Tag Archives: ikelite

AVCHD, close up lens, diopters, filter, Flat Port, housing, Ikelite, macro, Micro 4:3, Panasonic GX7, UNDERWATER VIDEO, White Balance, wide angle

Panasonic GX7 First Test

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So time has come for my first video with a micro four third camera the Panasonic GX7. I had only 3 dives in Sharm and conditions on Naama Bay beach were not the best but still good enough to give the set up a good try, this is the resulting video.

I used the Nauticam housing with the Macro 35 port and the M67-LD adapter so that I could use the Inon UWL-H100 wet lens.

As it is not possible to fix the position of the lens I had to take the hood off and therefore I used an Ikelite UR/PRO filter for the 100mm lens. I had to use gaffer tape on the lens and inside the filter or it would be loose but it worked.

The first dive was with the URPRO filter in auto white balance, I was hoping this would give me good results but instead everything came with a strong yellow cast.

From the second dive I used custom white balance and the results were much much better.

To give an idea of the issue this is a shot of a grey card with the UR/PRO filter on land with white balance fixed.

URPRO test card
URPRO test card

You can see what kind of effect the filter bear it is orange in colour.

Other than this I was pretty happy with the GX7 especially because I could use the full zoom with the wide angle lens this is the first time I see it working. The moray eel shot towards the end of the video is an example.

Back home I was not happy at all about the UR/PRO and the inability to work with auto white balance. Probably I could have played with the tint but it did not come to mind. So I got in touch with Peter Rowlands of Magic Filters to see if they had an option that would fit on the Ikelite mount. Peter sent me two sample and they fit perfectly in the ikelite frame, though this is not commercially available I guess you can request those if you are not happy with the ikelite UR/PRO.

This is the same test card with the magic auto filter.

DSC04030

You can see that it looks less orange and also slightly colder.

I did some tests and the UR/PRO is a warmer filter with 2700K temperature whilst the magic auto is 3200K. The magic is however more red and has more magenta tint than the UR/PRO.

For me this means that the magic will work better in auto and will require less custom white balance. However those 500K difference mean you will eventually need to custom white balance once you go below 18-21 meters. I know people say filter work until 21 meters anyway but I have tried with deeproof down to 30 and on a bright day it was still good.

So if you are not happy with the yellow cast of your UR/PRO in auto white balance is definitely worth giving magic filters a go.

The GX7 confirmed all the good features including the ex tele mode

Here the shrimps are shot with a single Inon UCL-165 and then the close up of the head uses ex tele that pushes well over super macro.

Look at the incredible ability to refocus in video mode. See how focus locks on the shrimps when I press the button.

Overall the GX7 can do pretty much everything on a single dive with a wet wide angle lens and a close up lens. You can cover from 100 degrees wide to super macro. The fact you can zoom with the wide angle removes the need to take the lens off at every occasion and in fact in the red sea you barely need to have any other lens.

I was not particularly happy with the lack of hood that the ikelite filter wants removed so I experienced the occasional flare. Still pretty good result.

The clip looks much better at home than it does on youtube where the gap with the RX100 seems much smaller.

So as far as video is concerned if you don’t need 4K the GX7 gives you extremely high quality footage and reasonable cost.

A final note I shot this video in 24p at home I can’t tell the difference with 25p see if you can see it!

housing, Ikelite, Panasonic LX100, Underwater Photography, UNDERWATER VIDEO

Panasonic DMC-LX100 Ikelite Housing

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The American manufacturer is the first to reach the market with a polycarbonate housing for the Panasonic LX100.

Specifications

  • 200 ft (60m) depth rating
  • Controls for all camera functions except Diopter Adjustment Dial, Aspect Selector Switch, Front Control Ring, and Focus Selector Switch
  • Ikelite 5-pin bulkhead with TTL circuitry
  • Near neutral buoyancy in fresh water
  • Weight 4.7 lb (2.1 kg)
  • Dimensions 7 x 6 x 6 in (18 x 15 x 15 cm) including projections
  • 3.9-inch (99 mm) diameter glass lens port

The first thing that we notice is that not all controls are accessible, is this going to be an issue?

