light/color question

[Kharon]

I'm finding that what I see on a coral reef in no way has the color found in decent videos, like those of your dives sold by resorts to your group. I'm feeling that it must be the flood (wide angle) lighting that they use when taking the video. Is that correct?

If so, is there any wide angle flood that I could carry so that I can see the same colors when I dive that is not super expensive? I'm looking for the least expensive light that will allow me to see good color.

Would either of these be suitable?

Fantasea Blue-Ray Sport Video LED 700 Lumens Light at LeisurePro

Intovatec Tovatec Galaxy 2500 Lumens Video Light at LeisurePro

 

[matdiver]

Hi Kharon,
the reason why the colours look better in the videos you're talking about is almost certainly because of the camera's white balance settings. There's a ton of stuff on here about the subject, and there's more than one way of getting it right; different cameras seem to need different techniques. I use a bit of old detergent bottle in front of the red filter on my Panasonic GH2 rather than a white slate. However, recently, I even saw some footage from a Sony RX100 II, with a red filter and auto WB, where the colours looked exactly right (it's one of Interceptor 121's - about a week ago, I think).
Even the strongest, most expensive, lights aren't much good for wide angle on shallow tropical reefs during the day. Also, with incredibly bright lights I think we have to have a thought for the marine life we all profess to love....
What kind of system are you using?

Cheers,
Matt

 

[Tigerman]

Its not the whitebalancing, its the light.
Whitebalancing make it a bit better, redfilter even more so, but the professional advertisement videos (and many of those videos and pictures that get posted by us here) use video lights or strobes to reintroduce a complete color spectrum.
The water absorbs color at different rates and the red goes first, hence the massive improvement with a red filter and proper whitebalancing and then the other colors disappear more and more depending on their wavelength.
Whitebalancing will help, red filter will help, but the only way to get truely accurate and saturated colors is to carry lights..

 

[Interceptor121]

I think what the op is asking is a light to use for diving not to take videos so that the colour look the same as certain videos
There are good and bad news. The good news talking about reefs is that you can bring the colour back with lights, in day time you are looking at 2000 lumens on a single light angle wise you don't need more than 80 degrees as your eyes are like to 50mm lens with a very small field of view
When it comes to general reef wide angle scenes I have experienced that the footage I take looks better than what it felt when I was diving because the camera had a red filter on it, unfortunately unless you put a red filter on your mask there is no way to simulate that effect so your light will only be effective at close range

 

[3D diver]

I believe Interceptor121 has it.

The bad news is, as is stated above, the video likely benefits from editing and filters so may never reflect what you actually see.

The good news is that the human eye adapts to low light better than most cameras, so you may not need a particularly strong light to improve what you are seeing. In other words, the wide angle 700lumen may suffice...with one caveat---you will still need to be fairly close to the reef to see the difference. The light still has to travel from the light, to the reef, and back to your eye and is being filtered by the water along the entire path.

 

[Interceptor121]

3D diver is correct that if you at close enough even less lumens are needed however your eye is not like the cameras it does not have wide angle so it's actually better to have more power and less angle
In effect think about your eye like two lenses with 36 degrees filed of view
As your eyes are really close the combined field of view is actually not much more say 40 degrees
Which means a torch with a diffuser is sufficient and you don't need an expensive video light
However if you wanted to buy a wide angle light for diving purposes go for lumens more than angles
A light with 1000 lumens and 60 degrees will be better than a light with 1000 lumens and 100 degrees as you can't see anyway 100 degrees and once the wider light hits the subject it will be much weaker than a narrow beam
In my opinion something like a sola 800 dive is perfect as it has enough power and angle for have a look around type of use but then you can use it as spot light for night dives and 500 lumens over 12 degrees is really strong

 

[Kharon]

Thanks so much for your help. I've got a Princeton Tec Shockwave II and saw more color on a night dive in Bonaire - but the beam is so narrow that I couldn't see beyond a very small area. Also, it was no help in daylight, even deep. Guess I'll look for something with about 2K lumens and 80° or so. Once again thanks.

 

[3D diver]

FWIW: Here are a couple of pics of my lights---4 diffuser modified DRIS 1000 lumen lights. With all this the effective range where I notice improved colors is about 3 to 4 feet. I have experimented with lights with 3 or 4 LED's in the same head and the difference wasn't dramatic.

 

[Kharon]

Wow - glad you posted that 3D diver. 4 X 1000 lumen lights and you have to be 3-4 feet away from what you are looking at to see a difference - guess I'm out of luck. I was looking at these to ask which would do what I want, but I guess none of them would.

500 lumens temperature 8,500K 90° beam
700 lumens temperature 6,000K 75° beam
1600 lumens temperature 6,000K 110° beam
2500 lumens temperature unknown 120° beam

Guess I'm stuck in a mostly black and white world UW.

 

[kelemvor]

Try a mask with a red filter. Sea Vision (and others probably) make them. I've not used one due to the price, but a few people I dive with swear by them. They reduce total light transmitted to your eyes, but as was already mentioned human eyes are not horrible at adjusting to low light.