HDV underwater lipsick Cam

[Bruce Heidorn]

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?

[J. Stephen McDonald]

Originally Posted by Bruce Heidorn

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??

[Jeff Patnaude]

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

[Bruce Heidorn]

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