D90 UW Vid issues...

[sideways 3]

Hi all!

 

My first attempts at capturing vid on my D90 were dismal. Severly underlit. Anyone else have this issue? Knowing me...it's probably something I've done settings wise...LOL. Does it matter which Mode you're in...i.e. auto or Man? Thanks in advance!!

 

Greg

[Mike L 0]

Hi Greg,

 

You definitely want to be in Manual mode. Some key information to better help you out.

 

What lens were you using?

 

Were you using any lighting or just ambient?

 

Do you know what your ISO settings were?

 

I look forward to helping. Stop by the store sometime in Irvine and we can chat more.

[sideways 3]

Hi Greg,

 

You definitely want to be in Manual mode. Some key information to better help you out.

 

What lens were you using?

 

Were you using any lighting or just ambient?

 

Do you know what your ISO settings were?

 

I look forward to helping. Stop by the store sometime in Irvine and we can chat more.

 

Thanks Mike...

 

I was using my Tokina 10-17. ISO at 200. I was in Manual, not sure what my aperture was at, but I doubt I adjusted it from around f11. My first attempt was at about 10'.....getting the gang rolling off the boat, and it was extremely dark, pretty much worthless . Just using ambient light those first few attempts. What shop in Irvine are you at, H2O Photo Pro's??? When I was buying my rig I was trying to get ahold of you guys, driving by the...I guess old shop, on PCH.

 

Thanks!

 

Greg

Edited March 9, 2010 by sideways

[ronscuba 4]

ISO 200 and aperture at f11. Aren't those type of settings for bright conditions ?

[sideways 3]

ISO 200 and aperture at f11. Aren't those type of settings for bright conditions ?

 

That's what I would think. I know with my old Sea and Sea DX-1g I got great vid, no light issues using ambient, so I'm kind of at a loss.

[bpzdiver 0]

Hi all!

 

My first attempts at capturing vid on my D90 were dismal. Severly underlit. Anyone else have this issue? Knowing me...it's probably something I've done settings wise...LOL. Does it matter which Mode you're in...i.e. auto or Man? Thanks in advance!!

 

Greg

 

Greg:

 

I'm still working on this myself, and please anyone with more experience please chime in. I always shoot in Manual Mode. I'm working without video lights, but trying a FIXLED500 as well. My first vids were way over exposed, washed out. Today I decided to try a few things here on Bonaire to see if I could get this resolved. I tried changing the aperture; it makes no difference. I tried changing the ISO. It makes no difference. Finally I tried changing the exposure compensation. It worked! You can clearly see this in the LED. It's a bit awkward, you have to be looking in the LED, press down on the EV button and rotate the main command dial. I found it best to simply stop, go to Live View, hold the bottom of the housing in one hand and perform the press and rotate until it looked "ok" in the display, then start shooting. It's very hard to do on the fly, unless you plan ahead to edit these few seconds out. You can see what EV setting is by the number on the bottom right of the display. It's plus or minus by the little icon under "Exit."

 

Just remember when you exit Live View to shoot stills (or even turn the camera off), the EV is still set where you left it.

 

I've had issues with focusing. The 10-17 seems the best option as there is no autofocus. I've used the 105mm and set it to MF, then dial in or out until I can see something that is the same distance and looks sharp, but it's not reliable. Same for the 60mm. Even on the 10-17, I think it pays to focus while in still mode and then switch on LV. Otherwise hold the shutter at half press until you get a green square. Press carefully, too much and you take a picture and jump out of LV. I don't think this latter is very accurate, based on some trials topside. The AF in still mode seems much more reliable; it's really hard for me to tell if the focus is sharp through the display.

 

It's a nice extra feature, and the more I play with it the more I like having it. I know it eats battery to be in LV but with a full charge I got three dives on one battery, with about 50 short video clips (10 sec to 1 minute each) and about 60 stills

Edited March 14, 2010 by Bruce Zavon

[Drew 0]

Though I can't really remember precisely since I tested this more than 1.3 years ago, I believe with the D90's video modes (and all of the Nikon range except maybe the D3s), ISO and Shutter Speed is still automatically shifting even in video manual mode and will override all inputs except when you used AE Lock which holds down some of the. That is why using exposure compensation works sometimes.

So you may think you've got it set at ISO200 but it could be something else, and the shutter speed as well. F11 on a fisheye is pretty redundant since the DOF will have pretty much everything in focus. I'd focus at about 4-5ft away and use f5.6. That should have pretty much anything in the visible range in focus, unless you are shooting CFWA.

