Need advice on shooting UW video with a Canon 5D

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Any and all advice and suggestions are greatly appreciated. I'm traveling to Curacao in October and plan on shooting some UW video, but have never done so before. What would anyone suggest for the following:

- best lens to use (I'll be shooting both UW scenery as well as other divers on the trip)
- best housing for shooting video with the 5D
- recommended lighting (is one good enough or will I need 2?)
- camera settings? Is there an underwater setting and/or download for the same?

ANYthing else that anyone can suggest would be GREAT! Thanks in advance!!

 

[sinistar]

I was hoping someone would respond because I am in a similar situation. I have a 5D2 and it is such an awesome camera and can produce wonderful video. However taking this thing underwater to replace a HDV system I already have has left me a bit stumped too.

I have seen some great footage shot with 7D's in the Nauticam housing (not that the housing has anything to do with the quality of the footage). The same goes for T2i's in the Nauticam housing. I have noticed a theme however when it comes to DSLR video; Go with something that can shoot wide (preferably UWA), stop down a bit, set focus out a few feet and then pretty much everything (eg divers, bigger fish, etc) will be in focus.

This approach minimizes the single biggest downside to DSLR video - unacceptable auto focus during video. This also really cuts the amount of water between the subject and the lens. Obviously, this approach isn't going to help if you are after shallow DOF video to isolate subjects which leads to the thought; Aren't we just recreating the optics and DOF found with camcorders in order to shoot DSLR video?

The thing that I just haven't researched well enough yet is doing custom white balance with the camera while diving. Obviously, it can be done but I don't think the 5D2 can do it with a single button press like so many of the modern camcorders. So, obviously the controls of the housing will come into play if both hands are needed vs one to go through menus. Since my old HDV setup can't do this either, anything will be welcome. Perhaps, the color temp for most of your dives will be about the same and a custom preset can be set to this value for deeper dives and another for surface / shallow dives?

The owner of the shop that demo'd the 7D and T2i in the Nauticam also brought up a great point about the 7D (and now the 60D and T3i) is that they can trigger strobes via their flash and thus optically and therefore less cable penetrations into the housing like the 5D2 would need.

Finally, right now the UWA lenses for the 1.6x bodies just seem so much better for underwater use. Especially, the f2.8 Tokina 11-17mm (which is also quite popular for DSLR video in general). But there just doesn't seem to be an equal to this lens in the Canon EF lineup for full frame that doesn't come at some cost optically. Right now, I'll probably just use my EF 17-40 which seems pretty decent stopped down to f8 and has a decent close focus distance. It's too bad the EF 20 f2.8 isn't a better lens optically, the faster aperture combined with the nice close focus distance might have been a good compromise.

I hope others will chime in on all of your questions, there's probably more than one person contemplating this same set of questions.

 

[danvolker]

With my canon 5d mark II I set the manual focus prior to beginning the clip I am about to shoot. With wide angle ( I shoot the 16 to 35, usually set at 16) I focus on the distance where I plan to keep my subject throughout the clip...if shooting for great colors and corals, it may be 2 feet or less away, and this can be easy, but requires me to always force myself to maintain close to this distance....this is very slow swimming or drifting, so really there is no excuse for not getting this easily...
If I am shooting something like Goliath Groupers, I will try to focus further out....If I focus about 5 feet out, it is pretty much on infinity, so anything will look good from 3 feet out to 60 feet out....
In the Goliath video I shot two weeks ago, I focused for colors and detail in the shipwreck, using about 2 or 2.5 feet away for focus.....the goliaths still came out well, but in some situations, they could have been sharper if I had stopped and gone for a further focus, once the detail in the wreck was completed....easier said than done, when you get excited! Also, I tend to turn down the exposure alot, to make the video lights far more dominant than ambient light.....in the penetration of the shipwreck, this would have been better set with a higher exposure--the video would have been crisper...outside, it was the way it needed to be.....When big stuff is moving around fast, sometimes you plan as well as you can, then you have to just engage Maybe in another few months of shooting this type of stuff, I will develop some more effective reflex instincts on focus and ligt settings....
White balance I do in Neo HD before editing in Vegas pro.
See what I was talking about : Trip to Palm Beach to dive with Goliath Groupers! - YouTube

 

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Thanks for the great feedback! I have a month and a half to get all of this figured out as well as securing a housing for my 5D Mk2 (if anyone knows of a good deal on one please let me know).

 

[danvolker]

Thanks for the great feedback! I have a month and a half to get all of this figured out as well as securing a housing for my 5D Mk2 (if anyone knows of a good deal on one please let me know).

I rented from Allan of Absea.net to make certain that each of my choices were going to give me what I wanted...and then ended up buying from them also....they gave me an excellent deal on the Aquatic Housing and all ports. dome, etc., plus have always had spectacular service....while they are in Ca , I could not have better service if they were down the road in Lake Worth, fl.

 

[samtihen]

I shoot with a 7D / Tokina 10-17mm fisheye / Ikelite Strobe + Video light.

I only focus once per shot, and limit each clip to about 3-10 seconds. Wide angle is very important, as you can get a lot closer which really helps in less than ideal visibility. The light, for video work, is borderline useless outside of caverns, wrecks, and night dives. It occasionally helps get a slightly better shot in average light, but you have to be very close for it make any difference. The strobe is very useful for photos, though.

Best of luck!

 

[danvolker]

I shoot with a 7D / Tokina 10-17mm fisheye / Ikelite Strobe + Video light.

I only focus once per shot, and limit each clip to about 3-10 seconds. Wide angle is very important, as you can get a lot closer which really helps in less than ideal visibility. The light, for video work, is borderline useless outside of caverns, wrecks, and night dives. It occasionally helps get a slightly better shot in average light, but you have to be very close for it make any difference. The strobe is very useful for photos, though.

Best of luck!

Of course. we are supposed to try to get "very close" for video work....
I could see using 4 light heads instead of the 2 video light heads I use now....As is is with ny 2 lights, 50 watt hids, I need to be about 1 - 2.5 feet away from the coral, to get the colors to look realistic later....If I shoot 8 feet up in the water collumn, colors are gone and almost as if no lights were on at all....
Here is the 1 to 2 foot away color response with two lights-- best-of-palmbeach1a - YouTube ( watch only in 720P)
Also, one other thing I have found is that it is CRITICAL to have the sun at your back, or you washout the foreground, and everexpose the top of the horizon...
This is not intuitive...you figure you are underwater, so why worry about where the sun is....In Palm Beach, most of our reefs run north/south, and usually you are on an inshore ledge...if you are on a morning trip, it means that shooting the ledge face is essentially shooting into the sun....we have to do these shots in the afternoon, when the sun is at our back....the difference in how this looks is shocking....if we have to do a morning dive, it means either the crown, with sun at your back, or go out to the deeper offshore facing ledge, and then shoot it with the sun at your back

My biggest problem is getting a color shift when I send to Youtube..... I use a 4-2-2 color space, converted by NeoHD right after the canon is uploaded into the computer.....this is far better than the 4-2-0 color space of Canon DSLR's, and it is great for my cineform avi files...but when encoded to the h264 format in youtube, it translates imprecisely....I can get a good translation in BluRays, and remarkably, I have found windows media video encoder tranlates the color space better then the mp4 encoders ...I have several possible solutions, maybe after a few more weeks of tweaking I will find the right solution...If anyone here knows an optimal path for cineform avis in 4-2-2 colorspace, to get encoded for Youtube, please let me know!!!!

 

[adrefs]

Thanks everyone, this is all some great feedback. One other question: I'm looking at buying an underwater housing and am looking for the biggest bang for the buck. It seems to me that my two best choices are either the Ikelite or the Nimar if I want to keep it under $2,000, any suggestions?

 

[danvolker]

Thanks everyone, this is all some great feedback. One other question: I'm looking at buying an underwater housing and am looking for the biggest bang for the buck. It seems to me that my two best choices are either the Ikelite or the Nimar if I want to keep it under $2,000, any suggestions?

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