard next month. How many mini DV tapes should I pack? The trip is a typical week long. I was thinking about 2 60 minute tapes per dive day.

Plus a 2 GB memory stick for the stills I'm sure I will shoot and share. Will that be enough based on your experiences?

 

[dawhale]

For what its worth. Ones mans opinion. An hour a day is a lot of video. If you will be diving 5 1/2 days, six tapes should be more than enough.

 

[robint]

ditto, I think 1 tape per day is perfect.
I was on the Nekton last year, my first trip with the camcorder, and found that I was only getting 30-45 minutes for 4 dives per day plus topside shots. I changed out the tapes daily just in case and it helped keep them straight when editing when I got home too.

 

[drbill]

Depends on how many dives a day you are doing. When I'm on the King Neptune doing three dives a day, I rarely exceed a tape's worth of filming. If I'm on a LOB doing 5-6 dives a day in a new area where I won't have much existing footage of the species I encounter, I would take a minimum of two tapes per day and probably three for an added reserve.

If I'm planning on filming topside as well, definitely three a day.

 

[diversteve]

I shot almost 9 tapes during a week long(4 dives/day) liveaboard in the Bahamas. Including a 20min shark feed and one entire dive that I shot continuous reef footage to use as filler. I also sometimes do what I call reef-flying where I leave the camera run continuously while finning over the reef focusing on nothing specific. Sometimes these segments are 10mins. or so long. (and really boring for my friends later...)

If you get some good footage that you later want to make into stills (for the photo contest) you can capture any single frame to the memory stick while reviewing it later. So theoretically at 30fps, you would have over 18 million stills (assuming I did the math right) to choose from on a 60min. tape.

I do what Robin mentioned also, change tapes at least nightly. Sometimes I also change tapes when I've shot something really good that I don't want to accidentally record over. Since my housing allows for u/w cue/review I sometimes re-record over bad footage shot earlier in the day. Mostly so I don't have to open the housing as often.

 

[scubamickey]

OK, thanks again everybody. I just bought 20 from that online place you referred me to drbill. They were definitely cheaper than buying at my local Best Buy (and we don't even have tax!). Even with shipping to Alaska

I will probably take 2-3 tapes for each dive day. Since my hubby and I are both new to underwater videography, I suspect we will both overdo the shooting <g> New toy and all. So better safe than sorry and tapes don't way anything. I'll just stick them in the corners of the checked bags.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Whoa! I think I shot 4 tapes over 45 dives in Bonaire. 3 tapes for 28 dives in Australia. Just went to Cayman Brac and filled up almost two tapes in 17 dives. Well, I guess I'm pretty much averaging about 1 tape per 10 dives (or 1 tape/2 days on a liveaboard.) I couldn't imagine having to do edit more then 4 tapes from any one trip. You are right though, you will probably shoot more as this will all be new to you. Just remember, take your time, frame your shots well. As you get better you will probably shoot less but use more of your footage for your final videos. I just captured the first of my two tapes of 1080i HDV from Brac. 50 GIGS! I think that is more then my 720p footage ever was. Have a great trip, and bring up lots of digital memories!

 

[scubamickey]

scubabob were those 60 min. tapes? And was that a total of 50GB for the two tapes?
I will definitely need to add another hard drive to my growing list of things to buy witht his camera

 

[ScubaBob92651]

scubabob were those 60 min. tapes? And was that a total of 50GB for the two tapes?
I will definitely need to add another hard drive to my growing list of things to buy witht his camera

1 60 min. tape 1080i = 50 gb. That's using the cineform intermediate codec (large size). I could probably use medium and save some space.

2 hard drives. RAID 0

I should be able to easily edit the two tapes down to around 15-20 minutes max after my first run-through.

 

[drbill]

Bob... sounds like you are of the Ansel Adams school of underwater video rather than the Babe Ruth school. The former carefully composes and waits for just the right moment to capture the video sequence, the latter shoots and shoots and just keeps the "home runs" while getting a lot of strike outs along the way!

I typically shoot about 10 min of footage per 60 min dive unless I encounter something really unusual. Of course I'm also shooting subjects I've filmed countless times before because my TV show features the highlights of each series of dives. If I encounter a nudibranch I've filmed before, I film it again (usually from different angles) to include in the show... as well as give me more sequences and shooting angles to use in my DVD's. I also tend to roam a lot (cover a lot of ground) on my dives looking for interesting subjects, then spend time with the ones I find.