Underwater Bubble Blowers User Group Thread NEW

[Johnny Friday]

Ross,
....can you elaborate on what you have inside there. What are you using for sync and timecode? Denecke box? Also, are you using Pix240? Can i ask for what.....why do you need or have the 240--for prores only or another reason? Then i think an AJA 3gm? I ask because you seem to have a complete "other" setup inside---is it to assist with 3d or purely for 2d? And why not just shoot via Denecke or Gen 10 with camera sync cables and forgoe the Pix, AJA and sound devices....

....that said, you have one heck of a setup and i know you must have a damned good stereographer.
Johnny

[Johnny Friday]

Ron,
those Sola's are indeed great lights for travel and beam spread.....i have four of them. I passed on the Gates lights since they were out of them and awaiting a new revision with different power settings. The only down side of the Sola's i see is the 45min run time at highest setting. The Gates would be obvious choice when they have these various settings....and the battery run time on the Gates far outlasts the Sola's...I wouldn't give LED's up ever. What I think some here miss point on is that very few productions will ever have a budget for HMI lighting and it's obvious when one is on set and EVERYTHING is moving in the direction of LED--for obvious reason. Might not be best light to use....but $$$ usually makes that decision for us.

....Anyway, i stand behind you in saying those are great little lights and great bang for the buck. Just used them on a commercial last week where i'd have prefered surface fed HMI's, but production didn't have the $7500 in budget for us. They did however have $800.....and this a million plus budget.

[Pawel Achtel]

Next week we leave on our first major 3D expedition out into the Coral sea to start shooting on Deep Atom with a new pair of the Gates LED lights. These babies are extremely bright and I am very excited to put everything to work in some gorgeous locations. Will have a 3D show reel soon to show off Deep Atom capabilities.

I had an opportunity to use Gates LED lights when filming with Bob Cranston off Catalina Island last month. In fact, most of the time I was handling the lights while Bob was shooting.

I think they were adequate for up to about 3 - 4 ft in the conditions that we had. You would need significantly stronger lights in clear blue water, like GBR, or coral sea. Also, considering 1-stop light loss due to beam splitter you effectively need to double the luminous output for equivalent results.

I personally do not like LED lights as the main light source because of their segmented spectrum and relatively cool light that they produce. However, I use a 6,000 lm Keldan LED as supplementary light to much bigger halogen lights punching 12,000 lm of warm light on each side, which gives me total of about 30,000 lm of nicely balanced light that I can configure in various combinations depending on the target and ambient conditions. This is with a mirrorless camera. Double that for a beam splitter.

Look forward to see your 3D show reel.

[Johnny Friday]

Top box- PIX 204 (for playback of rushes so we don't have to cook the R/L images)
Second from top- Ambient 204 (for sync and TC)
Third from top- Distribution amplifier right camera
fourth from top- Distribution amplifier left camera
Bottom box- AJA multiplexer (feeds the PIX 240 multiplexed images ready to view)


Ross: Ok, so you went with 204 instead of Denecke then. That's a lot more addition you have there to produce prores files. You should make another back plate off the back of the Atom---did you see what Bob made? We mounted Denecke there aong with multiplexers. You could likely make a split level to handle all the extra hardware you have going on there.

....It seems no matter how big they are we find ways to stuff them...whether luggage or housings.
Well done Ross.

[John J Ellerbrock]

Mike PItts sent these over.

Mike Pitts 1.jpgMike Pitts 2.jpg

[Ross Isaacs]

Top box- PIX 204 (for playback of rushes so we don't have to cook the R/L images)
Second from top- Ambient 204 (for sync and TC)
Third from top- Distribution amplifier right camera
fourth from top- Distribution amplifier left camera
Bottom box- AJA multiplexer (feeds the PIX 240 multiplexed images ready to view)


Ross: Ok, so you went with 204 instead of Denecke then. That's a lot more addition you have there to produce prores files. You should make another back plate off the back of the Atom---did you see what Bob made? We mounted Denecke there aong with multiplexers. You could likely make a split level to handle all the extra hardware you have going on there.

