Nauticam Shogun Housing is here

[peterbkk 110]

It took a while for Nauticam to sort out a few issues but finally I received my Nauticam Shogun housing this week. I'm not going to write a full review. I'll leave that to those better qualified. But here are some photos and first impressions. After a few days diving in Lembeh at the end of this month, I will give an update on how it performs in action.

 

Of course, the Shogun monitor is great for seeing what you are shooting and being able to record ProRes HQ 422 10 bit video puts it into the realm of much more expensive systems.

 

 

Firstly, the NA-Shogun is big. Needs to be big to allow room for the Shogun, a big Sony battery and some cooling fans. This system is not for the casual videographer. However, with bigness comes stability. The addition of this housing, line astern from the camera housing, will definitely help overcome some of the "pitch" stability issues inherent in the "still" camera format when shooting handheld video. It also adds a lot more mass (but not in-water weight) - great for stability.

 

Secondly, it is well-engineered. All the housing functions are available, except the menu - but then you should not need to play with the Shogun menu underwater. The function buttons give you control over focus assist, histograms, etc. The "overhead" mount bar give a lot of flexibility for positioning. The HDMI cable seems to be solid - if you are careful with aligning the plugs. It includes a full leak detection and vacuum system. The base plate provides many options for mounting legs for macro. Note: the housing does not actually connect to the base plate. The overhead arm holds the monitor housing. The base plate stops the whole rig from falling over with the weight of the Shogun housing. It's also for connecting legs. (Once I have worked out my preferred viewing angle, I might add a rubber-stopper to the base plate to give the bottom of the Shogun housing something to rest on - not necessary but might stop any wobble through the arm.)

 

 

Thirdly, it took me a while to get it set up the first time. But that's probably my incompetence - it's been a while since I played with Meccano. Now that I know how to do it, I can get it done in about 20 minutes. But, of course, you only need to set it up once at the beginning of a dive trip - you can do everything you need to do inside the camera housing and the Shogun housing with them all connected together.

 

Fourthly, unassembled, the GH4 in its housing / port and the Shogun in its housing, two video lights and their arms and some accessories all fit into a large carry-on size photo backpack. No need to check it in. If my checked luggage is delayed, I can still go diving and shoot, at least for a couple of hours.

 

 

The Shogun battery (Sony NP-970) lasts about 90 minutes of run time - maybe longer. There's space inside the housing to look at putting in an extended battery system for longer. A 1Tb SSD holds 2 hours and 20 minutes of ProRes HQ 422 10 bit video.

 

This coming weekend I will test it in a pool (maybe my fish pond) and get the buoyancy and balance right. I think that it needs a 1kg dive weight strapped under the rear of the rig - the Shogun housing is positively buoyant but the GH4 housing is slightly negative - together they still float. A dive weight and a cable-tie should fix it.

 

Then it's off to Lembeh to see if it is worth the investment. I'll keep you posted.

 

Regards

Peter

 

Edited May 6, 2015 by peterbkk

[thetrickster 328]

Looks great Peter! Not has big as I thought it would be!

 

Will be interested to hear what you think of ProRes220 compared to the internal recording for underwater. Some 'straight from the camera' samples for us to play with, would be lovely to see how underwater clips can be pushed

 

I really like the new monitoring tools the Shogun has compared to my Ninja - plus the ability to load LUTS and preview them live.

 

Once the VLog appears - the combo should be very powerful and flexible

 

- Very jealous!

[Davide DB 597]

Nice rig Peter,

 

On a side note, do you really have a complete rig into that photo backpack?

Have you some other photo?

 

Bye

[peterbkk 110]

Nice rig Peter,

 

On a side note, do you really have a complete rig into that photo backpack?

Have you some other photo?

 

Bye

Yes, everything is in there to shoot about 90 minutes of underwater footage with the GH4 and the Shogun, after which the Shogun battery and the lights batteries (at 50% power) would be dead. I could shoot another hour or two without the Shogun and lights. In the backpack is the GH4 Camera, lens, port, housing, Shogun, monitor housing with arm and base, light arms, lights. Don't have spare batteries or chargers - they have to travel in checked luggage. It's already quite heavy. It's well over 7kg, probably about double. But, in Asia the carry-on bag is rarely weighed and, even if it was, you can usually talk your way around it.

 

My theory is this: every time I have had a lost luggage issue, it always shows up in 24 hours. So I just need to get through one day with borrowed dive gear before everything arrives. Just need enough in my backpack to get through a night-dive and one or two day dives. OK, the theory has flaws but it is a good compromise. Plus, with all the expensive and sensitive stuff in my backpack, I know that will arrive in good condition.

