Taras
08-14-2008, 08:26 PM
Thought I would drop in a quick note on some of my experience on a recent doco. we were filming.
We were following a team of technical divers who were trying to extend exploration of a cave system (approx. 6km long). The cave consists of several dry sumps a very long passages of wet cave.
The entrance lake was located approx. 300m inside the cave and the surrounding area was damp, muddy with lots of dust.
All the filming was undertaken with a Panasonic HVX202 camera and this included filming at the camp site, (which got down to -3 oc), filming within the dry cave sections, filming at the lake side and the majority of underwater filming. To get the required durations we filmed in 720p.
The filming conditions were as bad as I have experienced, very low light conditions, high contrast, light ‘eating’ limestone rock, high reflection etc. When planning for the trip I had though I would need to switch to SD for the cave and underwater shooting. We did however go a few days ahead of the expedition and set up all our equipment and dive gear. I invested quite a bit of time playing with the camera set-up.
The overall results are absolutely stunning!!, even the underwater sequences are amazing.
The camera operates without any issues, even when covered in dust, mud and high humidity. The camera was operating between the camera housing and dry cave sections and was exposed to high variation in humidity and temperature and it never missed a beat. For this type of work the solid state recording system is the way to go.
We also used the experience to test our prototype camera housing which was left in the cave the entire time. It is designed to be triple sealed throughout, but to push it to its limits we only used a single seal. The entire system worked far better than expected.
We should be posting a few clips on the website soon and I’ll pass on the details
We were following a team of technical divers who were trying to extend exploration of a cave system (approx. 6km long). The cave consists of several dry sumps a very long passages of wet cave.
The entrance lake was located approx. 300m inside the cave and the surrounding area was damp, muddy with lots of dust.
All the filming was undertaken with a Panasonic HVX202 camera and this included filming at the camp site, (which got down to -3 oc), filming within the dry cave sections, filming at the lake side and the majority of underwater filming. To get the required durations we filmed in 720p.
The filming conditions were as bad as I have experienced, very low light conditions, high contrast, light ‘eating’ limestone rock, high reflection etc. When planning for the trip I had though I would need to switch to SD for the cave and underwater shooting. We did however go a few days ahead of the expedition and set up all our equipment and dive gear. I invested quite a bit of time playing with the camera set-up.
The overall results are absolutely stunning!!, even the underwater sequences are amazing.
The camera operates without any issues, even when covered in dust, mud and high humidity. The camera was operating between the camera housing and dry cave sections and was exposed to high variation in humidity and temperature and it never missed a beat. For this type of work the solid state recording system is the way to go.
We also used the experience to test our prototype camera housing which was left in the cave the entire time. It is designed to be triple sealed throughout, but to push it to its limits we only used a single seal. The entire system worked far better than expected.
We should be posting a few clips on the website soon and I’ll pass on the details