First three videos with my Nauticam/GH2

[ScubaBob92651]

I've taken my recently purchased (used) GH2 in a Nauticam housing on 5 dives so far, all local (Southern California) beach dives. I've included links below to the first three videos I've put together with the footage from these dives. Nothing special here, just sharing a sample of the footage I'm getting with the new setup. All of these are taken with the Lumix 7-14mm lens. I just received the port for the Oly 12-50mm lens so I'm really looking forward to getting back in the water to get "a little closer"

[vimeo]55838297[/vimeo]

[vimeo]57038821[/vimeo]

[vimeo]57905879[/vimeo]

 

[matdiver]

Thanks a lot for sharing those, ScubaBob92651. Very nice to watch.

I find it amazing that Nauticam stopped producing a housing for the GH2 last summer. The best offer I could get was for about 2500 euros (including port) - for a used model. In the end, I saved myself 1300 euros and went for the 10Bar, which I'll finally get wet in a 33m swimming pool (!) on Saturday. I'll post some test footage here. I have the Pana 14-42 PZ lens, flat port, and its hacked to 50 Mbps, GOP 3.
The only other housing available seems to be from Diveross, but it's polycarbonate.

By the way, there's some incredibly good GH2 footage here:
https://vimeo.com/53775747
The same person has posted over on Wetpixel regarding optimum settings, which I think I'll follow. Stuff like turning off the multi-point auto-focus, e.g.

Matthew

 

[Scuba-dan]

Looks really good. Thanks for sharing.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Thanks a lot for sharing those, ScubaBob92651. Very nice to watch.

I find it amazing that Nauticam stopped producing a housing for the GH2 last summer. The best offer I could get was for about 2500 euros (including port) - for a used model. In the end, I saved myself 1300 euros and went for the 10Bar, which I'll finally get wet in a 33m swimming pool (!) on Saturday. I'll post some test footage here. I have the Pana 14-42 PZ lens, flat port, and its hacked to 50 Mbps, GOP 3.
The only other housing available seems to be from Diveross, but it's polycarbonate.

By the way, there's some incredibly good GH2 footage here:
https://vimeo.com/53775747
The same person has posted over on Wetpixel regarding optimum settings, which I think I'll follow. Stuff like turning off the multi-point auto-focus, e.g.

Matthew

Yes, I'm assuming it was to stay competitive with all of the new cameras coming out. According the Nauticam USA fb page they are close to releasing the housing for the GH3. I've come to agree with the comments David has made regarding the GH2 on wetpixel (his Valsavoia video is great and further influenced me to go with the GH2). I've shifted to using Af-s center point focusing - but the technique of locking the focus (either with the method he mentioned, or pulling focus and switching to manual focus mode to lock) will definitely help avoid the "hunting" you can see in my videos above.

The first video above (Shaw's Cove) was taken with the un-hacked firmware. The second and third are both using Flowmotion 2.02 - with the Crescent dives shot in 24p and the La Jolla Shores at 30p. My preference is the 30p. I'm getting 80-100 Mbps on the 24p and 50-60 Mbps on the 30p files. I plan to play around with some of the other settings/hacks on future dives.

Look forward to your future videos with your setup!

 

[Interceptor121]

Impressive however I still don't like the fact you are locked on a lens for the dive
Quality wise this seems best value than SLR

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Impressive however I still don't like the fact you are locked on a lens for the dive
Quality wise this seems best value than SLR

From large Jellies to Nudis - being locked with the 12-50mm is fine with me

 

[mr_sav]

Hi,

I too until recently was running the GH2 with Nauticam. I do encourage you to consider the 7-14mm with Dome port which is still available as it is used across current housings.

I used various hack configs such as yours, however I settled on 150mb fixed motion JPEG in the end.

Great camera rig by the way.

I sold mine recently - to move to the GH3

In time, hopefully the boys will have a hack for it - however, it is certainly delivering for me a la natural.

I sold the 14mm + zoom with the flat port. I never really used it. I am sold on the 7-14mm and I recently bought the 12mm + 2.8 lens which is good for low light, and it fits the same port as the 7-14mm

Of course with the on-board Tele you have good macro capability.

my first video with the 150 Mo JPEG sold me. I took this video to capture different textures and to test the settings. I also tested the Tele for Macro on this dive - note the seahorse and shrimp in corner.

All the best - and congrats on your buy.


Edithburgh Jetty Night Dive Yorke Peninsula South Australia - YouTube

 

[ScubaBob92651]

I've been using FM2.02 and have been happy with the results. What hack were using for the 150mb mjpeg? I really like my 7-14mm and need to get it back in the water, but I've gotten spoiled with the versatility of the 12-50mm, especially with ETC (understanding it's limitations but far better than digital zoom) - and I tend to hunt for macro critters most of the time.

 

[ScubaBob92651]

Latest video - like I said before - loving the 12-50mm - especially with the ETC mode (as needed) on the GH2..
[vimeo] 71950341[/vimeo]

And my other most recent video from a couple months ago
[vimeo]67626406[/vimeo]

 

[matdiver]

Great! Thanks for posting, Scubabob. I'm off to the Maldives in a week's time , and I'll post some more GH2 footage when I get back. I'm going to try putting a magic filter behind my PZ 14-42 lens to see if it makes any difference to the manual WB issues I've had in the past. As long as the GH3 has not been hacked I'll stick with the GH2, as I can just make my own choice of bitrate and GOP length. ETC is a brilliant invention!
Cheers,
Matthew