 

Regards

Peter

[kc_moses 142]

The price!!!!!

[peterbkk 110]

The price!!!!!

The alternatives for achieving this level of quality are two or three times more expensive and cannot be carried into a plane cabin.

 

In my next life I will play table tennis. Much cheaper equipment and a lot less to carry. But, in this life....

[kkfok 24]

Does 10bit 422 really help you in color correcting underwater footage?

[kc_moses 142]

Does 10bit 422 really help you in color correcting underwater footage?

 

Not by much. I think the Black Magic Ursa Mini would be a better way to go since it shoot RAW, have more dynamic range and can do 60 fps. Will have to see the review of the Ursa, size, battery performance and housing. I just think the GH4 doesn't really need the Shogun, and the Sony A7S must have the Shogun since the Sony's low light performance make it a great camera. The GH4 can't push past ISO 800 in most of the scene.

[Davide DB 597]

I really do not understand this kind of replies. Always adulating The next big thing.

I would never be so tranchant on something. 800 ISO? Hence I'm a fool shooting 1000 ISO on a 5 year old GH2?

 

Moreover most of you shoot critters in tropical waters and cry about low light performance?

 

Come on guys come back on earth!!!

[kc_moses 142]

Are you comparing GH2 ISO 1000 with GH4 ISO800? I suggest you go find some ISO 800 4K underwater clip shot by GH4 and check out the noise (watch it in 4K monitor so you get the 1:1 result)

 

kkfok and I both confirmed that shooting 4K at ISO800 will have more noise, we both use LX100, I have shot with GH4 and it's the same problem:

 

http://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=55238&p=358879

 

The Ursa Mini is not the NEXT big thing, it's only months away, I'm not talking about GH5. My reply simply imply that RAW footage grade better then 10 bit 4:2:2 and the Ursa has it.

 

Bottom line if you're getting the result that you're happy with, just stick with what you have.

 

Also, check this out in term of 10 bit 4:2:2 vs 8 bit 4:2:0 grading:

 

https://vimeo.com/116275533

Edited May 10, 2015 by kc_moses

[peterbkk 110]

Does 10bit 422 really help you in color correcting underwater footage?

 

Caveat: I'm not a "techie" so I don't get into detailed technical comparisons. But I am a quality freak so I look for ways of pushing the visual quality of the output.

 

In a complex lighting situation like underwater, being able to make color and exposure adjustments is important for quality results. We also need to deal with a large range of light and colour gradients. And we need to capture good, steady in-focus footage in an environment where everything is in motion.

 

The Shogun gives 4 major advantages over just using the GH4 alone:

1. 10bit cf 8bit: thousands more "interim" colours to catch the subtle changes - very useful for light to dark gradients, gives more latitude in editing
2. ProRes HQ verses GH4's internal compression - a lot more "almost loss-less" original imagery to play with (but you need more disk space to store it)
3. A great big monitor with adjustable viewing positioning and excellent focus-assist and histogram features to ensure that you are capturing in-focus / properly exposed footage
4. A rig that has a lot more stability, especially in the "pitch" dimension (of course, you don't NEED the Shogun for this - just an added advantage

I will know for sure after my upcoming trip to Lembeh how much advantage these factors provide in a real diving situation.

 

However, yesterday I dropped the rig into my fishpond. It's about a meter deep, murky with greenish / muddyish water.

 

I loaded the footage into FCPX and dragged a color-corection effect on to it. Normally, with footage straight out of the GH4, you can push the exposure sliders up to about 10% before the quality of the image starts to deteriorate. With the ProRes HQ 10bit footage, yesterday, I could push it up to 20% without any issues.

 

Let's see how it works in Lembeh...

 

Regards

Peter

[peterbkk 110]

 

Not by much. I think the Black Magic Ursa Mini would be a better way to go since it shoot RAW, have more dynamic range and can do 60 fps. Will have to see the review of the Ursa, size, battery performance and housing. I just think the GH4 doesn't really need the Shogun, and the Sony A7S must have the Shogun since the Sony's low light performance make it a great camera. The GH4 can't push past ISO 800 in most of the scene.

 

So, you are saying that I'm a complete idiot for buying the Shogun and its housing?

 

Just wait for Black Magic, yes? Because they've been so reliable in delivering on their promises before...

 

Regards

Peter

[kc_moses 142]

 

So, you are saying that I'm a complete idiot for buying the Shogun and its housing?

