Davide DB

Richard, I don't think that "holding the camera with one hand and the light with the other" is the way to go. Of course, in your video having a proper video light would have helped but not too much. It's not a matter of reinventing the wheel here. Of course you are free to experiment as you like but... In a cave or other nearly dark environments you need two powerfull video lights on your camera; one or more video lights on your dive buddies will improve or create nice light painting effects that can capture your audience attention. I do some cave dives and frankly speaking average cave videos are very boring. Cave divers probably will like them a lot but I think that a movie should have a more universal message/story/appeal. Great attention on editing and light use can greatly improve the audience experience. As I wrote on another thread, great examples of what I mean are the two Joe Hesket's secret fo the yucatan episodes and Andrew Pitkin's Phantom Cave videos (short version). The gold rule of 3 minute max length will always apply. in rare occasion or if you are Howard Hall, five minutes. From a video point of view, no rocket science there: steady shots, good composition and a bunch of lights (and money )

Hi SP, thoughtful considerations. Could you explain in which way the layout of the original battery pack is dangerous? The original pack which type of elements and how many of them uses? For the moment my buddy has a double 55W HID video heads form Yellow Diving. Nice design and good quality/price ratio. The problem is that again you need a separate canister. So in a tech dive, a "model" will wear a primary light (with its canister) and another complete light. Otherwise for video camera arms you use two of them with one canister and Y E/O cord.

Ok, please stop now. End of a dream. Write here again when you have a working one at 700$ And anyway for that price, 7000 lumen it's a steal... if it doesn't explode

As usual... normally you would have 700$ = 700Euro at best. It's a shame because reading all the comments I was pulling the trigger on one in USA... It's very cheap and it would be wonderful for my buddy/model: next month we have a couple of dives on a 85m/285ft deep nearly intact wreck....

Bitrate alone doesn't mean nothing

Hi Nick, Yes 25p/30p Pal/Ntsc have 72Mb ALL-I. Several sources said that it's a world camera but I think we will have a NTSC and PAL version. Nobody knows even Panny at the moment. The most requested features were HDMI 4:2:2, Zebra and Peaking. Till now it seems that Panny failed to deliver the most requested features. While pro and consumer divisions are completely separate, probably they feared to cannibalize other products. Actually in these two years after the launch of the GH2 a lot of things are changed. IMHO they should have pushed a little more on features. Anyway given the superficiality of Panasonic at Photokina we have to wait for the end of november to understand exactly what is shipped. I saw a GH3 video from EOSHD but as usual, this guy cares only to show his ego. He posted a edited video shot at photokina,. He converted and heavily graded it so we haven't further info on the real quality. Just one thing: everybody noticed the heavy moire effect on the guiy shirt at the end. http://www.eoshd.com...-sample-footage Yesterday I read a comment on which I 100% agree (Except the released 1.0 firmware will change a lot of things respect the showed 0.4 fw at photokina)

Thanks r4e, Yes I had the housing on top of a Suex ADV14. For the fisheye position it is sufficient to move the scooter mount forward until you do not see anymore the nose from the display. If the setup is neutrally buoyant it doesn't affect driveabilty too much. I mounted the plate aligned with the scooter handle so I can film while scootering. I haven't tilt problem. I use the tiny "yellow diving" mount which is perfect for a small m43 system (maybe too small for larger systems)

I came across this comparison between 5DMK3 and BMC. They are compared for "dynamic range, sharpness, pushing levels, banding, artifacts, rolling shutter, chromakeying, wide/telephoto lengths, DOF (depth of field), low light, macro blocking, contrast, and more" From what I understand they tried to shot in challenging conditions trying to see the camera limits. Maybe I missed something because the clips from the 5dMKIII are the ugliest I've seen so far. Really strange. I suggest to see fullscreen and reading the video desciption. [vimeo]49875510[/vimeo]

Or "check my filter" PS Funny article from: http://www.lensrentals.com/blog/2011/06/good-times-with-bad-filters I'll stop hijacking this thread

We could launch a new contest "Guess my lens"

So we know nearly everything now about this camera. I wrote nearly because Panasonic faced the photokina show as a bunch of beginners: two GH3 with a 0.4 firmware, no tech reps. but just marketing people. This resulted in various contradictions among different interviews and specs. sheets. Several no comment or maybe or I don't know on several questions. Is it a Panasonic sensor? So it is not a Sony sensor? No comment To me it just means that it is Sony sensor. Same error Nikon made. At first you are happy that you can save money but suddenly you realize that you no longer have people, skills and facilities. Right now it seems that the HDMI ouput is clean but is 4:2:0. Maybe this is not of concern for uw filming at the moment I think we will have to wait for a real GH3 on the shelf to understand what is under the cover for sure. At P-V organized a donation to send some guys to attend at the presentation and interview a Panasonic manager. They went there with a pre arranged set of questions. This is the resulting interview: Or you can find all the Q&A written here: http://www.personal-...erage/interview There is also an interview by EOSHD with a Panasonic Senior Planner Engineer Yoshiyuki Inoue: http://www.eoshd.com...e-panasonic-gh3

Yes, it's written on Vimeo video description

Wow, touching movie indeed! Were you filming with scuba or just snorkel?

They are very similar to my FIX Aquavolt 3500 but much cheaper http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=47462

Modified frog or modified shuffle kick is the way to go for filming while swimming. Anyway you have to exercise you video skills a lot to obtain a steady hand. Of course a nearly perfect setup is a good starting point A DPV is a better choice for filming cave and wreck diving. Despite of the added difficulty of using a scooter in a cave environment (maybe a proper scooter cave training is a must) it adds a lot of stability. The key point is getting a perfect trim and buoyancy of the entire setup. The best option is trying to have both camera setup and scooter+mount separately neutrally buoyant . If for some reason you have to remove the camera from the scooter mount you still have a working/manageable scooter. Sometimes it's hard to achieve and mainly depends on the camera setup. A suggestion for tech dives: evaluate carefully the buoyancy system. I was so stupid to use Stix floats in a 80m+ dive. On the box neither on their web site they specify the max depth and it was my fault to not investigate. I used them a lot of times above 45m but below they became like chewing gum and it's a PITA finding yourself at depth with a heavy scooter and camera and a lot of deco on your back... Once crushed they need some hour to return to the original shape.

Hi Rafa, As usual you always set a new point of reference with your videos.

Hi Steve, I will do my homework asap Thanks

Yesterday the guys at photokina had the opportunity to shot some video on their sd cards. Video has been sent to PV for analisys already. Good news. More have to come today. http://personal-view...6#Comment_86256 It seems that the encoder has two, three times the power/memory of the GH2. So plenty of space for an upcoming hack. Here a comparative table that will be updated as new info come out: http://www.personal-view.com/photokina/coverage/gh2-vs-g5-vs-gh3 Unfortunately the 72Mb ALL-I bitrate works only for 24/25p and at 50/60p you get 50Mb. For what I understand it means that in video mode 16:9 the crop factor rise to 2.4 like the BMC. The news about the sensor being Sony is yet to be confirmed. If true I don not understand Panny on this move. Panasonic has a long history making sensors and the GH2 sensor dimonstrated its knowledge. Outsourcing the core of the camera the risk to repeat the Nikon experience. I do not think Sony will sell the best and latest technology to its competitors. Yes. BTW Seeing the new buttons layout I think would be a nightmare building a housing with ISO and WB button on the top. I mena form the usability point of view.

As usual guys at P-V are a step ahead when dealing with Panny. They "sent" a couple of guys at Photokina covering the Panasonic event. The reported back the event via twitter and there is a wiki page: http://www.personal-view.com/photokina/coverage/gh3 Or you can just go on Panasonic Photokina press site: http://www.panasonic.eu/photokina2012/ Or plain GH3 site: http://panasonic.net/avc/lumix/systemcamera/gms/gh3/ Fro video recording formats here the various features:

I could not imagine a better housing for my GH2 than my Nauticam NA-GH2P. The only downside, for a Nauticam choice on mirrorless system, is the policarboante ports. Give me a glass port and I'm set

And now we have one of the uilty: http://philipbloom.n.../09/15/genesis/ He is under NDA until Monday but the film is on Vimeo and in the article he gave a lot of information: [vimeo]49420579[/vimeo]

Time to sell our setup?

First leak three days before the official presentation at Photokina. Seems that the lens kit is the new 12-35mm f2.8 water sealed as the GH3 body. Until now the specs seems to be: GH3 Rumors specifications (with current probability status): Wheather sealed, metal body (99%) Shutter button located similarly to G5 (99%) Focus peaking and zebras (99%) 920k or better capacitive touch screen (98%) Improved EVF (99%) 1080p48/ 1080p50/1080p60 at 28mbps, 50mbps and intraframe 72mbps (99%) 1080p120/1080p100 special modes (limited time usage), 720p120/720p100 unlimited (44%) WiFi direct with Android and iPhone applications with remote video capture (99%) 1/3.5" mic input and headphone output (98%) Supplied with new wheather sealed kit (55%) And optional battery grip, of course, XLR mic input option (98%) There is also a video from Panasonic USA which confirms some rumours. 72Mbit INTRA codec. At 2:20 he seems Philip Bloom http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JiSwGHPJw74

Hi Steve, Everything went good, as all vacations, after all Thank you for point me out your article. It's nearly the same work-flow I use with Edius. Except using 10M for 1080p and I'm satisfied with the results. My question on Vimeo arises because I found several people who use higher bitrate for Vimeo and they states that the final quality is better... The ratio behind this is since Vimeo compresses the material one more time after upload, you will get better quality if you have a higher bit rate to start with. Hummm... I wonder if this is true and if someone has tried. Just as example I found this comment on Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/fo...comment_4440398 He is referring to an Howard Hall video which is only 386MB while being of extreme quality. Ok: he is HH, he is using a Red camera and blah blah blah... but downloading his original file: On the other hand, what is the maximum bitrate I can use for home viewing? Or better saying which bitrate is worth using? At home I have a Samsung tv with an integrated media palyer and a db plyer. Both reads H.264 files.. Thank you in advance

Hi guys, Just playing with H.264 export with my NLE. What's the best bitrate for H.264 1080p export to play on a media player/ps3/smart tv? Is it the same max bitrate supported by BD? I'm not planning to burn a DB but just a single H.264 file. And speaking about exporting for Vimeo... Their guidelines suggest 10Mb for 1080p and 5Mb for 720p. Do you usually comply with these values or you export higher bitrate for Vimeo? I saw that they accepts higher bitrate but I was not able to spot if this leads to a better quality. Bye