Canon R5 Underwater Cinema

[WilsonMc 0]

Hey has anyone had the chance to film some 4K 120 or 8K 24 underwater with the new canon R5? I would love to see some sample footage of Pelagics or reefs. Thanks!!! Just got my hands on one and now I have to pull the trigger on the housing, dome port etc etc

[ChrisRoss 150]

Moved to Video Gear and Technique.

 

[RuudStelten 10]

Just did my first dive with the R5 and thought I'd share some sample footage (youtube links below). It's nothing special, just a few different scenes to give you a feel for the image quality. I have the camera in a Nauticam housing with ZEN 230mm dome, using the RF 15-35mm.

Settings on all these videos: 4K 30p, HQ mode (oversampled from 8K), ALL-I compression, Canon Log on. Files were edited in Premiere and exported in maximum render quality.

Footage was shot on St. Eustatius in the Dutch Caribbean. All videos are shot at around 70 ft depth, conditions were not great: it was an overcast day, still early in the morning, so not a lot of light or colors available at that depth. No artificial light was used, just ambient light. I used a white slate to manually white balance the footage, which is a bit of a hassle on the R5.

Taking into account these low-light conditions, I think the camera produced some fantastic video. I am sure though the footage will be much more vibrant in shallow water with more sunlight.

Interested to hear what you think. Happy to upload more footage with different settings next week if anyone is interested.

 

 

 

 

 

[bghazzal 90]

Wow - this is stunning Ruud, beautiful colours and dynamics, thanks for for sharing these. Impressive results on the R5!
I really love the colour balance of well shot ambient light video, wish there was more of this around.

[michaelgeyer 3]

Have you seen this:

 

 

 

 

 

[Interceptor121 843]

There is really a limited benefit to high megapixel full frame cameras underwater. Although you may get excited when you own one of those toys the reality is most scenes have little to no contrast, not much colour and water destroys resolution

So a lower megapixel count cropped format at the end produces same or even better result at lower cost. I don't see this changing any time soon

[TimG 62]

44 minutes ago, Interceptor121 said:

So a lower megapixel count cropped format at the end produces same or even better result at lower cost. I don't see this changing any time soon

I'm with you on that one. Having moved "down" (?) from FF (D800) to DX (D500) I'm really happy with it - smaller domes, easier to get sharp wide-angle results and an easier and cheaper choice of lenses. Cheaper. What is there not to love? Or miss?

[Interceptor121 843]

40 minutes ago, TimG said:

I'm with you on that one. Having moved "down" (?) from FF (D800) to DX (D500) I'm really happy with it - smaller domes, easier to get sharp wide-angle results and an easier and cheaper choice of lenses. Cheaper. What is there not to love? Or miss?

Nothing really the full frame use case is low light or extremely high dynamic range for landscapes

None of those situations exist underwater. The fluid dampens dynamic range and most times you lack contrast and low light means low no colour so you introduce artificial lighting anyway

Once you balance those two and operate at constrained depth of field full frame offers no benefit to the average user than a cropped format

Obviously if you remove bulk and start looking at WACP type of equipment the situation changes but just plugging a standard full frame in a dome even large does not really move the needle anywhere

[RuudStelten 10]

Here are a few more R5 sample videos, shot with the same settings as I had in the previous post. This time I used the EF 8-15mm fisheye lens. Depth this time was in the 55-60 ft range, sunny conditions.

 

 

[John Doe II 16]

These have a really nice "look" to them. Are these clips graded? If so in what and how heavily?

[John Doe II 16]

On 1/28/2021 at 12:43 PM, Interceptor121 said:

 

Obviously if you remove bulk and start looking at WACP type of equipment the situation changes 

How so 121?

What do you mean by "remove bulk" and if using the WACP type equipment what do you mean by "the situation changes"

Interested in your thoughts.

[Interceptor121 843]

How so 121?
What do you mean by "remove bulk" and if using the WACP type equipment what do you mean by "the situation changes"
Interested in your thoughts.

The WACP allows you to shoot at wider aperture
The cost is very high and the bulk even more so you need to consider that
I see it an option for a resident professional guy but not for a hobbyist or someone travelling a lot


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[John Doe II 16]

1 minute ago, Interceptor121 said:

The WACP allows you to shoot at wider aperture
The cost is very high and the bulk even more so you need to consider that
I see it an option for a resident professional guy but not for a hobbyist or someone travelling a lot


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Right understood 121. But do you think the WACP gives a sharper image? Sure the edges clean up quite a bit but do you think they give more then just sharp corners?

[Interceptor121 843]

Right understood 121. But do you think the WACP gives a sharper image? Sure the edges clean up quite a bit but do you think they give more then just sharp corners?

Allowing more light in always result in higher dynamic range and better performance. You gain at least 2 stops so you have equalised the land benefit of full frame
When you operate traditional optics the full frame benefit is essentially zeroed


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[John Doe II 16]

Depends on the lens I guess. Every lens has its "sweet spot". But then again, underwater is a whole different paradigm.

Most lenses (but not all) are usually best at 2-3 stops closed down from fully open......so that Sigma 18-35 f1.8 is generally going to be sharpest at about f4. Getting out to f8 will generally be that the lens sharpness and other parameters are in decline at that point.

There are some lenses at thier absolute best 1 stop closed down from fully open. Others only sharpen up at f8/f11. 

But I guess the only lenses that matter with the WACP are the older ones recommended by Naughty Cam. I am not sure where the best performance on those lenses are.

I still think Nikonos are King of the Hill all things considered.

