GHarvey

It took me a little longer to build a PC that has the horse power to edit HD video. If someone if thinking of going with a AVCHD camera first make sure you have a pretty powerful PC. I ended up going a little overboard with a 4 processor 3 GHz machine with a 4GB memory. I plan to add a Bluray burner soon. Enough of the techie stuff. The results direct from the camera on a 60" Sony HD tv is great! I now have uploaded the first clip from my trip. I'll try and get more out there in the weeks to come. http://vimeo.com/4462337 - Turtle Video Greg

How are people setting the white balance on their cameras? Currently I have a small white plastic slate that I have my dive buddy hold while I try to focus on it and set the white balance. I find this is hard to do while drift diving and was wondering if there is a better way.

I have now dove with this setup for 8 dives and found I generally like it. Here is what I've found so far. White Balance Using the red filter is a must even in relatively shallow depths (30 feet) Also manually setting the white balance gives good color up to about 70 feet. After that much of the color is lost. Other than manually setting the white balance there isn't much need for using the joystick which is good. At depth the knobs are hard to pull out of the the housing due to the pressure. Controls You need to be very careful as the lever to start/stop recording has a very short throw and is easy to bump. I'll look down 3-4 times during a dive and realize it's recording. Also the zoom control is hard to finesse when the camera is set to variable zoom speed. Settings: * Change the display to be brighter than the default as seeing it underwater can be difficult. The angle that it is at in the housing does not help. * Using manually set white balance is a must for accurate colors. I've had a number of dives that the color has an overall yellow/green cast. I find setting the white balance once around 40-50 feet gives a good average for dives that range from 80-30. * Change the zoom from variable to constant speed slow setting. This helps as the variable setting is too hard to control consistently with the housing knob * I have not played with the vivid settings yet. Battery Life/Storeage Using the larger battery I have no problems with running out of battery on a two dive boat trip, even when both dives were ~60 minutes long. I'm using 16 GB cards which will hold about 2 hours of top quality recording. I used one for 6 stright dives without copying the recordings off. More to come.....

Although there is not much info on this camera for UW use, I've decided to go with it. I ordered it, the Ikalite housing, and the extra capacity battery (BP-819) from BHPhoto and 3 16GB SDHC cards from Amazon. It all should be here this week. I'll hold off on lights and wide angle lens until I've worked with it a bit. For editing I plan to give the included software a try, but by all accounts it sounds like it's junk. I'll probably go with Premier Elements, but I have to build a new PC first to be able to run it. I have a trip scheduled to Cozumel so I'll try and post some footage by end of Feb for those interested. Greg

Thanks C8X. Those are some great videos and some of the first UW I've seen for this camera. Overall the clarity looks good, but the colors seem to lean towards the green side. You mentioned not having supplemental lighting or manually setting the white balance, but are you using a red or green filter? What was the water color/clarity like on those dives? Greg

Thanks Drew. I did search the forum before posting and there is very little info on the HF100. What I'm really looking for is what this community would recomend in this price range.

I have been shooting stills for years and want to switch to UW Video. I'm thinking that going HD makes the most sense if starting out today. I have a trip planned in about 3 weeks and want to have it by then, so I would be interested in this forum's opinion on the best setup available today. I have been thinking about the Canon HF100 with Ikelite housing but have not found anyone using it. Recording to media card seems to make a ton of sense as it take less battery than powering a tape, is smaller and instant read on the PC, yet it's portable and quickly changed out on the boat unlike a hard drive based camera. Thoughts????

I am considering getting the Canon HF100 and Ikalite housing, but have not found any reviews, comments and experiences anywhere for it. Hoping someone here can share some. I'm especially interested in two areas. First, how well does the housing allow you to manipulate the canon's joystick. Is it easy or cumbersome? Second is how this outfit does without addtional lighting in tropical waters say at a depth of 40 feet. I would welcome any and all comments. Greg