INON and AOI Wide Angle Wet Lenses for Action Cameras

[Davide DB]

How do you check the correction applied by the variable filter underwater? Through the GoPro display? 🧐

 

BTW i see that the variable filter is marked EOL on Inon site

[hellhole]

2 hours ago, JS1221 said:

I'm hoping Backscatter starts selling the mount on its own for their lens. I already have the AOI wide angle lens (UWL-03) but the Backscatter mount allows it to be mounted on a selfie stick, which is what my wife uses.  

 

somemore mention that the inon and aoi lens can be use on either system... i have not tired it yet..

 

i think they should all be similar.. as its bayonet style

[Davide DB]

1 minute ago, hellhole said:

 

somemore mention that the inon and aoi lens can be use on either system... i have not tired it yet..

 

i think they should all be similar.. as its bayonet style

 

Yes, Puccio says it in his video and he swaps the lens on the two mounting systems.

 

[Nikolausz]

3 hours ago, hellhole said:

 

somemore mention that the inon and aoi lens can be use on either system... i have not tired it yet..

 

i think they should all be similar.. as its bayonet style

The Backscatter lens is just a rebranded AOI lens. The mount is unique in a way that special slot filters (not screw on filters) can be used. As far as I figured out from the descriptions.

[Nikolausz]

8 hours ago, bghazzal said:

Nice, thanks - but it's a bayonet system, right? The specs read QRS-2 Bayonet System, which mean that any 52/55/67mm threaded filter would need to be made to work with a bayonet mount first.

It's a bayonet system to add either AOI or Inon lenses, but the filter is unique, a kind of slot panel. So you can't use standard filters with it.

[Nikolausz]

This one:

https://www.backscatter.com/Backscatter-DEEP-Filter-for-Sharp-Wide-Lens-Pro

 

[Davide DB]

Fotosubshop.com lent me an AOI UWL-03 demo lens to try out for my freshwater project.
To be able to use it I had to wait for some extra bits. Specifically the AOI 52 mm screw mount and a 52 mm screw adapter for the GoPro lens.

 

 

The AOI UWL-03 lens lent to me is the Backscatter version. I mention this because I found out that the AOI and Backscatter packages are different: AOI is supposed to provide all bayonet mounts from GoPro 5 to 12 while Backscatter only provides the mount from GoPro 9 to 12 (they are identical so only one mount) and adds two red and orange filters to be used with the modified bayonet mount provided.

 

 

 

To use the 52mm screw mount you have to remove the bayonet mount via 6 Allen screws. The AOI kit is supplied with replacement screws and a 1.5 mm Allen key. Exactly 2 minutes of work.

 

 

I then fitted a GoPro lens adapter found on Amazon to use the 52mm filters on the GoPro lens

 

 

 

 

We are ready.

 

 

 

Why didn't I use the bayonet mount?

All bayonet mounts attach either to the original GoPro underwater case or to the back of the GoPro itself.

For my project (basically a kind of camera trap) I am using a DigiPower battery pack that allows me to film for over 3 hours without having to change batteries. The DigiPower pack completely encloses the GoPro and allows only the 52mm adapter to be used on the lens.

 

 

 

 

 

 

For my particular use this solution is perfect. I leave 4 GoPro in 50 cm of water in a river on a tripod.
I would never, ever use this solution for real underwater use. The 52 mm screw adapter attaches to the GoPro lens via a small Allen screw with a rubber tip. The AOI glass lens weighs 331 grams, just enough to detach the adapter and the entire GoPro lens.

 

The original AOI/Inon/Backscatter bayonet mount is sturdy and it's the way to go for normal use.

 

I will give you feedback on the image quality.

 

 

 

[hellhole]

hey... didnt know that digi power has the new extender power for the new gopros...

[bghazzal]

Great - happy it worked out in the end!
Looking forward to some first impressions/feedback on the lens, see how the trout footage compares to what you shot so far.

Edited January 24 by bghazzal

[Davide DB]

4 hours ago, hellhole said:

hey... didnt know that digi power has the new extender power for the new gopros...

 

And it works like a treat...

 

The only downside is that the battery isn't user replaceable. The way it is assembled, I see no way to open it without breaking it or otherwise losing its water resistance. A bit like a gopro. So when the battery has run out of cycles. Goodbye.

 

[Nikolausz]

2 hours ago, Davide DB said:

 

And it works like a treat...

