biminitwist

Thanks. I had read through that a while back and it seemed fairly all over the place with not much discussion of those actual camcorders. Though rereading I see them mentionened but not a great deal of discussion. Still early so can aford to wait and see what folks are working with. Am always surprised to hear issues with a promising new rig that would never have occured to me. Will keep watching. Thanks. John

I have been waiting on a camcorder update prefering them to a DSLR but they have been very thin on the ground. Any hope for an AX 100 sucessor seems to keep being put off. These new Canon rigs seem to have at first glace a 1 inch sensor and sound promising. Not sure of the distinctions between the three units and how/which would be most relevant for underwater use. Any thoughts or predictions? Thank you. Hopefuly. John

Not coming from a DSLR background I find the form factor and versatility of my "prosumer" camcorder to do what I need. I would never remotely want the issues associated with a camera as mentioned in this and other articles. I'm sure people are getting great results from these new cameras, a friend is very pleased with his GH4 in a Nauticam housing but after shooting side by side I was much happier with my video. For me it is just far more versatile. It is too bad there is not more support for the mid range camcorders from housing manufactures. Interesting article. Thanks. John

I have managed to use the computer as a pass thru to a new hard hard drive and it seems it will load to i movie or final cut depending on which app is open. If I wait long enough the avcd file comes up and I can copy that over to the hard drive but it is named AVCD and won't play if I try to change the name so the next copy is problematic. I appreciate the help. John

Thanks. I have looked at the connections and they are clean, also it works well on "old" hard drives with identical connections. I am actually direct copying last nights 2 hour some dive to an "old" seagate 1 tb, while it's twin new from store defies any way to get the camcorder to recognize it. R4e- I will try that, two issues are in the past, the camcorder only loads to the laptop's hard drive, not the connected external hard drive (taking up a huge amount of space) and the weird way the AVCHD is nested I am worried about disturbing or missing part of the image data base making it unrecoverable. I will try with both device connected to the laptop, if I can just get some data from the camera onto the drive the it should start recognizing it without a pass through. When we first got the LaCie rugged portable hard drive I think we had to reformat it seperately but then it was recognized. So weird it has become an issue and Sony service could not offer any ideas on why or how to resolve it provided it still works on the "old" hard drives.....

I have a Sony CX550 which allows for a direct copy from the camera's internal hard drive to a portable hard drive, typically all my video is backed up in this manner. Lately the camcorder has stopped recognizing new hard drives, it will give the dreaded "usb device not recognized" warning leaving the only option to end and disconnect the USB. I have tried wiping and reformating the new portable drives to FAT32 though my desk top computer with the same results. Normally with a new portable hard drive the camcorder would ask the first time to reformat the data base before copying and once done automatically start executing a direct copy. Now though, it refuses to recognize the hard drive to even do that. At first I thought the new hard drive was just defective so exchanged it, then tried another brand, then even a smaller size (500 GB). What is strange is any compatible hard drive (even of the same brand-model just purchased) that has anything previously loaded on it directs copies just fine. I have two seemingly identical Seagate 1 TB hard drives but the new one will not be recognized! After escalating through all levels of Sony phone support, we established it was not the USB or VMA adapter cable issue and if the camera still direct copies to an old hard drive, it is not the camera. Also, there are no firmware updates, resetting the camera doesn't help, plugging-unplugging the usb, even copying a small bit of video to the new drive thru the desk top (to trick the camcorder into recognizing the drive) have failed to get the new portable hard drives to be recognized (even when reformatted). I have a number of portable hard drives from various trips that I could copy to a larger storage drive then wipe the portable to reuse it (so that at least the camcorder will recognize it) but that is obviously a poor workaround. I know hard drives over 1 TB are not supposed to work for direct copy because of how they are partitioned but unless Seagate and Western Digital have changed something radically they are the same drives I am currently using. I would very much welcome any ideas to try and get the camcorder to recognize the new drives. Thanks. John

Thats what the Ryan of REEF verified as it was the right Zen dome for the 10-17 and lots of them have been sold so it's not an issue with the port (they maintain) but I can't see why it works with the extension ring changing no other settings? I have to do some pool testing to give them better example pictures of the issue but was wondering if anyone had similar issues or there was a D7000 setting that might be off. Thanks. John

We have a Nauticam D7000 housing and while shooting mostly macro we discovered the Zen 100 port caused all WA images to be slightly soft and lacking sharpness. It works with the Nauticam #20 extension ring but has vignetting on full wide but at least no focus issues. We have checked the lens which has a build in "port" designed to verify it is correct model and the Tokina lens works fine out of water-correctly but in combination the same issue. We had thought it was just us till Burt Jones was nice enough to trouble shoot this on our last trip. Has anyone had similar issues or possible fix? Thanks. John

Excellent video and brings back some great memories. What were shooting it with? John

Escape- Once you get the drysuit and rebreather I would suggest lights as that is all I've found that helps me. Looking at your screen shot it doesn't look like your using any or you are so far away they aren't reaching. I have to use them in very shallow water on bright days to minimize the sun dappling - strobe like effect on the subjects and background as well as bring out the color. Love the work in your gallery. John

My eneloop Double AA battieries power my OLED monitor back for over 3 hours of continuous use on long shallow dives here at Blue Heron Bridge so I think you have a bad monitor back. I have the Bluefin Pro for the Sony CX550. Hope L&M can help, my experiences with them have been mixed. John

Arcturus Production/White Balance http://arcturusproductionsblog.wordpress.c...r-underwater-1/

I have that camera (CX550) in a BF housing and it over exposes badly compared to other Sonys I have had. Best results I find when shooting auto is to set the Auto Exposure (AE) shift to -3 though occassionally I will still need to set the exposure to manual and crank it down till it looks good in my monitor. It also is a little too warm for my tastes tending to over boost the reds so I have also adjusted my White Balance (WB) shift to -2 or 3 depending. I will usually do a manual WB before recording. On the plus side, this probably has the best auto focus of any I've used though it may "seek" (blur) in lower contrast subjects as most do. Setting manual focus is best but for close subjects it is amazing how well the auto focus works. Other posts cover setting the manual focus. Hope that helps. You can get very nice results with this camera but have to practice a lot to find what works best. John

Amphibico ACHDM043 4.3" High Definition 16:9 Monitor, accessories and box available separately

FS: L&M Bluefin Pro HD Housing for HC1/A1U, Amphibico HD Monitor and Sunray Lights - $2800 + shipping My wife has moved back to photography and am selling her video set up. Includes: * Light & Motion Bluefin HC1/A1U Pro Underwater Video Housing * Standard and Wide Angle HD lenses * Amphibico ACHDM043 4.3" High Definition 16:9 Monitor * Modified L&M back for HD monitor * 2x L&M SunRay Pro 21-watt HID Lighting System * 5x Light Battery Pods * 2x L&M Multi-Chemistry Chargers * Original L&M housing back without viewfinder with standard monitor bulkhead Also available but not included: * Macromate for Standard Bluefin Len:$300 * Woody Diopter: $45 * L&M Remote Monitor with 50 ft. Pro Remote Monitor Cable, Sartek Backup Battery Pack & Charger :$800 * Never Used Olympus PT-020 Housing: $60 Please pm me for any additional information.