[bpzdiver 0]

Finally got a short video up showing off the D90 now that I see how it works. Tokina 10-17 set at 10mm, ev at -1.0, Magic Filter in 25-30 fsw in the shallows at Red Slave, Bonaire.

 

Scads of Scads at Red Slave

[Cp 29]

Cool!

 

Finally got a short video up showing off the D90 now that I see how it works. Tokina 10-17 set at 10mm, ev at -1.0, Magic Filter in 25-30 fsw in the shallows at Red Slave, Bonaire.

 

Scads of Scads at Red Slave

[Bigeye Bubblefish 7]

Finally got a short video up showing off the D90 now that I see how it works. Tokina 10-17 set at 10mm, ev at -1.0, Magic Filter in 25-30 fsw in the shallows at Red Slave, Bonaire.

 

Scads of Scads at Red Slave

 

What were your settings. I tried to shoot a video in manual mode, and it was really overexposed... bad really bad.

[bpzdiver 0]

What were your settings. I tried to shoot a video in manual mode, and it was really overexposed... bad really bad.

 

As I wrote above, you just need to adjust the exposure compensation. Shutter speed and aperture set for stills don't seem to make any difference. I did use Magic Filter here too because I knew the ball was not deep. Don't think it would help if deeper than 50 feet.

Edited March 15, 2010 by Bruce Zavon

[Ryan 57]

Nice Job!

 

D90 (and D300s) is Auto Everything (well amost, not focus) in Video Mode. Auto f-stop, Auto shutter speed, Auto ISO, Auto White Balance.

 

You can correct for over exposure induced cyan casting with EV compensation. Unfortuanately, the exposure will still jump around based on lighting conditions changing, and because the iris isn't step-less the exposure changes are jerky (I saw the changes at :21, :34, and :40 in your video). The best way to get around this is to set exposure compensation to -1 or so, then lock exposure with AE-L while recording a clip to keep it from jumping around.

[bpzdiver 0]

Nice Job!

 

D90 (and D300s) is Auto Everything (well amost, not focus) in Video Mode. Auto f-stop, Auto shutter speed, Auto ISO, Auto White Balance.

 

You can correct for over exposure induced cyan casting with EV compensation. Unfortuanately, the exposure will still jump around based on lighting conditions changing, and because the iris isn't step-less the exposure changes are jerky (I saw the changes at :21, :34, and :40 in your video). The best way to get around this is to set exposure compensation to -1 or so, then lock exposure with AE-L while recording a clip to keep it from jumping around.

 

Thanks Ryan, I got all the other pieces figured out (except adding music) and so I'm just one right thumb button away from taking great video! LOL. OK, good video.

Edited March 16, 2010 by Bruce Zavon

[sideways 3]

Sorry for the slow response guys...12 days into the Thailand trip now I'm heading to the Similans tomorrow night, I'll experiment with the EV comp for sure. I did shoot some more shots at about 15m, Man, and f5.6 and had decent results. Thanks for all the great advice!!!!!

 

Greg

[Segerdahl 0]

D90 (and D300s) is Auto Everything (well amost, not focus) in Video Mode. Auto f-stop, Auto shutter speed, Auto ISO, Auto White Balance.

 

Ryan, this is not true!

 

Well, I don't know much about the D90, but the D300s is _not_ Auto Everything in Video Mode.

 

+ If you are in Aperture priority mode prior to going to Live View, then the selected Aperture (in A mode) will be the aperture used in the video recording (it's described in the manual).

+ The White Balance set in camera will be used in the video recording. You can even directly see the result of altering the white balance in Live View mode.

+ The AutoFocus works while recording. Yes it's slow, but it's very precise.

Edited April 22, 2010 by Segerdahl

[Drew 0]

Well Segerdahl, he's more right than wrong. I think you took him too literally. I think when he means auto everything, he means the camera still has some auto function when you've set many settings with modes, EC etc. I believe all Nikon cameras have auto shutter and ISO modes, so in effect it's still "auto everything". Which means it's useless for anyone who wants full control of the camera.

[Segerdahl 0]

Well Segerdahl, he's more right than wrong. I think you took him too literally. I think when he means auto everything, he means the camera still has some auto function when you've set many settings with modes, EC etc. I believe all Nikon cameras have auto shutter and ISO modes, so in effect it's still "auto everything". Which means it's useless for anyone who wants full control of the camera.

