scottw

Hi Scott, sorry I missed this thread before. Let me tell you about my limited experience. I started with the Amphibico housing for the HC7 with twin Salvo 50 watt lights. I personaly had problems with this housing, many people do not. I just received a Light and Motion Bluefin housing with Sunray 1000 lights. I am gong to use the Salvo's when I go up your way (diving out of Brockville) and Northeast wreck diving. I have the Sunray's for tropical diving, the fact that I can adjust power will help tremedously going from macro to wide angle. I personally use Sony Vegas and it is quite a bit more than I can handle, I am sure as time goes by I will catch up with all the functions. I am currently reading the manual and learning the housing but I will get a chance to use it next week in Cozumel, so maybe I'll have some more feed back soon.

All the best with your setup maybe if I'm in your neck of the woods I can follow you and peek at the shots your taking ha ha ha ( I did that last time in Coz following the local videographer, got some nice shots that way)

Be safe and have fun
Randy

Thanks for the info, If you are ever up my way, send me a PM and we will try to arrange a dive

My 2 cents
That AVCHD codec is a pig to edit, needs to be converted to another codec for ease of editing which takes quite some time.
Yeh you can use SONY VEGAS to edit AVCHD but you will soon get sick of low res preview editing.

The HC is an HDV format so it doesn't use the AVCHD compression. I haven't even started looking at video editors, I'm not looking for pro level software but consumer in the 80-150 range. From what I can see it's either Sony Vegas 9.0, Premiere Elements 7.0, Corel Videostudio, & Pinacle for the PC. Not interested in learnin MAC after 40 years though I know it's the way to go.

My two cents from my recent adventure into this new world for me....
1) Buy the brightest lights that you can afford. Lighting is king in this dark world we explore.
2) Buy a good lens  / port; good optics are very important.  
3.) If you can, get a rig that allows manual White Blance adjustment.. it will help.

I ended up picking up the Bluefin with the Sony HC7 & Sunray Pro 21w lights. Should come in next week. As far as I can tell the Bluefin will allow for manual WB with a bit of difficulty.

I've started looking at getting a WA port, L&M offers 2, a 90 degree @ $600 & a 110 degree.@ $1900. I'm no pro and don't plan on being one so right now it is looking like the 90 WA lens. Does anyone know if there are any 3rd party mfg. other than Fathom doing ports for L&M housings?

I use the Salvo dual 50's in caves and open water and love them.

I dont use any diffusers even in caves, but sometimes the lights can blow out the white bottom or very white walls.

I got the 15Ah battery but I would recommend getting the biggest batts possible as the larger batteries will not fit in the 15Ah canister if you want to upsize later

I recently found out that a buddy of mine has the twin 50W salvo's, Once I get my housing we will be doing compartive tests though right now due to everything being under 18" of ice it will be most likely be a quarry dive under the ice so ambiant lighting will most likely be pretty good. I will have to wait till later in the spring to test under darker/silter conditions

Hi Scott,

Not sure if you saw my earlier private message, so I figured I'd comment here. Yes, HD cameras like lots of light, primarily because each pixel on the CCD (or CMOS) sensor is much smaller than that of its SD counterpart...hence their light-gathering ability is reduced (all things being equal).

Thanks for the PM. As stated in my reply I am leaning to a HD setup as I have HD TV that I can use personally and I've seen some HD cave videos and they look spectacular vs. SD.

I have no experience with Salvo HID lighting, but I do have years of experience with the Sunray Pro HIDs. They have served me very well and I think they ought to be at or near the top of your shortlist. The new Sunray 2000 LED lights are also very nice (my current setup), but you can't quite compare them "apples to apples". The HIDs have a warmer, more even beam at the expense of having to wait for them to fire up. The LEDs are also the new thing on the block and are therefore the most expensive option.
..............

That said, the Salvo lights appear to be quite cheap for their power. I'm interested to hear any videographers' opinions of them...they sure haven't been talked about much in the forums.

Best of luck finding the right system,

Kris

The Salvo lights are receive favourable reviews on some of the technical and cave diving forums. I am not about to buy the biggest light possible such as a 200W HDMI @ $6.5K since my work will be mostly for personal and friends, with the occasional use to evaluate students. Most of the use will be for filming wreck dives of which I know a WA Port is prefererred which leads me to another question later on. Ocassionally it will be caves which has no light. The setup I am looking at buying has the Sunray Pro HID's which throw off     1300  lumens each @ 5500 K, where the twin Salvo's throw off 4500 lumens each at 6000 kelvin. This is considerably alot more light which is preferable for HD camera's.

Now here is the question regarding a WA port. If I went and got a WA port for the Bluefin, do I need to also get a WA adapter for the camera itself? Sorry if this is a stupid beginer question.



Scott

Thanks for the replys.

I think I am leaning toward the Bluefin/HC7 setup but I have a concern about whether the Sunray Pro HID's will be adequate.

from my understanding, consumer HD cameras require lots of light. Would these be good enough for green water St.Lawrence/caves? I've been told that ity would be better to ditch the Sunray's and pick up a set of SAlvo twin 50W HID's.

What would be a good price to sell a set of Sunray's Pros for?