Diopter Adjustment Dial – this is normally set fixed

Aspect Selector Switch – this does not change during the dive

Front Control Ring – this controls manual focus and is important

Focus Selector Switch – this switches between macro and normal focus mode an is important if you don’t use a close up lens

As the LX100 with a 24mm lens is not going to be really a photographer dream Ikelite could have spared an expensive TTL converter but I requested confirmation from the manufacturer and they said only a TTL version is planned – not good for us!

Ikelite LX100 Front View
Ikelite LX100 Front View

The housing looks a bit bulky as usual but considering that for video we access a limited set of controls this is not going to be a major problem except maybe the rear metal buttons.

Rear View
Rear View

Probably the best feature of this housing are the accessories.

The housing comes with a large 3.9″ flat round port that per-se is not good for much, however you can add the WD-4 Dome and the macro M67 adapter to improve matters. The WD-4 dome is a glass removable dome that is sharp and will restore the lens field of view and allow for some zooming, the macro adapter allows to mount M67 close up lenses as a push on.

Probably the feature that will miss the most is the focus mode switch as the rest can work quite nicely with focus lock.

Cost wide the housing is $750 with the WD-4 and the Macro adapter this totals at $1115 plus taxes.

The nauticam housing is rumored to be $1,100 without ports so this ikelite housing could be competitive and we like the port system a lot for simplicity even if the choices are a bit limited as all in all this is good enough for video if combined with a selection of diopters. The lack of the focus mode switch could create some challenges in portrait work with the bare port but a series of mid range close up lenses can fix the issue.

ambient light, Canon S100, Canon S110, diopters, Dome Port, housing, Ikelite, macro, Panasonic LX5, Panasonic LX7, UNDERWATER VIDEO, wide angle

Underwater Video Tips: Using 24mm Compact Cameras

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Some people will recognize the Canon PowerShot A570IS, the Canon S95  and the Panasonic LX7. The first shot VGA video, the second 720p HD and the last AVCHD 50/60p. If you look carefully you can also see how the front aperture of the lens gets progressively bigger and bigger.

Year after year compact cameras are becoming more powerful having electronics that allow higher resolution and image quality, I think the GoPro is a demonstration of what you can do pushing the limits of simple optics using ultra integrated electronics.

Compact cameras like the A570IS used to have lenses that would be equivalent to a full film camera with a 35mm lens, this has been a popular choice for long time. Some years go Olympus and afterwards Canon, Sony and others started offering plastic housing for those cameras to take them underwater this was the start of consumer underwater photography.

There are however a number of challenges using a 35mm camera for underwater photos and the most obvious is the field of view, because of the magnifying effect of water those compact had really narrow coverage that limit them to close up of macro shots. However a little time after wet wide angle lenses come into the market and offered range of coverage up to 100º some manufacturers also produced seme-fisheye lenses with coverage of 165º the most well known being the Inon UFL165AD.

All went well and compact camera photographer could take wet lenses with them and in one dive take pictures of a nudibranch as well as of a wreck thanks to removable lens in water.

Then the consumer market pushed manufacturers to increase field of view so it was the start of 28mm equivalent cameras like the Canon S90, this format is still very popular with the Canon G series and the new Sony RX100, in addition to that there was more and more demand for extended zoom so that the camera could be useful in all situations, today is not uncommon to have compact cameras with 20x zoom.

The introduction of 28mm equivalent cameras meant that the cameras would vignette with a lens designed for 35mm so wet lenses had to be readjusted and re-designed. The extensive zoom by this you mean over 4x meant that the wet lens would be so far from the camera lens that effectively no wet lens would be useful, this has been the curse of the Canon G series a great camera that never had any good wet wide angle solution until very recently with introduction of zoom wide lenses from Inon.

