Underwater Camera Equipment
I now have the outstanding Sony HVR-Z1P HDV camera in a Light & Motion Bluefin HD housing with lights and wide angle and macro lenses. This is quite simply the best underwater video rig in Thailand and enables me to shoot in high definition HDV 1080i50 or 1080i60 as well as standard definition PAL or NTSC DVCAM or mini-DV.
I also have a Sony DCR-VX2000 3CCD PAL mini-DV video camera in a Gates VX2000 housing shown here. I have hundreds of hours' experience with this rig and most of my DVD Reef Life of the Andaman was shot using this camera.
At night and in caves I use Light & Motion Sunray lights which give 3 different levels of light. However the Sony cameras are great in low light and I've shot video at Burma's Black Rock at 50m without lights and without significant gain-boost noise.
Video Camera & Underwater Housing
- Sony HVR-Z1P HDV 1080i50/1080i60/PAL-DVCAM/NTSC-DVCAM video camera
- Light & Motion Bluefin HD housing with standard, wide and flip macro lenses
- Century Optics +3.5mm achromatic diopter for macro
- Light & Motion Sunray lights
- Sony DCR-VX2000 3CCD PAL mini-DV video camera
- Gates VX2000 housing
Topside Location Hardware
- Bolex Aspheron wide angle lens modified for Z1 (the best wide angle adapter available)
- Miller Solo tripod with DS10 fluid head and Manfrotto 521 Pro LANC control
- Custom steadicam similar to this
- Sony Z1/FX1 shoulder brace
- Fokon 4x55W fluorescent cool light, similar to Kino Flo
- Audio Techinca AT825 one-point stereo microphone
- Rode NTG-1 shotgun microphone
- K-Tek KE-89 boom pole
- Audio Technica AT899 lavalier microphone
- Zoom H4 digital audio recorder
- Sony MDR-7506 headphones (industry standard)
