mexwell

Wow breathtaking! This one I will definitely see on the big screen. @01:43 is that a trick or just some diver tired of life?

Well, the Hugy I used had no tripod option... but I am beeing told that Hugy (at least in germany) is working on some kind of tray/plate to use a tripod. I am still awaiting final information. This is a show stopper for ME. Without gloves it might be better to press SET... I found it quite annoying during macro setups. For all wider stuff (17-40mm) it was no problem at all. Did I mentioned the great Hugycheck system? ;-) Ahhh, Drew, definitely forget about the 5D and get your G9 wet.... [just kidding] :-)

I used the housing in cold water conditions with three finger neoprene gloves. I removed the handstrap and never tried it but added asecond handle to the housing. Turning the dials was a pleasure as they are really senitive and accurate. Housing ergonomics are perfect except the SET button for filmers. The main feature why I still consider the hugy and try to deal with the the SET issue is the Hugycheck system. After closing the housing you put a vacuum pump (no jokes, folks) to an valve and suck air out of the housing. Inside are red/green LEDS which tell you the status. The idea is to prepare the housing in advance (we did it the evening before) and leave the housing alone. If the status is still the same on the next morning you can be 110% sure it is tight. A REALLY GREAT FEATURE!!!

Unfortunately the Movie Start/Stop function is only via SET button available and not reconfigurable. I rented a Hugyfot housing for my last trip.

Hello everybody, as I am in the market for an 5D MK II housing I consider Ikelite beneath others. I had great results with Canons 17-40mm lens so far and consider it to be my WA choice. When I read Ikelites port chart it states the #5503.51 BUT says also: "Port is not long enough to accommodate accessory diopters or filters." My questions: - Is a +2 Diopter needed to get acceptable corner sharpness? - Is close up WA (Dr. Mustards TM) possible without a diopter? - AFAIK the 17-40mmm has a rear filter holder, Magic Filter will be possible after all - Is the Port #5503.51 a good choice or is the 8" Dome necessary? I would love to see sample pictures of this setup on a full frame camera....

Hi Jean, the new housings look great but I wonder if you designed some sort of sun shade for the LCD. This wont be an issue in dark and green Canadian waters ;-) but in the tropics it will.

Hi John, since your main subject will be skittish chichlids I CAN NOT recommend a 5D MKII to you. You will get very annoyed of out of focus scenes. It has no continuous AF. From what I read of your goals you should consider a more consumer grade camcorder like the Sony XR520 or the new Canons.

Drew, two really important issues when comparing housings for the 5D MKII IF you are going to film with it! - How can you add a tripod? Macro at 100mm and I suppose 50mm is the same without a tripod is nearly impossible! - How is the SET button triggered. I am not sure what S&S constructed but afaik Aquatica and Ikelite (V2) are the only manufactures who designed a "trigger" right at your thumb. I found it quite unpleasant to move my whole hand around the housing to trigger the SET button. Begin and End of all macro clips is shaky because of that.

Roger, welcome to germany or at least one of the biggest german newssites: http://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/natur/0...,636932,00.html You can compare it to something like Newsweek...

yes, yes, yes I need glasses since kindergarten... :-)

I don't see anything... (married too) PS: Please post a higher resolution version...

Hi Ryan, great setup. Thats nearly the same I have in mind. When I did my first project with the 5D I used one L&M Sunray 1000 and "stripped" the accutank below the housing. The Fisheye LEDs have internal batteries, right? How is the power compared to a sunray system? You have them under the pilotlight section in your shop. Is that really their purpose? I heard (and saw) that some Fisheye LEDs have problem with PAL cameras. The 25p/50i framerate and the LEDs frequency did not work very well together and caused flickering in the movie. od you have any knowledge of this and is it sorted out now? I am using the Gorillapod DSLR for some time now and it still works very fine.

Drew, I just discovered this thread... I feel very sorry to be part of the "problem"... NOT! You will enjoy it. For sure I did!

Drew, that is the max size per clip. You can record several 30minutes or 4GB clips on one CF card if it fits.

Depending on the scenes you film you should be able to get 50-60 minutes on a 16GB CF card. This comes down to 3-4 minutes per GB. I use the Sandisk Extreme III 16Gb cards and they work really nice. No need for the Extreme IV UDMA version! At appr. 75€ its the best bang for the buck :-)

Sorry! Now it should work!

Hi Wagsy, I am hosting three Original Clips on my Homepage: http://www.belowthesurface.de/media/movies...II/MVI_2491.MOV http://www.belowthesurface.de/media/movies...II/MVI_2492.MOV http://www.belowthesurface.de/media/movies...II/MVI_2493.MOV NO underwater footage! EDIT: copy/paste bug corrected!

Well Drew, filming those two cameras is really different. No autofokus on the 5D. Because of that you have to carefully choose the lens setup and "know" the DOF you can archive with your lenses and the aperture settings. Second, you loose a lot of versatility underwater. Just like DSLR photography. The whaleshark will aproach you right in that dive when you have the 100mm macro mounted. I had that excact event with my close up lens mounted to the HC7 when a 4m long Dougong joined.... Filmed a nice closeup of the mouth... ;-) Depending on your choice of glas you loose any kind of image stabilizing. This is really APITA at macro level work. You WILL need a tripod for 100mm Macro and beyond! In return you get superb IQ, great low light capability and the automatic white balance rocks. Conclusion: I will film the 5D, my wife enjoys the HC7. :-)

Jon, unfortunately H.264 is not designed for editing and very sluggish to use. I am using EDIUS Neo 2 (thanks to Wags!) and am doing a batch convert of all the clips to the lossless Canopus HQ codec before I start editing. Then editing works like a charm! Of course it does, it is EDIUS ;-)

Hello everybody! I just created a short comparison video containing similar scenes from both cameras. Of course this is no scientific test but I think it represents the real life behavior quite realistic. Actually it sums up two weeks of experience of filming with the 5D MK II. Befor I write my conclusions about the strengths and weaknesses of both systems, I am very interested in your opinions! Link: http://www.belowthesurface.de then click "Comparison HC7-5D MK II" in the menu. What do you think?

Ladygodiver, about which manufacturer/product are you talking?

Ed, the sheer amount of choices shows that have not put enough thought into your future setup! Before you start thinking about manufactures you should put down a laudry list of the features you want. Like... - do I want manual whitebalance? - internal flip filter? - monitor or see through window/mirror - individual housing for one model or flexible housing for many cameras - optical lens choice on the housing? - physical control or electronic control ..and so on. Same with the camera models! Those descisions will narrow down your list a lot. BTW I think you overlooked Light/Motion in your list.

Hi wagsy, nice review but I would not buy any HID lights anymore. With most models burntime is just to short, constant on/of switching ist forbidden and the bulbs cost a fortune. It seems that burntime isnt an issue for G3s and thats very fine! IMHO halogen and HID are dead. LED will take over. As soon as I will get new lights I will head for the L&M Sunray system. Depending on my budget I will choose the 1000 or 2000 model. Some weeks ago I did some testdives and those lights are so bright, wide and even it is unbelieveable! 90 degree wideangle is no problem at all.

Hi all! Some folks over at digideep.com (a partner site of wetpixel) decided to create a channel for high quality UW-films (mostly HD) at vimeo.com. Right now it has 16 clips... If you a curious give it a try and tell me your opinion: http://www.vimeo.com/digideep If you like it , subscribe to the channel and/or contribute to it with your work.

Hi Wagsy, did you use SUPER for it? I gave SUPER a shot and H.264 works fine in avi or mp4 container, thanks for the hint! But it seeems, that SUPER does not support Flash H.264 right now...