 

Well to me it's a major difference to Auto Everything and Semi Automatic where you can set Aperture, White Balance and use Auto-Focus (while filming). I'm pretty sure many "readers" didn't get that. But, sure, if you absolutely need to control every single parameter, then that is not possible (and both annoying and totally strange! shame on you Nikon!). Again it is semi automatic, and the most important parameters are there and on top of that you can lock the exposure and even exposure compensate. I have used it on land (for video) very successfully but have yet to bring it under water (the new D300s uw-housing will arrive today!).

Edited April 23, 2010 by Segerdahl

[Ryan 57]

I should clarify, as I was in one case totally wrong, and in another partly.

 

White balance settings do work, including preset white balance, in video modes.

 

They day I received my d300s I did a quick test to determine whether or not the information on p. 58 was correct, and I didn't notice the f/16 note. I set the f-stop to f22, pressed dof preview, noted the size of the physical aperture, then pressed live view, and noted that it was bigger, so I assumed incorrectly that the information in the manual was wrong. Lesson learned.

 

Mostly automatic would be more appropriate term.

[Segerdahl 0]

I should clarify, as I was in one case totally wrong, and in another partly.

 

White balance settings do work, including preset white balance, in video modes.

 

They day I received my d300s I did a quick test to determine whether or not the information on p. 58 was correct, and I didn't notice the f/16 note. I set the f-stop to f22, pressed dof preview, noted the size of the physical aperture, then pressed live view, and noted that it was bigger, so I assumed incorrectly that the information in the manual was wrong. Lesson learned.

 

Mostly automatic would be more appropriate term.

 

Glad that you confirmed that it is possible to manually set aperture in video mode. Not sure why you did such a complicated test though. A simpler and very straight forward test would be (perhaps others would like to test) to in Aperture mode (before you press LiveView) select the largest aperture. Then go into LiveMode and press record. Notice the short depth of field. Then exit LiveView mode and select the smallest aperture, go to LiveView mode and start recording. Now you will easily see the large depth of field.

 

Being able to manually setting the aperture to control the depth of field is very useful when recording video. Both on land and under water.

Being able to manually set the white balance is really good, especially when you are recording underwater in natural/ambient light (i.e. no light sources other than the sun).

This in combination with exposure compensation and exposure lock makes it possible to get in control of the video recording.

Don't forget that you can also control things like contrast, colors etc by altering the color setting modes in the camera (the same settings that are used for jpg-recording).

FPS is fix to 24 fps, so if you are OK with that, that's fine.

Being able to use the autofocus while recording is nice.

 

So, even though you can't control ISO and speed, I'd call it mostly manual ;-).

 

Don't get me wrong, I would have very much appreciated the control of speed and ISO, but I think we should concentrate on what we really can control and how to optimize the controls with the D90 and D300s. People with Canon D-SLRs seems to do tons of uw-video and upload really nice looking uw-videos all over the net. The D90 uw-video above is the first one I've seen! Don't forget that the D90 was released before any Canon D-SLRs could do video.

 

Recording video is not super easy even with an expensive Canon 5D Mark II. They have many of the "problems" that we with D90 and D300s have. But, they have found ways to overcome the problems. Special settings (go for a large DOF), special lenses (rectinal wide angles), special video techniques (sloooow movements etc), setting the focus prior to recording, planning your video shot, manually white balancing every 5th meter etc etc etc. Most of those tricks are possible for D90 and D300s owers too.

 

This thread started out as a "how to" record video on the D90 and I have no intention of changing it into an "who's wrong and who's right" thread. So, please people keep posting your tips and trix on how to optimize our uw-videos with D90 and D300s D-SLRs. I started with a bounch above, please add as many as all of you can think of and finally please post some more uw-videos taken with a D90 and D300s (I will hopefully make my first try next week in the dark waters of the Swedish west coast). Why not try both macro and wide angle. I'm sure it's possible.

 

Finally, as with all uw-photography "if it was easy, it wouldn't be any fun". ;-)

Edited April 24, 2010 by Segerdahl

[bpzdiver 0]

The D90 uw-video above is the first one I've seen!

 

 

Now "New and Improved!" I took a number of shots and built a little iMovieHD of the baitball, added royalty free music. iMovieHD is really easy.

 

I am going to try some of your suggestions next dive, see what is adjustable on the D90. Thanks.

 

HD Video of Scads of Scads

[Segerdahl 0]

Now "New and Improved!" I took a number of shots and built a little iMovieHD of the baitball, added royalty free music. iMovieHD is really easy.

