This time I changed setting to @driftwood moon T7. Great! Unfortunately water not so clear.

Shot on a Panasonic GH2 + Lumix 7-14mm; Nauticam Housing, 2x FIX Aquavolt3500 lights and 2x 50W HID Yellow Diving.

Out there, a few hundreds of meters apart from mooring buoys, nearby walls, reefs and wrecks there is a unknown world waiting to be (re) discovered.

Technical diving changed our perception of scuba diving, moving out of common contexts to deep unexplored wrecks and caves.

Surprisingly, we can observe this in crowded recreational dive sites, where technical diving has changed or redesigned the map of dive sites.

Trimix, scooters and rebreathers allow to regularly dive these sites at depths well beyond recreational limits, sometimes diving two or more spots at once. These tools allowed the discovery of new dive trails and sites which have become common knowledge. Often these explorations involve long scooter rides on the lunar-like seabed, possibly holding unexpected surprises.

@LongJohnSilver - Yes, you can switch to the macro mode underwater but only with the Nauticam port designed for that lens (which includes the macro and zoom gear). Of the three modes of the lens, manual zoom, electronic zoom and macro mode, only manual zoom mode is not available (though electronic zoom is preferable for video IMO anyway). Macro mode switches to 43mm (no change is allowed) - but I find this to be fairly decent for most underwater (not super) macro. I need to do some more experimentation with ETC mode mixed with the macro mode for super macro..

@Scubabob I hav the same setup: Nauticam + Lumix 7-14mm + Lumix 8mm. I use the 7-14mm mostly. Which port do you use for the Oly 12-50mm? Can you switch to macro underwater? Interesting.

@ahbleza nice photography and good work with fixed focus indeed.

Just for fun, last year I included some underwater sequences in a music video I shot with the GH2. I've linked below to the specific segment. This was shot in a swimming pool in Queens, using a Dicapac with GH2 and Nokton set wide open. Focus was done by getting the right distance from the subject. My 1st AC was wearing weights and SCUBA gear.

I'm definitely getting better or better footage with the GH2 every time I go out (which unfortunately is not enough lately) - do not see myself growing tired of it for some time to come. Here's my latest effort..

My last effort with GH2 underwater and... a bit of 5DmkII for land shots.

Interview and underwater shots filmed on a Panasonic GH2 + Lumix 8mm + Yashica 50mm ML loaded with Flow Motion 2.02 settings; Nauticam Housing; 2x FIX Aquavolt3500 lights and 2x 50W HID Yellow Diving. Land shots filmed with a Canon 5DmkII + Canon 24-105mm + Yashica 80-200mm ML

@endotoxic I'll try to explain here some concepts hoping that other uw shooter could elaborate some of them.

Basic videography concepts (shutter/aperture) apply underwater as well.

Focus is another story...

We have to differentiate wide shots from macro shots. First of all, shallow DOF undewater is 99% of the times very ugly underwater and it's considered a flaw. Hence the trick is to try to stay in the hyper-focal range as much as possible. Moreover it's very difficult to evaluate focus through the camera housing even with an external display (Nauticam has a wonderful and expensive DP4 housing) For this reason the AF lock function is very useful underwater. For wide shots, you could set the focus maybe at about 1 meter and leave it fixed for all the dive or just fix the focus hyper-focal prior the shot. Macro shots are a completely different story and they require specific knowledge and attitude. Macro lens has a very shallow DOF (sometimes few millimeters) so a tripod and correct lighting is king as well a good display. Depending on where you shoot: tropical shallow waters or deep/murky waters a good lighting is one of the most important factors underwater. Even in gin clear tropical waters colors are adsorbed by water (most noticeably the red). In shallow water a good filter and manual wb is compulsory, deeper a couple of strong lights. I have a couple of 3500 Lumen led light with a fov of 120 degree and sometimes they are simply not enough.

Regarding equipment/gear...

VidDSRL changed completely the game of underwater video. At the same price you normally get a huge improvement in video quality respect a camcorder, but there are several drawback that can be reduced with shooting ability and creativity.

• Stability & panning. A camcorder uw housing has a shape and balance very difficult to achieve with a DSRL housing. It's easier to get steady shots.

• Controls. Most of the DSLR housing have controls designed for photography. The most important thing to remember is that you cannot zoom underwater while filming with a DSLR while it's a default feature of normal camcorder (small sensor) having everything is focus while zooming). All camcorders are capable to shoot completely auto. A DSRL Not. I missed several shots because the subject disappeared while I was just trying to set the correct exposure. With a plain camcorder i would have just pressed "rec".

• Forget all discussions here about best cheap lenses, adapters and so on. A uw housing is like a glove and it's designed to work with a specific camera model and standard lenses. Without going too far, on a GHx housing you can mount only Lumix/leica/Oly lenses. There is a specific port nearly for every lens.

• While you have a lot of universal camcorder housings in the low price segment (they use different control method like LANC etc...), for DSRL you have one specific houfing for every camera. It's a sad story. As your camera become obsolete you'll throw away your housing...

99% of the DSRL uw housing market is aimed to Canon & Nikon. Lately Nauticam and few other far East manufacturers started producing housings for mirrorless camera. Right now Nauticam probably has the best quality and offering. Their commercial offer for mirrorless camera lacks only of glass ports. Nauticam announced a GH3 housing for April. lately they took advantage of their strong experience on DSRL housing starting producing housings for pro cinema camcorders. At NAB they presented a RED housing (10K euro SIC).

At a lower price you can get a 10Bar housing but you get what you pay for.

I hope I answered your curiosity :)

Bye

Davide

@Karl,

• A wreck like that is over 100m long. In such dive we spent 35 minutes on the bottom. It's impossible to dive the entire wreck on your fin.
• It's not healty for joints swimming at such depth.
• With the scooter your gas consumption is quite lower.

In the end a scooter is a funny security measure :)

having your camera on a scooter gives you increased stability on your shots.

@Karl it should be ok now

Byeeee

@LongJohnSilver: When I try to watch your video on vimeo, I only get a static picture of vertical color stripes (in-browser replay is not supported on my operating system).

Any idea what's wrong? (The other video you posted below works fine.)

Fantastic document @LongJohnSilver irrespective of hack.

@Rambo: No SWCY was used on those shots. I usually use red filter only from 10 metre to 25 metre. The color banding only occurs in certain situations.