 

Just wait for Black Magic, yes? Because they've been so reliable in delivering on their promises before...

 

Regards

Peter

 

I'm saying that you are generous enough to test it for the community Which we gladly appreciate especially Nauticam pushing the Shogun so hard with A7S and have Eric Cheung with Cristian Dimitrius be their A7S + Shugon testimonial, yet no one is doing Shugon + GH4 field test.

 

I'm not saying Black Magic is the way to go, but it's worth to keep an eye on, especially for people who're on the fence on adding the Shogun onto their GH4. We all just have to play with what our budget allow. Some people think the Canon 1DX is what they want over the GH4+Shogun, we all make our own choices so it's part of the fun. Imagine if all divers on the boat shoot using the same camera? That would be boring.

[Interceptor121 843]

There are benefits of 4:2:2 compared to 4:2:0 when you do grading. However if the changes are too radical even 4:2:2 will result in artefacts. In terms of resolution the human eye sees mostly luma (black and white) chroma subsampling takes the color away from the image. 4:2:2 has full vertical and half horizontal color resolution 4:2:0 has half both ways. When it comes to grading considerations this has to be combined with the video codec. If you use uncompressed video and a 4:4:4 signal you can process signals as it was raw. If you use lossy codecs you also introduce compression artefacts. My key issue with the prores 4:2:2 10bjt is that 220 Mbps is not really that much and actually I'd rather get 100 Mbps h264 right in camera at 4:2:0. The noise considerations of h264 and 4K may depend by a number of factors one being the logic of small block that h264 applies keeps the grain noise in the picture. I think you want to get going with grading you need 4:4:4 and raw or camera dng for the normal user h265 when available with color right on camera will produce excellent results. I would instead consider prores 4:2:2 for 1080p signals as 220 Mbps is a good data rate for HD

[casbba 18]

How do you go about operating the camera controls on the rear of the GH4 housing Peter (iso, WB up etc)? Do you have to raise the Shogun housing to access them, or are those functions transferred to the Shogun?

[edmond320 26]

How do you go about operating the camera controls on the rear of the GH4 housing Peter (iso, WB up etc)? Do you have to raise the Shogun housing to access them, or are those functions transferred to the Shogun?

Hi,

At the GH4 housing next to the right handle, Nauticam reroute and designed a dedicate push button for ISO, trigger lever for AE-L/AF-L, and so as the WB.

So basically, you don't need to remove your hand from the handle and about to full control of the camera.

 

Regards

Edmond

[A.Y. 15]

Does 10bit 422 really help you in color correcting underwater footage?

 

GH4/Shogun 10bit 422 and 8bit 422 are both capable of producing great results even when pushed hard, but not so much with 8bit 420: GH4/Shogun 10bit 422 vs. GH4/Shogun 8bit 422 vs. GH4 8bit 420.

Edited May 12, 2015 by A.Y.

[peterbkk 110]

How do you go about operating the camera controls on the rear of the GH4 housing Peter (iso, WB up etc)? Do you have to raise the Shogun housing to access them, or are those functions transferred to the Shogun?

 

The controls that are used regularly during the dive, like start-stop, auto-focus-lock, aperture, shutter speed, WB are all accessible without taking the right hand off the handle. Checking focus, exposure and color qualities now are done visually on the huge Shogun monitor.

 

The controls on the rear of the NA GH4 housing, like menu and the four-way dial, can be reached with the Shogun housing in the "line astern" position as there is plenty of space between the back of the GH4 housing and the front of the Shogun housing. I can easily put my gloved fingers between the two housings.

 

However, if you need to see the GH4 monitor, you have two choices. You can peer over the top of the Shogun housing and see the GH4 monitor from above. This should be OK for confirming the settings that you are changing, like ISO or WB. Or you can quickly flip the Shogun housing up to look directly at the GH4 screen. You might need to do this if you are going into the GH4 menus (which I never do underwater)

 

In practice, I don't expect to ever need to flip the Shogun housing up while underwater. I don't change ISO often - nearly always on 200. I might change WB a few times during a dive but I have my usual WB settings preset into the 4 slots so it's easy to pull the WB lever with the right index finger and press the right-most 4-way button to step through the WB presets. You can see if you have reached the best WB preset by looking at the colors on the Shogun monitor.

 

I also use the 3 custom settings to move between 3 preset parameters - a good way to go back to a known starting position if you've changed controls. For example, if I've been shooting in open greenish water and made some adjustments to a few settings and then I pop into a small cave lit only by my video lights, twisting the mode dial on the top of the housing, one click forward then one click back, I'm immediately back at ISO 200 and WB Auto and SS 1/50s, etc.

