Red filter when using lights?

[Dan Watkins]

I am new to underwater videography. Heading to the Bahamas mid month. I have a new housing and a 1200 lumens LED light.

I know that depth decreases red color and the red filter corrects for that. But if I use a light when shooting a reef, does the light bring the color back and make the red filter unnecessary? Or should I use the red filter with the light as well?

Thanks for the advise.

 

[770link770]

You're not going to want to use those at the same time. If it's a nice strobe without any hot spots in your video then I would just use that. Without a doubt just bring both to be sure. If you use a red filter and the strobe together however all you are going to get is the red.

The strobe alone however is going to give you the best shots as long as it is a good strobe and is not going to blow out your close up video. The filter takes away light but adds back in color, the strobe is adding in white light and therefore color resulting in better video. Also you won't lose all your shallow water video due to an excess of red tint that you tend to get around 20' and shallower.

 

[Dan Watkins]

The light is a Sola 1200, which has recieved good reviews... It has 3 settings, 300, 600, and 1200 lumens so can decrease the light if it is getting blown out. I don't see any hotspots in any of the settings.

Havent tried it yet but I think it is a good light. Good to know that using the light is preferred over the red filter.

 

[sinistar]

Your lights will not light up much of anything 4-8 feet beyond he light. Within that distance the video will look very reddish with the red filter in front of the lens as the filter really only removes colors (in this case blue and green). So for close up shots where the torch clearly illuminates everything, take the filter off and enjoy wonderfully lit video.

For scenes beyond the lights reach, you will want to use the red filter. It will not add any red, but it will cut the amount of blue and green bringing you closer to normal. But the red filter will cost you some degre of light and thus the camera will need to use more gain to compensate. This can result in increased noise in the video, especially when deeper and less light to start with.

A better option is to manually white balance when at depth (for scenes beyond the lights reach). This can usually be done with or without the red filter in place. However, not all UW housings give access to manual white balance.

Beyond 80 feet deep, I think manual white balance will look more grayish blue. And red filters don't do much down there either.

The light you mentioned is very nice (envy!)

 

[Dan Watkins]

Unfortunately my manual white balance is on the touch screen, which my housing doesn't let me access.

What do you do at depth to set yours? Carry a white balance reference card? Use a dive slate?

 

[sharksdelight]

I never use the ur fllter under water since I always shoot with lights. I white balance on my white fins, always.
Steve

 

[JamesK]

I have two of the SOLA 1200 lights. they are very nice IMO. nice even lights without any hotspots. you will be happy with them. with the lights, the filter is not needed. however, the light does only go so far. I would play around with it to see what works best since you can not set white balance. I set white balance a lot while diving and do so off my wrist slate. I see a lot of guys do like Steve though off their white Novas. I have shot some using both filters and lights, and honestly at times it works great.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Here is a video I shot with Lights 2x Sola 500's & 2xTusa 300s along with a URPro swcy filter all together in shallow water, I adjusted wb in software as this was all shot on a GoPro which has no manual wb options. This goes against all the general rules but this shows its still possible to get pretty good results not sticking with the unwritten rules of uw videography.

Its not the ideal shooting method but the results can still be pretty good if you either manual wb in camera or software wb in post, if your only going to shoot macro shots well within your lights range then your best off without a filter but for wider shots the filters will bring back some colour beyond your lights range.

[video=youtube;r0Wp5jgmfgI]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0Wp5jgmfgI[/video]

 

[jasoncolorado]

Marty....that is one of the cleanest video's I have seen. You use of unwritten rules of uw videography seem to work well.

 

[Dan Watkins]

I used both a red filter and a light in the videos I took. I think they turned out well. They can be found in this thread: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/un...8-my-first-hd-1080-60p-underwater-videos.html