 

The only downside is that the battery isn't user replaceable. The way it is assembled, I see no way to open it without breaking it or otherwise losing its water resistance. A bit like a gopro. So when the battery has run out of cycles. Goodbye.

 

I'm happy it finally worked out in time. I hope that you can still record same mating activity. I'm looking forward to see the new footage

[hellhole]

19 hours ago, Davide DB said:

 

And it works like a treat...

 

The only downside is that the battery isn't user replaceable. The way it is assembled, I see no way to open it without breaking it or otherwise losing its water resistance. A bit like a gopro. So when the battery has run out of cycles. Goodbye.

 

yes... i had the previous revision... still works..

[Davide DB]

Experiments continue with the AOI Lens and Digipower battery for long shooting sessions in the river. A camera trap, basically.

The result is a bitter-sweet mixture 🙂

On the one hand, the quality of shooting with this lens is outstanding compared to those with the flat lens of the standard Gopro.

On the other, the modifications I had to make to mount it in my particular conditions of use meant that almost all of the footage had to be discarded due to various flaws: spots and fogging appears ata some point.

We have various theories as to why these flaws occur, and we also made some modifications but the risk of having an unusable single-event shot made us reluctantly decide not to use it for this purpose anymore.

We will use it in shorter 40-minute sessions with its standard bayonet mount. Hoping that everything goes as expected.

[fruehaufsteher2]

Hi Davide, 

there were informations that for one of the both solutions a dedicated O-ring is available to keep water between GoPro-housing and wetlens. Only with that O-ring it is possible to do split shots, maybe this refers also to your problem also?

[Davide DB]

Maybe it was for the Inon?
This AOI is a small WWL-1 and it needs the water between it and the Gopro lens. I'll try it later but it seems to me that everything is blurry in the air.

I'm sure it all depends on my particular (to say the least) use case and anyone using a gopro underwater should definitely use it. At 200 euros it is a bargain!
As soon as I have time I will explain more about how I used it, the problems I had and a couple of clips shot in the river.
 

[Barmaglot]

1 hour ago, Davide DB said:

This AOI is a small WWL-1 and it needs the water between it and the Gopro lens. I'll try it later but it seems to me that everything is blurry in the air.

The o-ring is for keeping water from leaking out, not for preventing its ingress. The idea is that you attach the lens while submerged (or pre-dive in a rinse tank) and then you can shoot splits with it.

[Nikolausz]

I'm planning to use my AOI+GP12 tomorrow for the first time in a river (attached to protective case with standard battery). Do you have any recommendation, potential mistakes to be avoided?

[Davide DB]

1 hour ago, Barmaglot said:

The o-ring is for keeping water from leaking out, not for preventing its ingress. The idea is that you attach the lens while submerged (or pre-dive in a rinse tank) and then you can shoot splits with it.

 

Wow I have to investigate this solution but I guess it's for the bayonet attachment.

 

 

26 minutes ago, Nikolausz said:

I'm planning to use my AOI+GP12 tomorrow for the first time in a river (attached to protective case with standard battery). Do you have any recommendation, potential mistakes to be avoided?

 

Nothing in your configuration I guess... Except I'm having a lot of problems with sediments sticking on the glass. We tried with dish soap and with Rainox with no results.

I'm leaving the lens in a river ripping current for 5 hours runtime...

 

Suggestions are welcome!

[Nikolausz]

2 hours ago, Davide DB said:

Except I'm having a lot of problems with sediments sticking on the glass. We tried with dish soap and with Rainox with no results.

I'm leaving the lens in a river ripping current for 5 hours runtime...

 

Suggestions are welcome!

Sometimes I have this problem as well. It's hard to do anything to prevent this.

[Davide DB]

My use case is so peculiar and I have no idea who will find it useful, but I write this post anyway to demonstrate how a seemingly simple thing can become a conundrum.

 

As I described in a previous post, to use the AOI lens with the Digipower battery pack I used a 52mm filter holder.

 

 

The first session went wrong because we found condensation inside the GoPro's protective lens. When we checked it, we realised that the weight in the air of the lens was able to dislodge the gopro's protective lens and lift the small oring. All it took was a tiny drop of water and the heat generated by the GoPro did the rest. The whole thing holds on the protective lens of the GoPro so great care is taken even when screwing it in and placing it in the water with two hands.

