Our Sony digital video imaging equipment is integral to Eye on the Seas projects, and below is a description and review of the equipment we are currently using:

Sony PD100 DVCAM: This professional 3-CCD camera utilises DVCAM format, a robust high performance tape format designed for professional and broadcast applications. Its XLR microphone jack gives us the option of recording broadcast quality sound essential for future documentary projects, and the Memory stick option gives us the capability to grab still-images for the website.

The PD100s interchangeable lenses greatly increases the scope of this camera, and its high quality wide-angle lens is a particular advantage when filming on boats where subjects are often too close for a standard lens. Having manual focus, full manual exposure and white balance controls enable us to film in a range of conditions, and both the topside and underwater footage quality of the PD100 is superb!

Like all of our Sony equipment this camera is compact, rugged, reliable and a pleasure to use.

Sony TRV9 Mini DV camera: The camera it all started with! A few years old now but nevertheless still producing excellent quality footage, -in fact several pieces that have aired on National television! This camera has good low light capability, excellent macro capability and is easy to use.

Sony Marinepack 75m Housing: A robust and compact aluminium housing for the TRV9, with easy to operate controls for zoom, focus and recording. The MPK has a large integral LCD monitor providing excellent underwater viewing no matter what depth or light levels are encountered. Infrared controls between the handgrips and the main housing body eliminate the need for extra piercings through the hull reducing the risk of floods. Being waterproof down to 75m this housing exceeds the range of most dive-cameramen, and having tested it to 63m and used it on hundreds of dives I have full confidence in its reliability!

Sony PC101 Mini DV camera: Incredibly compact, this awesome little camera has an AV in/out facility allowing us to record from our specialised underwater pole camera while monitoring the picture on its fold-out LCD screen. The screen is also a touch panel with full control over many of the 101s features: white balance, spot focus and metering, shutter speed, exposure control etc. Other great features we use frequently are the Memory Stick, USB streaming and Nightshot capability. Produces excellent quality footage.

Sony GVD300 Video Walkman: Really an edit deck, this is an extremely handy little field unit for dubbing Mini-DV tapes, playing tapes through to a VCR with time-codes (saves wearing the camera heads), audio dubbing and rough editing. It is amazingly compact and can operate off battery, mains or DC power and has S Video, AV and DV IN/OUT jacks.

Stamina InfoLithium batteries: when you are filming from boats and in remote areas battery life becomes all-important! Our Sony cameras all run on Stamina batterieswith super long life, -easily enough juice for a day and sometimes 2-3 days of underwater filming. The Sony InfoLITHIUM batteries also have an IC chip that communicates with the camera to show the remaining battery life in the viewfinder display; an indispensable function!

Sony Memory Stick Reader/writer: A really useful bit of equipment that allows us to easily transfer frame grabs or image capturesfrom our video cameras to computer for entry onto the website. The Memory Stick reader/writer is inbuilt into a computer mouse, and plugs straight into the USB port.