Shooting underwater

Jarin Blaschke · June 4, 2004

In a month I'm shooting underwater footage for the first time. Nothing too complicated - about 3 to 4 feet down in a swimming pool. As a whole ,the film is being shot on Fuji tungsten stock in daylight, with little or no correction, to saturate the cool colors. The negative will also recieve a rich exposure, with perhaps a half-stop push as well. However, I was thinking that I might go ahead and use a daylight stock for the underwater shots, fearing that with a tungsten stock, I might be going too far end up with virtually no yellow to red response in the film and an irretrievable, totally blue/cyan image. Or am I not deep enough to really have a major problem?

Also, what filtration would you recomend? Will a UV filter improve the transparency of the water? Does anyone use CC-red to help the color cast? How about a polariser to control/enhance the reflections in the bubbles and at the water/air line? I don't think the 2 stop loss will be a major issue with sufficient lighting.

How about focus? Would this completely be done by eye? If so, is the image through the Hydroflex housing clear enough (with a 435)?

All opinions/expertise is greatly appreciated.

Jarin

Sam Wells · June 6, 2004

My experience here is very limited, but since no one replied...

I would lean toward daylight stock but I don't know the look you want.

Refractive index of water is about 1.33 --- need to figure your focus from that

(and focal length as well - everything magnified, a 50mm will look like 66mm)

-Sam

Patrick Neary · June 6, 2004

Here's my meager 2-cents- although i suspect your best resource will be your contact at Hyroflex.

You won't really have to worry too much about the loss of yellows and reds that shallow, especially in a clean (you hope!) swimming pool. The color of the walls and floor of the pool might be painted blue, so they could enhance the overall colorcast of what you're shooting.

A UV filter will do nothing for underwater clarity, which is a result of particulates in the water. I did a lot of underwater still photography, and never heard of anyone using cc filters or polarizers, or any filters really. I'm not sure what kind of effect, if any, polas would have underwater.

Your focussing issues may depend on the housing. If you are using a dome port matched to your lens, then the infinity focus is generally at twice the diameter of the port, since your lens is focussing on an image created by the dome lens. Again, Hydroflex will have all your specific answers.

I hope you report back on how it goes, and what you find out!

Jarin Blaschke · June 22, 2004

I think I'm going with the tungsten stock, for consistency. I don't think there'll be that much red loss at 5 feet under. Perhaps I could use an LLD. I also realised that even if I wanted to use a polarizer, there would be no way to set it underwater anyway. I do think it would have some effect when looking at the surface from underwater, though.

The scene shoots in 11 days. The housing will be shipped from Hydroflex to Panavision here in New York and will be used with a Panavised 35-3. This camera will never leave the housing. Primos will be used on both this camera and the A-camera, the G2. If any are interested, I can post the results here.

Does anyone have any idea how much time this housing will add, if we have 4 shots underwater?

Laurent Andrieux · June 29, 2004

I would say it would take half an hour or so or even less. If your assistants anticipate the housing, it maight be less. They should entertain before. Reloading the mags would take may be 5 minutes more than usual, as you have to take it off the water and manipulate the housing to take off and put back in the reloaded camera, if you can't reload without taking the camera off the housing.

But what takes the longest time, if you are not used to it, is to prepare the frame of the shot, espacially if moving, and it's not always easy to set the proper weight to keep at the proper depth.

I'm not an underwater cinematography specialist, just used it a couple of times.

Dan Salzmann · June 30, 2004

If the pool is painted blue and you shoot tungsten film in daylight, the image will have a very blue dominant. Could look great but that depends what the film is about and what the rest of the images look like. Sam is right about the refractive index of water and this should be considered when putting together the lens package.One thing I noticed is that super16 underwater can cut beautifully with 35mm shot above water.