Looking for information on a HDV or HDTV underwater lipstick camera to rent or buy. I shoot a fishing show and would like to to do underwater shots of catches and of fish/structure with a pole cam. Have to pole and the monitor just need the lipstick cam. Any suggestions?

Looking for information on a HDV or HDTV underwater lipstick camera to rent or buy. I shoot a fishing show and would like to to do underwater shots of catches and of fish/structure with a pole cam. Have to pole and the monitor just need the lipstick cam. Any suggestions?

I don't think there's a tiny camera of this sort that shoots widescreen HD yet.
There might be one that's used by broadcast-level producers and the CIA, but that would probably be a very expensive item. You'd also have to have an HDV portable recorder, which at this time, would be a lower-cost HDV camcorder. Then, there's the problem of relatively poor low-light performance by high-definition cameras. That's bad enough underwater, even with SD cameras. In a well-lit tropical lagoon, with crystal-clear and non-moving water, HDV could give a better picture than DV. But, when you shoot fishing scenes, I'll bet you don't have anything close to those ideal circumstances. I think that a good SD camera and DV recording will give you about all the resolution that kind of underwater environment would allow-----and much less expensively. If you need to produce widescreen video, you could trim and expand the pictures during editing. Perhaps someone else knows of a tiny, waterproof camera that will shoot widescreen in SD??

I'm looking at an ad for a HD lipstick camera in a recent "Videographer" mag.
iconixvideo.com

Not sure about underwater, but it would be easy to rig something I'm sure.

Jeff Patnaude

Thanks for the tip. Toshiba is rumored to have one also. I'll check it out.