Anyone Actually use a Sony HC7 Underwater Yet?

[drbill]

ScubaMickey, I've got the FH70 rated on the package at 6 1/2 hours. Of course underwater, especially in cold water as here (and worse there) I expect a lot less battery life. However, my TRV-17 batteries actually got pretty much what their ratings said they'd get. I never charged during the day, only at night.

I am getting three 60-min dives out of the FH70 shooting 30-45 min video total so at least it is lasting what it says it will (about 180-220 min).

Hey, don't worry about being a newbie. At least you're starting at the higher end of the technology curve. I now have tons of edited Hi-8, digital-8 and mini-DV footage which has little market since everyone wants to buy HD.

I'm actually going to take my mini-DV camcorder down tomorrow if we hit the same third dive site... I saw FOUR species of nudibranchs in the 95-130 ft range. Fortunately the HC-7 imaged even two of the small ones reasonably well, but the nice big juicy Peltadoris nobilis (noble dorids) had that darned green color cast on the parts of their bodies not in my direct video light. My TRV-17 would image them perfectly albeit at lower resolution.

 

[scubamickey]

drbill: Here's another newbie question that I feel I should know,but I don't. Do I need to buy the HD tapes or can I use the stamdard mini-DV ones. I'm thinking that I need the HD tapes to tape in HD so I shoulod buy those. I can still shoot in standard DV even though I have HD tape in right? But I can't the other way around.

This purchase is turning out to be harder than I thought. But my liveaboard vacation in Jun 7th and I need to take the plunge now in order to have enough time to practice with it.

Wish I had money for a nicer housing. I'm going with the Ikelite electronic one. I found a deal for $1150 instead of the retail $1300.

Thanks again for your help.

Irene

 

[ronrosa]

I'm not Doc, and with 200 dives, I'm kinda a newbie too. Most of us here are amateur hobbyists.

You don't need to buy HD tapes. SD mini-dv tapes will work fine. You can record in HD or SD with either tape.

Nothing wrong with Ikelite housings, especially if it's your 1st venture into uw video. You wouldn't want to spend $4000 on a housing only to find uw video is not for you.

 

[scubamickey]

I'm not Doc, and with 200 dives, I'm kinda a newbie too. Most of us here are amateur hobbyists.

You don't need to buy HD tapes. SD mini-dv tapes will work fine. You can record in HD or SD with either tape.

I believe Ikelite only makes mechanical housings.

Thanks for the info. HD tapes are a lot more expensive. I thought they were required to shoot in HD.

No, Ikelite makes electronic housings as well and they just came out with the one for the HC5.

 

[limeyx]

drbill: Here's another newbie question that I feel I should know,but I don't. Do I need to buy the HD tapes or can I use the stamdard mini-DV ones. I'm thinking that I need the HD tapes to tape in HD so I shoulod buy those. I can still shoot in standard DV even though I have HD tape in right? But I can't the other way around.

This purchase is turning out to be harder than I thought. But my liveaboard vacation in Jun 7th and I need to take the plunge now in order to have enough time to practice with it.

Wish I had money for a nicer housing. I'm going with the Ikelite electronic one. I found a deal for $1150 instead of the retail $1300.

Thanks again for your help.

Irene

Standard tapes work just fine in an HDV camera. (note the "HDV" and not just "HD")
The data rate for "HDV" is fixed at 25mbps which is exactly the same as for "SD"
The trick that allows HDV to get "HD" resolution is that it uses MPEG-2 compression which can use lower data rates on the tape but still get good quality.

I use the blue packaged Sony Premium (aka "el basico" ) tapes just fine.

The one possible issue with using standard tapes (and one I have never encountered yet) is that of "frame dropout" which is essentially where a frame the camera wants to write to tape is dropped from the tape or corrupted on tape.

With "SD" this isn't much of a problem because you lose (I think) just a single frame.

with HDV, (Well, MPEG really), each frame can consist of information from prior and future frames (up to 16 frames usually) so a single dropped frame in HDV could cause up to 1/2 second (at 30 fps) of video to be corrupted.


So if you really *really* have to get the shot (sisters wedding, Discovery HD channel is paying for your tapes), maybe HD is needed. For other uses, regular tapes are (in my experience) just fine (and 1/5 the cost generally)

Also, since the tapes are digital, in theory the "colorfast" and "extra color" tapes -- well, aren't -- the camera decides what is written to the tape and *exactly* that gets read back no matter what kind of tape (excluding corruption/damage of course)

 

[scubamickey]

I just realized that I hijacked this thread. I'm so sorry. Thanks to all who responded on my tape question. But lets drop it and get back to the original subject

Thanks limeyx, that was extremely helpful!

 

[limeyx]

I just realized that I hijacked this thread. I'm so sorry. Thanks to all who responded on my tape question. But lets drop it and get back to the original subject

Thanks limeyx, that was extremely helpful!

Well since the HC7 seems to suck, maybe it's OK

Shame, I was considering getting one for a more mobile camera setup...

 

[ronrosa]

Well since the HC7 seems to suck, maybe it's OK

Shame, I was considering getting one for a more mobile camera setup...

Ouch ! :11:

I actually thought Scubabob's clip looked pretty good.

 

[drbill]

Irene,

As the OP, I don't feel you've hijacked this thread so don't worry.

I've used standard mini-DV tapes (Sony "blues") and haven't had a problem with frame drop yet.

I think the HC-7 is quite capable of getting some great footage. ScubaBob showed that. However, I think it requires a housing that can do manual WB and may be limited in how much macro one can shoot.

I reviewed my tape from today. Other than the thick particulates and their degradation of the image, a lot of the footage was acceptable to good. I was able to shoot several small nudies (Acanthodoris hudsoni and A. rhodoceras) with reasonable success (and auto WB at 130 ft in poor vis). However, when I tried to film a bunch of orange-colored Peltodoris (= Anisodoris) nobilis, I got that awful green effect on the parts of the body that were not directly illuminated. Here is where manual WB would be necessary. I'll use my TRV-17 in the housing tomorrow if we head to a deep site where the nudies may be abundant (we rarely see them above 100 ft here on Catalina, but there are plenty of them below that depth).

 

[scubamickey]

The Ikelite electronic housing I'm looking at getting states that you can access the manual white balance. Not that I'd know what to do with it at this point
But I'm hopeful that the HC-7 will suit my needs since I'm not looking for pro footage and I don't really get into macro shots all that much. I am still looking for the Sony blue tapes over on B&Hs site. I'm assuming they are the ones in the blue packaging that cost about $6.

Thanks drbill
Especially for sharing your experiences with this camera to the degree that you have.