Starting out

Not ignoring the other great advise that David and the others have put out there, and this may just be academic and cost prohibitive, but how about the F55? You kind of get "the best of both worlds", so to speak.

Smaller body that the F23/35/65.

Native 4K s35 global sensor(very similar CFA, etc. to the F65 sensor), but in the 2K/Center punch mode which essentially turns it into 16mm/ 2/3" sensor size you can use Digi-primes and other 2/3" glass with an adapter that only has to blow the image up ever so slightly to cover that center punch. So you can have a "smaller sensor" for underwater when you want it and still have a larger sensor when you want it, too.

Very good internal codecs giving you rez's from 720P to 4K & UHD, PLUS native bolt-on RAW recorder that does 2K and 4K 16-bit RAW.

The 55 is a very good "Swiss Army Knife" of a camera.
 
^ also not to forget SR codec 444, 480mbps XAVC, 3D LUTs, full 4K no crop @ 120fps with R7 or just 2K @ 120fps with R5, 4K out over SDI & HDMI for monitoring, simultaneous proxies, ProRes & DNxHD option board, and a silver mounting ring that looks nice.

Did I forget anything?
 
F55 is indeed just about the best Swiss army knife camera out there. But I'm not sure about giving him best of both worlds. It will never give him F35 mojo or C200 practicability. I think the F55 for him would not be best of both worlds but rather the old jack of all trades master of none.
 
Mr. Beam,

I have read through your entire thread here and I am left with more questions than answers.

1) What is your real budget?

2) How much underwater filming have you done?

3) Have you ever operated a "cine" camera?

Just my opinion but I think you owe this information to the seasoned professionals who have been giving you advice.
 
Well big things start from small beginnings.

Jim has started off right by asking needed questions.

With further research, investigation, testing, and a bit of gained experience, I'll bet he can accomplish something really special.
 
Jim_Beam said:
I dont think the autofocus would be much good underwater though, so there's that............
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Why? This is a big consideration. If AF works underwater, that would be a huge benefit and yet you casually dismiss it.

Jim_Beam said:
Its an interesting time to be a doco shooter............
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Or to dream of being one. I'm really wishing you luck with this, but it's a little painful to read your posts. How is it you are prepared to blow $20K on a housing but quibble over just hundreds of dollars for a used camera?

Jim_Beam said:
...It is an extremely niche audience for my output. Its super specialised. ............
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And let's not forget an apparently very patient crowd.

Jim_Beam said:
I also have to think about how this footage is going to be delivered as that has a bearing on how it should be shot. I really think that Bluray Disc via the snail mail is the way to go. Online is immediate but you can't give the quality. So this has to be thought about too as its no use shooting high bit rate 4K if you cant deliver that footage to the end user.............
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Yes! You must think of how it will be delivered. You're talking about shooting at a very high spec; 4:4:4, etc. The bit rate can go through the roof and then you have to deal with all that data; larger, faster memory cards ($$$). Hard drives are cheap, but you are not recording to hard drives. Do you have a work station that can edit with real time preview? Are you going to use proxies? How long will you get to shoot before your card fills up?

Jim_Beam said:
So much to think about..... and we think its getting better...........
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Indeed.

Look man, you're making this dream project more complicated than necessary. You have been given some very good advice on here. It seems you have put the cart before the horse in your planning. Start with the desired end result (video image quality, look, and delivery format) and work backwards. You are not even decided on how you will deliver. BluRay players are getting scarce. If you post on Vimeo.com, you can upload very high quality footage and enable it for download, so people can watch it in a higher quality then what Vimeo plays your video.

So many great cameras to choose from, that will give great results. So many 4K, autofocus, decent low-light cameras. Seems you've chosen the most complicated camera system, ever. (What, no 3D?) Nobody will care what you shot it on and you don't really even want them to be thinking of anything other than how great your video is. 4:2:2 10-bit is gradable. Why won't that work? Opens up more practical camera choices. You can probably get away with a much simpler gear list and workflow, and those are things that have a real impact on whether this project gets off the ground and is seen to completion or you finally get all your high spec gear together and then realize it's just too complicated to proceed. Maybe you can use some kind of filter (CPL, etc) to deal with the underwater light problems.

There will be other problems you need to solve once you get your gear. If it were me, I'd get some GoPros and do a proof of concept shoot, where I'd hire a small crew and boat and go out and get in the water with a GoPro and go down and shoot some little critters and see how it goes. What you would learn from this could save you a ton of grief later and you wouldn't be too heavily invested in what may well turn out to be totally unsuitable gear, yet.

Best of luck with your ideas, you certainly have the passion for it. Seriously, I'd like to see you follow through with it.

Mark
 
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My comment about auto focus was not that I don't get that it may not work under water, it was that I took it you were not yet firmly decided whether you must use AF or go manual. So, with all your justification for using manual focus, I will assume you have in fact firmly decided on that item. Sorry if I misunderstood your stance on this.

The thread got painful as you seem set on a camera system that just appears overly complicated for what your final delivery is going to be. Unless you plan to show it in an iMax theater, I'd keep it as simple as possible. The saying, "You don't know what you don't know." is fitting of your situation. That's not an insult, by the way, just an observation of your situation. Point being, I get the feeling you are in for a bummer experience as you get buried in hard drives full of high data rate media. That would tend to suck the life out of me. Especially if it made no difference in the end product.

You can get a FS7 and an underwater housing for it that allows full manual controls, the use of Metabones Speedbooster and numerous lenses and allows you to connect an external recorder if so desired, for less than $25,000. FS5 has housing also. How cool is that?

I keep reading this thread not because I can't look away, but because I am also learning from what others are telling you. Might be something I can apply to some future video project. I am scuba certified but never shot any video down there. Surf entry dives mostly. I'm always near water. Had a hairy experience diving off Okinawa and it made me realize the animal kingdom has no respect for man down there, large creatures looking at me like I owed them money.

I get it that you have endless time to get on with it, until one day you don't. The hammock time is so much better when you can enjoy it with a sense of accomplishment. Just sayin'.

Interesting subject. Best of luck to you.

Mark

https://www.sealux.de/en/products/video-housings/special-housings-sony/pxw-fs7/
http://www.backscatter.com/Subal-FS7-Sony-FS7-Underwater-Housing
https://www.sealux.de/en/products/video-housings/special-housings-sony/pxw-fs5/
 
If you think that he is "dissing" your thread you probably haven't been around the interwebs very much, or you've been around them a lot and you are very skilled at trolling. He is simply pointing out that this thread is in some respects, silly.

"It's no insult to say a dead man is dead." - Odysseus (Troy, 2004)

After watching this thread for a while, I would tend to agree with Sttratos. I also agree with Bassman and Mark. You've garnered the attention of quite a few experienced and learned members here but do not seem to want to heed their advice. To be clear, that is your prerogative to do so. However, if I had to wager I'd guess that you are going to stay on here and continue to debate with people because it seems like you are more interested in the debate than you are of actually videoing. I believe someone spoke to this point earlier, but many people come to these forums with strong beliefs and preconceived opinions about a specific camera system. They've already made up their mind, in other words. You seem to be one of those.

If you were to break down the advice that has been given to you to some very basic terms, it would be:

-Buy w/e you want/think that will work best, because ultimately you are stuck on your own idea
-Buy an entry/inexpensive set up so you aren't out a bunch of $$$ if something isn't to your liking
-Rent, so you can test things out instead of just debating about a bunch of things that may be moot points
-Buy a better/more expensive camera than what you budgeted for, so it can do all the things you claim to need

As Mark pointed out, there really is no need to make this more complicated than it needs to be.
 
Hi Jim,

Always exciting times when making moves towards "leveling up"!

I'm not an underwater shooter, and don't know much about it...although I am fascinated by it. I only have shot in a pool with an A7SII a few meters, which doesn't count.

That said, have you thought about the Canon 5D using magic lantern hack? I know it may not be your ideal rig, but it does give you 14bit RAW. It is not as stable, but if you are starting out and doing it mostly for yourself and to build a reel, it may be a way to get a lot of bang for your buck. Probably a lot of used 5D housings that could handle the type of diving parameters you need, and it would be a cheap way to get your feet wet. (sorry, had to do it...hehe). Also, I'm assuming the dynamic range underwater is reduced, which may mean you won't be hitting the DR limit of the 5D as easily.

Of course, I don't have the answers for you, and I'm sure my suggestion has it's pitfalls, but it may be a way for you to play with some reasonably robust RAW in a way that still leaves you plenty of money to go big later.
 
Jim,

Thanks for sharing about your stills background. That is useful to know you have a technical background. The reason I asked if you had ever operated a cine camera before is that they are often designed to be operated by a crew instead of a solo operator.

No you do not "owe" anybody but after reading your entire thread, I thought you were coming off rather smug for being a "beginner" or just starting out... Usually folks just starting out have some humility about things they supposedly do not know. You are free to conduct your affairs as you see fit but folks are trying to help your project and save you time and money. For many here, the f23 or the f35 is not the choice at all for beginners in video, especially with underwater operation.

You have been given a lot of advice so I will keep it short. I would try to get some first hand experience before making ANY purchase. Rent a GH5 and a housing, do some dives and edit the 4k footage. See the good and bad with your own eyes instead of going off of 2nd hand information. If the GH5 falls short for your needs then you will know and know WHY it falls short. Anything else and you are just throwing expensive darts.
 
Jim, why have you done this? Edited all your posts to have no content? I was really enjoying this informative thread even though I don't dive or have any of the cameras mentioned other than the FS5 but now the whole thread has been rendered useless for anybody in the future by what you have done. That's quite sad I feel.
 
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