The other bad news is that at 28mm the flat port of the housing introduces already pincushion distortion and fringing as we can see from this photo

Bare Port RX100 wide end

We can see the effect of pincushion distortion in the deformation of the shape of the slate, it is quite apparent when you look at the lines and how skewed they are you can also see a purple tinge to it.

A wet wide angle lens not only expands field of view but also corrects pincushion distortion and chromatic aberration, this is the key reason why some form of wide angle is always required.

In the last two years manufacturers have come up with 24mm equivalent cameras, such as the Canon S100, Olympus XZ-1 and Panasonic LX5, unfortunately those camera have even more pincushion distortion, and for this reason should never be used in water at wide end  to take pictures without post correction that can be quite hard to achieve so as a matter of fact many people live with ugly deformed pictures.

Those cameras make it even more difficult for wet lenses to work and to date there are very few lenses that work without vignetting, those lenses require a wide aperture on the side of the camera also to allow larger and larger image sensors that camera makers use like the LX7 in the feature image.

LX7 Flat port Widend
LX7 Flat port Wide end

To give a demonstration of why is a bad idea to take your 24mm camera in water without any wide angle lens we just have to look at the picture above. Shocking!

So with 24mm cameras we are stuck, the wet lenses with dome that work well with the 28mm cameras end up vignetting so badly that all the advantage is lost when you zoom in. In effect with a 24mm camera all we can aim is 100-110° field of view that for stills is not really that much, there are exceptions like the Canon S100 but in general terms options are limited.

Camcorders on the other hand always had a range between 30mm and 150mm if not more with extensive zoom, you would have needed a dome port atteched to the housing that would allow zoom to give the same functionality in water or diopters to zoom at close range.

A user of a Sony camcorder in a gates housing would be looking at 30mm like a very wide lens!!! Typically you need fathom lenses to reach 90° and lenses with 110° coverage cost $4,000+ so definitely not affordable to the average shooter.

Where does this leave us? Well surprise good news for all 24mm compact users that want to shoot high quality video there are plenty of options that don’t break the bank!!!

When zoom cameras like the Canon G7 come into the market some manufacturers like Fantasea, H2O tools, Ikelite started producing wet domes.

Those domes are made of two lenses with an air space and if set really close to the housing port have the effect of restoring the original field of view of the camera. Now for a 28mm equivalent like the Canon G series this is not that exciting as we are talking about 75º diagonal but for the 24mm camera users we are talking of 84° diagonal coverage, a value that a professional camcorder user would be very happy with. In addition you can also use the zoom which means that if the camera has really close focusing distance a wet dome is all you may need for 85% of shooting circumstances.

So when I got the Panasonic LX7 this is what I was planning and I got a Nauticam Wet-Mate this is the slate from before at the same distance

LX7 with Nauticam Wet-Mate
LX7 with Nauticam Wet-Mate

As you can see the image is not only wider but also rectilinear no barrel distortion as if we were shooting on land.

Personally I do not like barrel distortion for video, and this is the reason I don’t like videos shot with fisheye lenses so this suits me fine. Of course 84° are not really wide for large wrecks, whale sharks or similar for those situations you still need a wet-wide angle lens but the Nauticam Wet-Mate costs $250 plus taxes so you really can’t complain.

At telephoto the flat port does not have pincushion distortion but it could be painful to remove the wet mate in the water the good news is that with the wet-mate you can still make use of the full zoom so if your camera has a really short focusing distance this may be good enough for most situations.

To finish off this is the Nauticam Wet-Mate, there are as I said similar products made by other brands. It is build of Aluminum with two lenses with a sealed airspace, construction seems very similar to some fix products.

Nauticam Wet Mate
Nauticam Wet Mate

So if you have a 24mm compact camera that takes HD video and you are frustrated with still there is a whole world in front of you with those dome adapters you could be well set for underwater video at very little investment.

Those are just some cameras that have high quality HD video the list is of course longer:

  • Canon S100/S110
  • Panasonic LX5/LX7
  • Olympus XZ-1/2

And the good news is that you do not need an aluminum housing just something that takes a wet dome, Ikelite for example has 67MM thread on most housings for those cameras.