![]() I have had the pleasure of using both the GoPro 6 Black and the GoPro 7 Black in many underwater situations, while diving and snorkeling in Southeast Asia. In fact, even Hollywood uses the GoPro for those hard-to-get shots. It is compact, affordable, and surprisingly powerful - allowing almost anyone to take it on a dive and get decent-quality video (depending on conditions and accessories used, of course). Grass Valley Edius and Final Cut Pro.The GoPro is the world's most popular underwater camera, and for good reason. ProRes 422 or 422HQ (this was necessary for reasonable recording time underwater, which was 9 minutes at these settings).Exposure Index 800 (chosen to look for noise in low light conditions).At T3.0 (wide open iris) the corners are soft, so it’s necessary to stop down This is a repackaged Tokina 11-16, a reasonably good rectilinear lens option. It is usable through the entire zoom range with the SP80-8 (8 inch) Dome Port. It has all the classic elements you’ve come to expect (bulletproof, precision ports, broad lens support, extensive accessories) but adds new features like 12 assignable buttons and a new, compact external monitor housing for the Transvideo Starlite. So to say that the MINI housing is one of the best Gates has ever produced is indeed high praise. Here at Gates our job is to find and correct issues before product launch. While accolades of the MINI housing will appear totally biased, I’m actually a harsh critic. Testing in tropical waters will be more revealing. While this is far from conclusive given the limited conditions at Catalina Island, it is encouraging. Mini’s showed no sign of the dreaded magenta issue. I expect easy grading and superb results. I look forward to further testing in different conditions and a proper WB SET function. Otherwise the Mini camera / ProRes codec captured detail and color that could be teased out in post. Only the Bat Ray shot generated noise, and that’s due to my severe grading. I am pleased how far I could adjust exposure and push the color grading before things fell apart. Playback straight from the camera is 1/2 speed. Mini allows setting bot a Project Frame Rate * and* a Clip Frame Rate (FPS). (Pete Lightowler – being far more adept at grading than me - says that DaVinci Resolve can reduce / eliminate noise with some built in tools). The first Bat Ray clip was aggressively graded and obvious noise appeared. Several clips are split screen showing before / after grading to illustrate the difference. This is classic behavior of rectilinear lenses. The Tube Anemone clip illustrates soft corners, the result of shooting the Sony 11-16 lens at full open iris. ![]() ![]() The second Bat Ray clip has an overexposed / clipped corner, which I could do nothing with in post. You’ll see on-screen highlights of two rookie mistakes I made while adjusting to the new rig. Visibility ranged 20-40 feet, with a ‘chalky’ look, acting like a soft filter to the some images which lack that ‘tack sharp’ look. With a preset color temp (7300), how much could I correct in post? This would give me an idea of what to expect from Mini when WB SET is actually available. This is important if you’re ‘baking in’ color correction to ProRes, Mini’s native recording format.That said, I took this as an opportunity. First, the prototype Mini camera firmware was limited, and did not include a WB SET function. This was a challenging shoot, for two reasons: ![]() J What follows are my comments and opinion about the housing and camera performance. This is a fun part of my job: testing all the new underwater rigs. ARRI ALEXA Mini & Gates MINI Housing – Initial Field Testsīob Cranston and I spent the weekend of July 11/12 diving Catalina Island with the new ALEXA Mini camera and Gates MINI housing. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |