Your buoyancy is extremely important for capturing
those award winning shots.
It is a good idea to practice with your equipment top-side before you ever enter the water. This develops muscle memory for operating your equipment underwater as well as a familiarity with how your equipment works.
Other Videos:
Cave Diving:
Interested in seeing some of the other types of diving we do? Here is a link from Don's Vimeo page that show Gilboa in a little different light as well as some of the cave diving we do.
This is of one of my favorite
wrecks The Dunderberg on the bottom of
Lake Huron. Since many have asked to view it, I edited down one of my many
videos to show you what type of diving you can pursue with us. I hope you
enjoy this.
video filmed by Don Costanza with
Sony mini-DV camera, Ikelite housing and Sea and Sea wide angle, 2nd camera
Sony, Equinox housing mounted on X-scooter
click on image to launch video
Videos
We will be updating our videos frequently so check back regularly:
For those familiar with high-end video equipment the name "Light and Motion" is held in a certain regard by many that seek out high quality. Deep Blue Divers is introducing the Light and Motion products and the link below shows a short clip of a trial dive with a dual Sola 4000 setup. I have used a lot of different setups and have to say for the initial trial at Gilboa... I was quite impressed. No color correcting was done nor post work other than cutting the footage down to 3min. Those familiar with the quarry know that it is known for lots of suspension in the water column and this is especially true on the deep side. Wasn't concerned with backscatter on this dive only burntime, subject proximity and weighting for my scooter.
If you are serious about shooting video (or even photography) and want to step up your game to the next level...contact the store for more information.
Details:1/8/12 Divers Matt, Jared and Don (we were the only ones at the quarry..AWESOME)
Dive time 85 min, Water temp: 45, Max Depth:134'
Lot's more footage forthcoming with these as they are simply ....Awesome!
Don
housing / performance review by Don Costanza
Deep Blue Divers
just picked up the Equinox line of video housings and I was able to try it out
recently at a place we all know and love...Gilboa. With the line of
HD-cameras hitting the market I was in need of upgrading my Sony camera and
Ikelite housing. Ikelite is a great housing and worked very well for me in
some very aggressive environments...(Deep Blue Divers also has the Ikelite line
available) and with the addition of a new video camera, I needed to explore
options.
I chose the Equinox
line for a couple reasons. One was cost. It was very
affordable for a housing of this quality. Two the ability to upgrade...when you
chose to purchase a new camera, Equinox can retro-fit your existing housing
without having to purchase another one. The third is because Equinox was one of
the only housing manufacturers that made a unit for the camera I purchased.
When I received the
unit I was very impressed with the overall quality as well as a couple goodies I
wasn't expecting. The care-package included a wide-angle lens which
attached to my camera thus keeping everything internal, unlike my previous unit
that had an external wide-angle lens. I also received a parts bag with a
few extra essentials such as o-rings and various connectors...well played
Equinox. It also came with a ballast release system which looks like
a couple of wings to attach to the unit. The theory is if you see the
housing flood you pull the pins and the unit shoots to the surface thus
minimizing the damage to your camera. While the wide-angle was a very nice
touch I was very curious as to how it performed so I headed out to Gilboa with a
couple buds and give it a whirl. Click the link below for a 5-min
rough video.
A couple of things
to note about the video: I had to compress this from 12GB down to 19MB so a lot
of quality is out the window. In HD mode it appears almost 3-D ...simply
awesome! There was no color-correction in the editing process. There
was a slight over-cast and the quarry was silted up. I went without a
light so as not to cause a lens flare and thus relied on ambient light only.
I also, deliberately, didn't spend a lot of time editing and cleaning this so as
to give you a good idea of how this performs. I also wanted to see how the
wide-angle performed at various distances / depths and was pleased to not see
any "fish-eye" caused by cheap lenses.
After viewing the
video in HD I was VERY IMPRESSED with the housings performance.
Compression here killed the quality of the video but I merely wanted to give you
a rough overview of Deep Blue Divers newest line of underwater housings.
Overall, I highly
recommend this housing for those looking for a unit with manual controls...and
don't plan on doing any dives beyond 250'...Don
May 16th Scooter Dive (Gilboa) 7:14 min long filmed by Don Costanza using Sony
mini-dv camera and Ikelite housing with Sea and Sea wide angle lens. Click on
link for video.
Max depth:132, Max Time: 58 min, Temp: 41degrees. We
start on the deep side then progress to the shallows to play around and to take
care of our deco obligations. You will notice what happens when a class of
students silts out the shallow side as it rolls like an avalanche to the deep
side...where we were at. Our first thought was that there was a diver in
the mess but thankfully it wasn't and only turned out to be merely poor
technique. Instructors, please teach your students how not to silt out the
quarry by staying off the bottom, it ruins the visibility for everyone! ...(off
rant now)...Gear: Steel Doubles, Silent Submersion UV-26 scooters, DUI drysuits,
Ikelite housing with Sea and Sea wide angle lens.
Overall rating: Yeehaaw!
Underwater Photography / Videography:
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