Johnn Doe

Hzave you read this yet ? http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/gh1.shtml Maybe the GH1 is a way forward ? AF and subject tracking should be good shooting fish ?? Large sensor so very good in low light, but limited to 720P. Still 720P is better then mini DV which is where i would have been only 4 or 5 years ago. Is the GH1 worth consideration ? Just need a housing for it ....how about it Mr Gates ? ( we know you read these forums :-) )

Hmm thats strange then - i dont know how i got the impression DeanB was rich. I've been reading this forum since about 2003 ( i started with digideep first in about 2002 then moved over here at some point along the way - cant remember that far back) and i always had the impression DeanB was a rich playboy type - for some reason i imagined he drives a Ferrari and flies out to dive sites via his private helicopter....... well he does own an EX1 right ?

Thanks for the replies. The reason for the video is sort of professional. I'll explain briefly. I live in a very remote part of Africa on one of the big lakes. I collect and export tropical fish when i am not busy with my "real" job. This is a very niche market. It is very limited in terms of market size so we dont ship 10's of thousands of fish out every year. The guys who buy these fish are very much "into" their fish and there are one or two guys who make a living by coming out to the lake every year and writing books with lots of photos etc. Its that market i want to get into. I have already bought a D2x and Subal housing ( just haven't picked it up yet - but i will get over to the states to get it soon) to start getting used to imaging UW - i know there is a huge learning curve ahead. The goodness is i live on the lake and have a Bauer dive compressor and many sets of dive gear, so its easy to get out to practice every day. I have always been more partial to video ( mainly because the editing aspect to it interests me immensely ) so have decided i want to put together a set of kit for the job. Getting to this point has been the easy part - deciding how to go forward is where it all gets complex and expensive. So I've rationalized out that a niche market does exist for these types of videos of the fish in their natural habitat. I know i wont be selling thousands of copies but i think i could sell 500 to 1000 copies per year of the various titles i will produce - so its sort of semi professional. Hence i figure i really need to produce the best footage i can since i want to sell it. It seems there is no future in staying at SD so it looks like its HD all the way from here forward. Hence i've been considering the better top end of the low end camera market (if that makes sense - i figure a $10,000 camera is a low end camera in this market) So that brings me to point where i am now confused about which way to go forward. I had it narrowed down to the EX1 but then the Scarlett reared its ugly head, so the waiting game began. But i'm getting sick of waiting. Then come along the 5DM2. I sat back and watched this market development to see if this new cam would be a winner. Nothing much happened in the first 5 months or so , so i figured i should stick with a "real" video camera and a dedicated stills camera ( hence dropping $$$ on an almost new D2x and Subal housing to get started with ) However now magic lantern and canons own firmware changes are out the market looks to be shifting again. I dont have enough experience with video to know if these new cams are going to be good enough for the sort of video i want to produce and sell. It looks to me from footage we are now seeing from the 5DM2 that a whole new era has started and there is going to be a big market shift away from what we know today. I am primarily interested in UW footage with only a little above water stuff. I do have a miller fluid head tripod from a mini DV 3 chip cam i bought in the mid 90's. I have no lights , lenses, mics etc ( the little mini DV is long dead and i never replaced it ) so am starting from scratch so can go to any system i like. Its a once off chance to get started all over again so i need to make sure i go in the right direction with this, hence my post. I am NOT rich like DeanB or Wagsy and have a tight budget to work too. Given the price on a gates housing and a good light setup i would think its going to run 20K USD. I can manage that but cant go much further. So i am open to ideas. Thanks J D

Hello all, I find these forums very interesting reading them most days. I'm at the point where i have spent enough time on the sidelines reading and want to get started in UW video. But which camera system to invest in ? Scarlet sounds great but will it ever materialize and if it does how much will the housing cost? I got really interested in the EX1 and thought that was going to be it. Now i am not sure. With the firmware changes going on with the 5DM2 and some of the footage being posted it looks like the Canon is a serious contender. I am not sure though because no one is really giving a run down on using the 5DM2 - we're just seeing show reels all over the net. But to my very untrained eye these new cams (5DM2 and GH1) are giving stunning results. So given i'm not sure how difficult it is to handle these new cams underwater in their conventional still photo housings, what camera systems are serious contenders for investing in? The way i am seeing these developments is 1/ 5DM2 or GH1 - stunning quality but difficult to use - although i feel uncomfortable saying that because i am just not sure how difficult taking footage with these new cams actually is 2/ Scarlet - if it ever arrives and we can actually afford a housing for it 3/ EX1 - this seems to me to still be a contender if the new cams don't work out too well. and 4/ what camera system am i missing ? I would like to get the highest quality footage i can. As far as i can see it looks to me like the cameras outlined will deliver the goods ( scarlet is of course only a prediction of what it may produce ). I need to keep my feet firmly on the ground with all this not being rich and all. I would like to keep the whole rig under $20K USD if possible. What are my options ? have i missed a camera out there anywhere ? I have zero experience shooting UW but need to output the best i can with my limited budget. I think i want a gates housing but that limits me the EX1. Any insights would be a great help on this. Just one last thing - do you think its maybe a good time to sit back and relax for a bit longer and give all these new developments time to mature into something really good a bit down the road? Thanks JD

Hi, I am unable to reply to PM's for some reason (maybe because i only registered to start a thread on gear i am looking for - i am long long long time lurker on these forums but never posted so the system does not know me). Anyway, yes i am interested in that body ( you know who you are ) so pricing would be appreciated. I need several bodies as back ups as i am in a very remote location and it costs almost as much to fly stuff in and out for repair work as it does a another body hence my reason for wanting several back up bodies. I would pref low shutter counts. Thanks for the replies Johnn Doe

I am interested in buying several D2x or D2Xs bodies. Must be in excellent condition. Please PM me with any offers of what you have for sale. JD

must try to get there