A friend caught hold of the Apple Vision Pro, and we watched the immersive video (part of Apple's initial promo series to show off the hardware, I think?) on tiger sharks. It's ~9 min, and quite spellbinding, I felt. I dare say this immersive video could be the next best thing to actually diving, hehe..

Anyway, it got me wondering what is a good camera setup for making this style of videos (I mostly do photos, so I am quite uninformed about even normal UW videos, apart from enjoying the videos that folks post here).

It would be nice to learn more form folks here about what could be pro level, or consumer level rigs specifically designed for this type of content creation. I am not sure if Apple will continue the Vision Pro, but this form of media consumption is definitely here to stay (I watched the immersive NBA show also, and it was 4 minutes of pure magic).

 

Ajay

I met someone on a liveaboard with an Insta360 Pro 2 in a Mantis sub housing. His company was making VR experiences for the Vision Pro. 

I've spent some time this year working with an Insta360 inside wrecks. I've done quite a few dives inside the Yukon here in Southern California trying to figure out lighting and other factors. 

 

Here is a link to one of the videos I made going from the engine room through to the bow. Note that if you are on a mobile device and have the YouTube app, you can actually move the video point-of-view by moving your device. Otherwise, you can use a mouse to move it. You can actually move it to look back at me shooting the video, look up, look down, etc.

 

One of my projects in 2025 is to figure out how to make it more immersive. I've got some cave & mine diving in Budapest scheduled in early 2025 and plan to bring my Insta360 with case, etc.

 

I need to buy a VR headset at some point for testing but don't want to pay what Apple charges (and I think I saw somewhere that they discontinued the device) and I don't want to buy the FB device so I'm a bit "stuck" at the moment but open to suggestions.

 

 

Regards,

 

- brett

 

Interesting video, @TmxDiver, thanks. Indeed, in a closed environment with a 360 camera, it's not clear to me what lighting would be preferred (your setup definitely gives a "scuba" feel to it; floodlight the entire space, e.g. cave, could also be interesting).

I also hear rumors that Apple is reconsidering the Vision pro, but I do think that this tech will carry on; last summer we had an immersive experience of the Barcelona cathedral (in the cathedral :-)).. I think they used the Meta quest, still very nice.

 

Ajay