7 replies to this topic

[midael]

Hello All,

Haven't seen anyone posting a kelp diving video for a long time. Here is for your enjoyment and critique a short video of diving kelp forests of California Channel islands. I hope this video is able to convey a glimpse of the dreamlike environment that Im nowadays lucky to call my home waters. For me the kelp has become one of those magical thing that keep pulling me back and back to the water - gazing at its never ending dance.



Canon 5Dmk2 - all footage shot on (M) at ISO640 or at ISO1250 ISO1600. Manual WB. Ikelite housing, 8" dome, 8001.22 flatport; Sigma 15mm FE, Canon 24mm and 50mm primes. Ambient light only. Tripod - which in addition to allowing shooting steady[er] footage also unexpectedly worked as underwater "steadycam" stabilizing otherwise unstable housing during [some] free floating parts). Post production in Premiere CS5; "usual" tweaks to brightness and contrast.

Dove from Vision of Truth aquatics. Sept 2010. Five day charter. Glen captained. Footage from around San Clemente and Catalina Channel islands.

Hope You like it!

Edited by midael, 15 October 2010 - 06:19 PM.

[SimonSpear]

You've got some great shots there Mikko! I actually can't believe some of that was shot at ISO1600 as it looked way too clean.

I'd love to dive that area one day as we sure don't get kelp like that over here! Nice work!

Cheers, Simon

[DeanB]

You've got some great shots there Mikko! I actually can't believe some of that was shot at ISO1600 as it looked way too clean.

Cheers, Simon

Yep its heads above the 7D ... Lovely stuff Mikko

Dive safe

DeanB

[TheRealDrew]

That looks great. Really like the colors, nice job. Just manual WB and no filters?

[midael]

SimonSpear, DeanB, TheRealDrew: Thank You! The amazing colors in the beginning/ending shots I think are largely thanks to thick(ish) kelp bed, algae, and most importantly because of overcast weather topside - clear skyes would have made the contrast too strong between top and the bottom. Meant btw ISO1250, not 1600; that makes a big difference with these Canon DSLRs when shooting video. Only green(ish) water parts on the video are shot at 1250, and couple of clips towards the end where I forgot to switch back.

TheRealDrew: Just manual WB; no magic or red filters. I have been playing with reds/magics mostly at the tropics, and, arguably so, based on my limited experience I think with them + manual WB you'll achieve a somewhat more pleasing and deeper colors [of blue]. However the 1-2 stops of light that you lose with filters will just kill you noise-wise in the murkier waters we have here (at least if you dont want to shoot wide open at 1/30). There is of course some filtration done in post to the clip; I will render a version with no post adjustments/cc and throw it to youtube over the weekend so you get to see how it looks "from the censor" vs. after post.

Edited by midael, 15 October 2010 - 07:04 PM.

[Steve Douglas]

Really beautiful footage. I have not dove my own backyard for some time but, while San Diego has the Kelp forests, we don't have the vis that the Channel Islands has.
Super nice. Maybe it is time for me to buy a DSLR.
Steve

[DerekB]

Footage is amazing. Editing is well done and the soundtrack is spot on.

[midael]

Wow! Made it to the WP front page news feed!! Very cool! Very much honored about it!!! Thank You!

TheRealDrew; here is a link to non-color corrected version. You will find that some scenes like garibaldies at around 4:00 were quite overexposed and had to be dimmed down quite a lot in post. Scene at 3:00 still has a color correction enabled that I missed when turning them off. This version also has somewhat worse encoding quality than the "real" version so compare that in mind. All in all I think it wasnt that much that had to be changed/fixed/altered from what was shot to what ended up to edited peace.

Edited by midael, 18 October 2010 - 01:16 PM.