Panasonic GH5S Underwater Video

The Set Up

I had the opportunity to head down to the British Virgin Islands a little while ago and bring some gear. I was down there for a week and took the Panasonic GH5s with the Nauticam housing, a 14-42mm Olympus lens, the Nauticam WWL-1 wet wide lens, and the UWL-09 wet wide lens. I was also able to bring down two sets of video lights. The Kraken 5000s+ and the new Light & Motion Sola Pro 15,000’s. All the gear was phenomenal, but one dive in particular really showed me the advantages of everything I brought. 

The Dive

During one free night, my buddy Josh and I decided to go for a night dive in the anchorage. It was mostly sandy bottom, but I knew with patience, bigger things would come. I had the idea to use the Sola Pro 15,000’s as our campfire and fill light. Their extremely high lumen output leaves something to be desired in terms of color temperature, but their brightness works very well as a backlight or fill light for set scenes in underwater video shooting. I took the Kraken 5000s+’s and mounted them to my camera.

We descended to about 30ft and I went to work setting the lights up. Within seconds, four or five southern stingrays flocked to the light and began feeding on the smaller fish and shrimp that were attracted. After shooing the hungry sea pancakes away I got the two lights set to point straight up into the water column. The only thing to do next was wait. 

A few minutes later a small school of fish had begun circling a few feet above the lights. We waited patiently, getting a good show of stingrays sweeping by, suddenly stopping every few feet to engulf an unfortunate creature. A few Moon Jellyfish also joined us, aimlessly pulsing their way through the show of light. Next a small juvenile reef squid jetted around the lights ensnaring what it could with its miniature tentacles. 

Tarpon!

I had told my buddies about the Tarpon that would flock to the light at night, but they hadn’t shown yet. I was beginning to feel somewhat foolish for talking up the spectacle of these massive fish. Just as I was starting to lose hope, a silvery glint in the distance caught my eye. They were here. The tarpon lumbered in effortlessly gliding through the schools of fish. In a blink of an eye they would unhinge their jaw and suck in an unlucky silverside. The Tarpon meandered their way through divers and fish alike, sometimes sideswiping divers on their hunt and even bumping into my camera a few times.  

Conclusions

The Light & Motion 15,000’s as a “campfire light” provided an excellent fill light to illuminate the whole water column. The added depth to the fish as they swam in and out of the school of silversides. The Kraken 5000s+’s were perfect as a primary light on the fish. I really liked their CRI. The use of the WWL-1 allowed for great optics and no soft edges on my video or photos. It allowed full zoom range on the 14-42mm so I could take advantage of the closeup shots of jelly fish or conch, then widen it out for the tarpon and sting rays. 

It was a fantastic dive that didn’t require much movement. A simple sandy bottom can sometimes yield amazing results. Sometimes the best diving is right beneath where you drop anchor. 

You can purchase all the gear used in this video from Bluewater Photo!

Panasonic GH5s

Nauticam GH5s housing

14-42mm Olympus lens

Nauticam WWL-1 Wet Wide Angle Lens

UWL-09 wet wide lens

Kraken 5000s+

Light & Motion Sola Pro 15,000’s