[Interceptor121 843]

Depends on the lens I guess. Every lens has its "sweet spot". But then again, underwater is a whole different paradigm.
Most lenses (but not all) are usually best at 2-3 stops closed down from fully open......so that Sigma 18-35 f1.8 is generally going to be sharpest at about f4. Getting out to f8 will generally be that the lens sharpness and other parameters are in decline at that point.
There are some lenses at thier absolute best 1 stop closed down from fully open. Others only sharpen up at f8/f11. 
But I guess the only lenses that matter with the WACP are the older ones recommended by Naughty Cam. I am not sure where the best performance on those lenses are.
I still think Nikonos are King of the Hill all things considered.

Sharper on land doesn’t correspond to underwater
Operating at constrained depth of field removes advantage of large formats. This is true on land and underwater.
With regards to actual sharpness achievable in water there are no studies that I am aware but if people get great result with lenses like tokina which is absolutely horrid and soft it means sharpness drops considerably
Wet lenses preserve sharpness so a wet lens and average zoom may be better than a great lens behind a dome
Underwater photographers are not usually skilled on physics nor optics so they just look how a picture comes out there is very limited data available


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[John Doe II 16]

4 minutes ago, Interceptor121 said:

Wet lenses preserve sharpness so a wet lens and average zoom may be better than a great lens behind a dome


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

That seems to be crux of it. I have seen footage from high end cine lenses (40/50K lenses) attached to a red in a housing with a dome.....and the results are no better then a lower end setup. A lot depends on the operator.

 

However there is no getting away from physics. Water is one hell of a filter to shoot through.

Edited February 14, 2021 by John Doe II
Typo

[Interceptor121 843]

That seems to be crux of it. I have seen footage from high end cine lenses (40/50K lenses) attached to a red in a housing with a dome.....and the results are no better then a lower end setup. A lot depends on the operator.
 
However there is no getting away with physics. Water is one hell of a filter to shoot through.

Water reduces sharpness and contrast
So there is not much point optimising those factors in the camera
The average underwater scene has less dynamic range than what a camera can capture today using a standard mode
More important is to have codecs with a lot of bit depth 10 even 12 bits and as ‘RAW’ as possible as many tones are squashed in a very flat image
This is why sony or canon cameras without 10 bit 422 video will always be crap compared to the GH5
Now finally there are some 10 bits implementations and also prores raw and blackmagic has 12 bits so there is much more choice


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[John Doe II 16]

So we are holding out for a 16 bit RAW cam at a reasonable price.

By 2025, maybe, by 2030 16 bit RAW will be old school.

[Interceptor121 843]

So we are holding out for a 16 bit RAW cam at a reasonable price.
By 2025, maybe, by 2030 16 bit RAW will be old school.

Some people do dynamic range tests on video there are some issues with the process but results are comparable
The canon r5 has the same DR of the GH5 and likewise the R6
In essence the Panasonic Lumix S are the best cameras right now for video followed by Sony A7S3 that has some really bad quirks
The rest of new digital consumer cameras are not better than the GH5
BMPCC ZCAM even better but worse ergonomics and no IBIS
This is where we are right now if you want the best video orientated digital camera get Panasonic S1H the rest are far far away


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[rgilkes 11]

On 2/14/2021 at 5:02 AM, Interceptor121 said:

followed by Sony A7S3 that has some really bad quirks 

Real world a7S3 user here. What "really bad quirks" are you talking about and are you speaking from experience or from something you read online? I have come across none.

[Interceptor121 843]

1 minute ago, rgilkes said:

Real world a7S3 user here. What "really bad quirks" are you talking about and are you speaking from experience or from something you read online? I have come across none.

I do not own this camera so I do not have direct experience with it but you do not need that you can see some design choices and how they pan out when you understand how a camera functions.

Sony applies super strong noise reduction which tends to crush shadows and blacks in log mode. This comes from the fact gain is -10 dB under. It happens in all other modes but with less consequences. This also generates strong chroma noise in shadows so you need to make sure you exposure bright (which as side effect means destroying color accuracy)

Probably their approach is to bake in a lot of processing to that the average user gets great results straight out of camera or something that looks like great results. I do not like this approach so I don't buy Sony lots of people are happy though with this I am not as it can't be disabled so I don't buy into Sony in general

[rgilkes 11]

I would encourage you to test cameras before offering very strong opinions to users trying to evaluate a camera for real world use. It's pretty dishonest to tell people that the one camera you use is better than all the rest, not having tested them.

In regards to the a7SIII, Sony does do noise reduction (as do most cameras), but not to the point that shadows and blacks are getting crushed, as you stated. Plenty of latitude with S-Log 3 and a dual native ISO that kicks in at higher ISOs providing a super clean image in extreme low light.

[Interceptor121 843]

15 minutes ago, rgilkes said:

I would encourage you to test cameras before offering very strong opinions to users trying to evaluate a camera for real world use. It's pretty dishonest to tell people that the one camera you use is better than all the rest, not having tested them.

In regards to the a7SIII, Sony does do noise reduction (as do most cameras), but not to the point that shadows and blacks are getting crushed, as you stated. Plenty of latitude with S-Log 3 and a dual native ISO that kicks in at higher ISOs providing a super clean image in extreme low light.

The fact that Sony performs noise reduction that generates problem is a fact I also said the average user may like that but I do not

I am offering my opinion  and as such you can disagree with it but you need to accept it I am afraid

Edited February 15, 2021 by Interceptor121

[RuudStelten 10]

@John Doe II Thanks! Yes they were shot in C-log and graded in Premiere, not too heavily but obviously boosting contrast quite a bit and saturating specific colors a bit more...