 

I am going to try some of your suggestions next dive, see what is adjustable on the D90. Thanks.

 

HD Video of Scads of Scads

 

Wow, very impressive and what a dive (I will probably not see any fish on my dive next week)!!!

You did a great job behind the camera as well as behind the computer (very nice edited and nice music).

 

Now, suggestions for fututre improvements:

My guess is that you did not lock exposure. It feels as it's altered during the scene and it's a little annoying.

I also find most of it slightly over exposured. Not that it's burned out, but it would look nicer (and does in a few scenes) if the image was darker. I guess it's the extremely bright sand that makes it extra hard on the camera.

Finally, it's rather "jumpy"... hmm not sure I use the correct word here... anyone?? It's not shaky, you are very steady (well done!). I think it's either because it's a very complex scene (tons of things moving) or it's the conversion to Vimeo that caused it (happens way too often). Is it as jumpy before uploading to Vimeo? If so, perhaps you could experiment with different export settings?

 

BTW, for anyone watching the vimeo clip, make sure you have set HD ON and Scale OFF.

Edited April 24, 2010 by Segerdahl

[Segerdahl 0]

Another tips, for recording video:

 

As an alternative to or in combination with exposure adjustment, note that you can also move around the red focus square using the multi controller. Apart from changing the position for the liveview autofocus, it also changed the position from where the camera will measure the light. So, if you are filming a fish in the foreground at the edge of the frame and the background is rather bright, it's a good idea to move the focus frame to the fish. You might have to add some exposure adjustments as well, but it's a good start. You can actually do this while recording video (filming) but I don't recommend it. Better do it first, then maybe add some exposure compensation, press Exposure Lock and then press record.

 

I experimented some with Spot, Matrix and Avage exposure measuring but could not see any difference. Can you?

Edited April 25, 2010 by Segerdahl

[Drew 0]

I think Nikon uses Matrix only no matter what the setting is.

[Segerdahl 0]

I think Nikon uses Matrix only no matter what the setting is.

 

Based on practical experience, I'd think you are right.

 

Another thing, related to video recording. I have both an D300 and D300s and even though only the D300s has a video mode, both have the LiveView modes. I always hated the tripod mode's "contrast-detect AF" as it was not only dead slow, it was really bad and mostly failed. So I stopped using it. I used LiveView either in Tripod mode either for manual focus or in Handheld mode (works great UW with wide angle and non moving objects). As the D300s has AF while recording video, I tested that. It only work with (of course) the contrast detect AF. The thing is that (and I think I wrote that above) it's not all that bad. I't actually pretty good. Yesterday I felt I had to redo the contrast detect AF tests and tested the D300 against the D300s, using the same everything (lenses, light, settings etc). To my big surprise, the D300s really rocks and the D300 really sucks in this area. I am surprised that it has not been pushed at as a major improvement. Sure, it's not fast if you compare to the phase detect AF, but... I have read that the D300s has a faster contrast detection AF than the D300, but I also read that it wasn't a big deal. But hey it really is! MUCH faster and much much more reliable. Not sure if it will work uw though (but I sure will try), but on land it's now a very useful feature.

I have no idea how other Nikons are in comparement though.

Edited April 26, 2010 by Segerdahl

[Segerdahl 0]

Continuing to add tips on how to optimize video recordings with Nikon D90 and D300s.

 

Not sharp!

I have been annoyed that the recorded video is not pin sharp. I know video is seldom as sharp as still photo and mostly you are OK with that. But... I was not happy with the result. So, I simply tested to change the Sharpness parameter. I set it all the way up (9 on the D300s) and recorded some video. Wow, now the movie was super duper sharp!!! :-))

 

Noise:

Yep, some noise was added when pushing the sharpness parameter to its maximum. But it wasn't that much, and, as the default position of the sharpness parameter is as low as 2, I'm sure I can find a sweet spot between sharpness and noise.

I expected to see much added compression artifact but that didn't happen. :-)

 

Noise reduction:

I have also experimented with the noise reduction parameter, but I can't see that it does anything in video mode. Anyone?

 

Saturation:

Both contrast and saturation parameters affects the recording alot. Maybe one should be a little careful with the contrast parameter (depending on the ligthening situation) but I'm pretty sure that boosting the saturation parameter some will add a nice touch to uw-videos. Especially when recording in natural/ambient light. Has anyone tested to experiment with those uw?