 

So, I'm quite confident that I can easily and quickly change what I need to change but let's see how it works out in practice...

 

Regards

Peter

[Interceptor121 843]

 

GH4/Shogun 10bit 422 and 8bit 422 are both capable of producing great results even when pushed hard, but not so much with 8bit 420: GH4/Shogun 10bit 422 vs. GH4/Shogun 8bit 422 vs. GH4 8bit 420.

The image and article you have quoted only shows that 4:2:2 has less banding as you would expect. It also shows that the difference between 8 and 10 bit on that image makes little difference because is monochrome

However once you start making color corrections banding will come back if you are too far. So for 4:2:0 you should try to get the color right in camera for 4:2:2 you can do a bit more especially at 10 bits but with 220 Mbps pro res not so much more ad you may think at 4K. 220 Mbps at 1080p instead should give excellent results. This is because Prores is not temporally compressed so it's like a collection of jpegs. At 220 Mbps you only have 1.14 MB for each frame at 24p. If a 1080p screen is usually 2 MB having 1.14 MB per frame is quite good. If you have 4K it is quite a drop from 8 MB to 1.14 MB. There will be much more color left in the 1080p prores 422. Prores hq 422 is designed for 1080p not for 4K so it will be interesting to see how things turn out

[A.Y. 15]

 

GH4/Shogun segment starts at 23:45 and at 27:00 a 4K side by side comparison, showing aggrassive grading, using the following settings: GH4/Shogun 10bit 422, GH4/Shogun 8bit 422, and GH4 8bit 420

 

 

This is what Shogun 4K 8bit 422 ProRes HQ can produce.

 

Wetpixel members are smart enough to see with their own eyes to determind whether a codec is good for 4K or not, they certainly don't need to be told what to believe!

[kkfok 24]

 

GH4/Shogun 10bit 422 and 8bit 422 are both capable of producing great results even when pushed hard, but not so much with 8bit 420: GH4/Shogun 10bit 422 vs. GH4/Shogun 8bit 422 vs. GH4 8bit 420.

Thanks guys, after used LX100 in a trip I miss my 5D3 with magic lantern installed very much.

I need a 4K camera with better low light and with more gradable output. EOS-1Dc or A7S/GH4 with Shogun...I will make up my mind before my next trip, thanks.

[Interceptor121 843]

 

GH4/Shogun segment starts at 23:45 and at 27:00 a 4K side by side comparison, showing aggrassive grading, using the following settings: GH4/Shogun 10bit 422, GH4/Shogun 8bit 422, and GH4 8bit 420

 

 

This is what Shogun 4K 8bit 422 ProRes HQ can produce.

 

Wetpixel members are smart enough to see with their own eyes to determind whether a codec is good for 4K or not, they certainly don't need to be told what to believe!

Do you think a land scene where minimal correction is applied is a good way to demonstrate how an underwater clip would react to grading?

[edmond320 26]

Just go out and shoot with what you have !!

Have a great dive !!

 

Regards

Edmond

Edited May 15, 2015 by edmond320

[peterbkk 110]

 

Wetpixel members are smart enough to see with their own eyes to determind whether a codec is good for 4K or not, they certainly don't need to be told what to believe!

Hi A.Y.,

 

Well said. You are right. I'm increasingly frustrated by some people in this forum who post opinions that are not based on experience or knowledge.

 

You know, when I first started learning and sharing on WetPixel Video a few years ago, we had many active members with deep experience and knowledge. I got some great advice. But most of those people are now gone. Why? Well, I have only discussed it with a couple of those departed people and they both said the same thing. They got pissed off by some of the newer members who have opinions but no experience or knowledge; People who just read something on the Internet and regurgitate it here. We see some examples in this thread. Sometimes I think it's going to drive me away too.

 

I urge everyone who posts here to think carefully before you post opinions, suppositions and unverified information. Do you really know something for a fact. Or just read it. It's OK to have opinions or even regurgitate what you've read. But declare it. Like, "I don't know for sure but I wonder if ..." Or, "I read this story by Xxxxxxx on website Yyyyyyyy and he said ..."

 

Think before you post.

 

Regards

Peter

Edited May 15, 2015 by peterbkk

[A.Y. 15]

Peter, you put together a system so many professional filmmakers are raving about, I'm eagerly waiting to find out how it will perform underwater.

Yes, I hear you. Hiding behind a fake name with no reputation to protect, one particular member's negative attitute toward others has turned participating here an exacerbating experience.