....It seems no matter how big they are we find ways to stuff them...whether luggage or housings.
Well done Ross.

I made a nice little adjustable back plate which holds everything and hinges up to allow access to change batteries.

[Pawel Achtel]

...
Bottom box- AJA multiplexer (feeds the PIX 240 multiplexed images ready to view)
...

We have solved this with an adaption of MARSHALL OR-70-3D Orchid 3d monitor

This little 7" monitor actually fits inside 3Deep housing alowing for very streamlined setup and, at the same time, alows multiplexing of two HD signals into one for either off-board recording or/and additional surface monitoring. We also have full integration of this monitor with 3Deep allowing control of the monitor from the buttons placed on the housing. The integration is electronic, not mechanical.

Soon we will be announcing a very small and fully featured external housing for the MARSHALL OR-70-3D monitor. The housing will be available as an accessory for 3Deep, dual DeepX Wet Mirror rig and stand alone for other 3rd party housings. We intend to make all controls accessible.

I strongly believe that underwater 3D film making greatly suffers from heavy, complex and therefore difficult to use setups preventing capture of animal behaviour and sequence work ultimately compromising story telling ability. I believe a perfect underwater housing should be small, light weight, highly portable and allow for uncompromised image quality.

[Johnny Friday]

I used this marshal Monitor last december....it's an excellent monitor, small compact, but is realy nice to have larger monitor to make alignments like the transvideo

[Pawel Achtel]

There your go again Pawel bagging everyone else. Your 3Deep doesn't allow for small IA so it can only be used for limited applications. The only program you have ever produced to my knowledge is "Aliens of the Sea" so talking about story telling is all in your head mate. If your 3Deep is proven to create great 3D for all situations I will eat my words but until you can show it actually works to the 3D community please refrain from bagging everyone else.

What exactly was I bagging?

All I can see is you bagging 3Deep here by saying that, because I produced one film therefore 3Deep housing, which weighs 14kg instead of 400kg and produces sharp and undistorted images underwater, is not good for getting sequence footage and animal behaviour. Interesting "logic".

3Deep has (at least) two great advantages over any other cinema grade underwater 3D rig ever made: uncompromised optics and small size, while still offering a very workable range of stereoscopic depth budget for many situations. I'm proud of it and very excited about it. The fixed IA is nothing more than that of Solido IMAX and every other side-by-side 3D rig used on every single underwater IMAX except one ("The Last Reef 3D", which interestingly had very bad 3D, no story line and not even one animal behaviour sequence).

Clearly, in the right hands, 3Deep is a big improvement over what has been used this far. If IA distance is a limitation for macro and CU shots, I am offering a dual DeepX with a wet beem splitter - all under 30kg ready to shoot. How is that limiting for obtaining compeling sequence footage? I find it exciting and refreshingly innovative.

Each time when I mention my products and pointing out the advantages and improvement, you find it threatening ("bagging everyone else") because of your own poor investment decisions. That's the essence of your constant antagonism on this forum. You just can't accept that someone else can indeed have a smarter, better and cheaper solution than the one you just forked out a small fortune on.

I'm sorry that I can not give you positive validation for your investment. That's my personal opinion. You don't have to agree with it, but your choice of arguments defending it is laughable at best.

Good luck with your 3D demo reel on the GBR.

[Will Keir]

For underwater work, are there any tips / resources to learn how to keep a shot steady? Lots of After Effects, Warp Stabs but what about in camera? I'm not talking about "house-piping." Additions to an underwater kit perhaps to take some shake out.

Do larger housings help reduce shake? Not sure if an underwater tripod would help here, I'm swimming most of the time. Maybe control my swim better by smoothing my strokes out or adding leg propellers? My subject is shallow rivers so fins are challenging as you can image.

Any recommendations and certainly it's well said, practice.

Practicing with a GoPro until we house our Epic.