PT-015 and Videos

[Hooked4Life]

Has anyone used the 5050 in a PT-015 housing to take underwater videos? On Saturday I was taking some pictures underwater, and the camera was in Movie mode by accident. I noticed it after taking a few seconds, and continued with a very short clip. When I played the clip on the pc, I couldnt believe how good it looked, and the sound.

Here is a link to the video

 

[Dr. Jay]

I've taken a few seconds of video before.

The quality doesn't compare to anything like an underwater video recorder (I want to say something like 15 frames/second on the 5050), but it's nice for little snippits of video for kicks and giggles. Sure takes up a lot of room, though.

I've heard good things about the microphone on the C-5050.

 

[Dee]

I've made several video clips with my C-4040 with surprising results! I turn the sound off as they say it saves not on the battery but also memory space.

I just wish there was a way to change them to Win Media instead of Quicktime so I could put them all together into a longer video. There may be a way to do that but I'm not 'puter savvy enough to know about it!

 

[Dr. Jay]

Your inquiry made me curious about such a tool. Those MOV files just aren't very Windows-friendly. I just downloaded a program called:

WinMPG Video Convert 3.1 from Downloads.com

Here's the link:
http://download.com.com/3000-2194-10207323.html?tag=lst-0-1

It looks like it worked ok in converting Hooked4Life's video.

I clicked on ALL to AVI when I loaded the program, and it worked! It plays ok on my Windows Media player. I'm sure there's other programs out there that do this (probably Final Cut Pro and stuff), but this free version (only 5 min max) sounds like a much better deal than $1000 for a pro video editing program.

I'm going to play around with it a little more to see what else it can do.

 

[Dee]

See....I knew someone would know something about it! I'll play with it later. According to the reader reviews, they either praise it or hate it.

 

[ScubaGhrl]

Jay..

The program works great and the inteface isnt too bad. I will have to change the version on my web site.

I know that the video isnt awesome quality, but its nice to be able to do a video with sound. A lot of digital cameras do not have the sound capability. I will have to experiment more with the video feature.

 

[SimonJ]

Whilst these were taken with a Canon S-400 rather than an Olympus....here are a few examples of my first attempts to take underwater video with a digitial stills camera.

http://www.simonandmerith.com/movie.htm

Whilst not great, I was very pleased that they came out as well as they did. It seems to me that, particularly with video, the more ambient light the better, so most of these were taken at the end of dives in the shallows.

Simon

 

[oflynnp]

Hi Simon,
Nice movies! What settings did you use when shooting them? Did they take up much space on your memory card?

I recently bought an S400 +housing.Going to try it for the first time this weekend.

Many Thanks
Podge

 

[wetbehindtheear]

I just got my S400 yesterday, and I pick up the u/w housing tomorrow. Any hints for good results?

 

[SimonJ]

Am not sure that there are any settings in movie mode. I just switched it to the movie setting and pressed the button

My only advice is to stay shallow and use ambient light. Without a huge rig with video lighting, you are going to have to rely on good natural light. Oh and also keep the camera horizontal and not vertical, as I have not found a way to rotate the movies that are produce.

As far as space on the disk was concerned, they did not seem to take up too much....about 1Mb for every 5 seconds. I guess this is a fair bit, it all depends on how much storage you have.

Have fun diving this weekend...am very jealous.

Simon