When ask, and I get this quite a lot,
"How do you get such great underwater footage?"
My reply goes usually something like this.
"It's never a problem, until my breath runs out."
Or,
"The sharks don't bother me, that's why I have divers do the filming."
Or,
"When ever we film underwater, I make sure the batteries are in before the splash."
Or,
"Good underwater film requires knowledge of:
light refraction, color wavelengths, and a good post production facility."
All joking aside, we do work with some of the best divers in the business and my son also films who is an experienced diver and photographer. Working with highly experienced dive teams we are able to get some extraordinary footage and use some pretty high teck gear like underwater motorized sleds that can really cover some terrain. The deep diving I leave to the pro divers and have production meetings before the trip to lay out what we want filmed and how.
Most of the filming I do covers around the boat down to around 50 feet. I use a variety of monopods and deep water housings that are cabled to the boat. Filming this way we have gone through a lot of mounts and monopods, most just don't hold up to the pressure of fast moving water while a boat is in gear.
So once again I have gone down the road of customization to our cameras. Back in the day almost 30 years ago our camera gear was very large and heavy. Pricey as well, easily paying 60 to 70 grand for one camera. The funny thing was we always had to jerry rig something on the camera. Having to customize production gear has just been a part of the process to get things to work he way you want.
So in a nut shell, we replaced all plastic parts on our sports cameras with various aluminum waterproof mounts, poles, housings, and attachments. This has worked very well and saved some of our cameras from meeting Davey Jones Locker...permanently.
Below is a pic and the listing of the manufactures that make the gear. If your a captain and regularly film your clients catch, I highly recommend upgrading your camera set up.
On day for sure you will be glad you did!
Products Pictured That We Use Underwater:
The Alaska life Thrill Pro Aluminum Telescoping Monopod,
Sametop Aluminum Latch for Sports Cameras,
Smatree Aluminum Thumbscrew Mounts,
SublimeWare Aluminum Housing,
Troll Pro with Deep Water Camera Housing 200ft.
All available online.