 

 

Despite the care taken and the fact that the GoPro's protective lens had no fogging or condensation, subsequent sessions still had blurry parts that began to appear after about an hour of shooting. The mystery deepened. Comparing the bayonet mount with my screw mount, I realised that in mine, the back of the wet lens and the back of the gopro's protective lens are practically attached while in the original bayonet one there are a few millimetres of space/water (in my Backscatter version there is space to slip in red slide filters). I thought that the two lenses with the temperature variations and tolerances would come into contact, eliminating the water gap and producing that strange blurring.

 

Rummaging around, I found a 52 mm male/female adapter that can act as a spacer. I also drilled two small holes in the filter holder to make sure no air bubbles were left inside. I also partially covered the small holes with tape because I had noticed a small purple glare on some of the shots. In short, I lost count of the number of hours lost to get the whole thing working.

 

 

Result? Despite all those arrangements, after an hour the image starts to degrade and blurs/blurs appear in various places. There is no condensation in the GoPro lens cover and the reason remains a mystery. Another major annoyance, the ability to attract various crap floating in the river current to the dome. We have tried various methods, dish soap and Rainox but no dice. Hence the decision to stop using it for this task.
Meanwhile, the other Gopros grind out hours without any particular problems except for the mediocre quality of the footage.

 

A GoPro 11/12 shooting at 4K@50p on the surface gets hot and shuts down after a few minutes. We are doing continuous shooting sessions of more than 4 hours. The temperature of the river is 9 degrees and when we retrieve them they are cold. One possible explanation perhaps the water gap in the filter holder heats up and creates this effect. Yet it seems strange because they are two aluminum rings with considerable heat exchange capacity. or maybe the water gets contaminated?
The only regret is not being able to predict this earlier. It would not have been difficult to design and print a bayonet mount for the GoPro mounted on the Digipower but there are only a few days of shooting left now. 

 

I'm afraid it will remain a mystery!

 

 

[Davide DB]

I found on the fly these two videos shot simultaneously by the two GoPro 11s about 50 cm apart shooting from different angles this rockfall. 
50 cm depth set with flat color and WB 5500 K. 
The difference in color should not be surprising. Unfortunately, you only need to change camera angles by a few degrees and the brightness and clarity of the water changes from day to night. It depends on the type of sediment flowing in the river.
But look at the difference in definition on the rocks and leaves of the aquatic plant.
In the next few days if I can find some more meaningful shots. We have TB of footage and it is not easy.

 

 

 

[bghazzal]

That is very nice indee, crisper and sharper  ❤️
I know you're shooting on a tripod at a fixed angle here, but really looking forward to seeing some pans and camera motion with the new lens config, as this was where the GoPro angle warping was/is generally really bad

 

Your blur issue is odd indeed - could it be an internal lens condensation issue because of the temperature difference between the cam and the environment when shooting for extended durations?

Edited February 10 by bghazzal

[Davide DB]

Angle warping while panning is an extreme FOV consequence too. Even with my WWL-1 I get warping if I pan in full wide. I always zoom in a bit for a moving shot. IMHO the safest FOV for panning is that of a 24 mm lens.

 

8 hours ago, bghazzal said:

could it be an internal lens condensation issue because of the temperature difference between the cam and the environment when shooting for extended durations?

 

I should also see the same effect on other Gopros used with the Digipower and instead it only happens with the AOI lens.
I currently have 3 Digipowers, 2 used with Gopro 11's and one used with an old 5. The GP5 at 2.7K@50p shoots for almost 6 hours. I also swapped GP 11's and the defect follows the lens.
Then I have other Gopro 8's that I use for short sessions with their standard battery that lasts about 50 minutes in freezing water.

 

 

[bghazzal]

15 minutes ago, Davide DB said:

Angle warping while panning is an extreme FOV consequence too. Even with my WWL-1 I get warping if I pan in full wide. I always zoom in a bit for a moving shot. IMHO the safest FOV for panning is that of a 24 mm lens.

 

I should also see the same effect on other Gopros used with the Digipower and instead it only happens with the AOI lens.
I currently have 3 Digipowers, 2 used with Gopro 11's and one used with an old 5. The GP5 at 2.7K@50p shoots for almost 6 hours. I also swapped GP 11's and the defect follows the lens.
Then I have other Gopro 8's that I use for short sessions with their standard battery that lasts about 50 minutes in freezing water.

 

 

 

 

I see I see.

Very mysterious, this fogging issue. If it's only with the AOI then the only further speculation I can offer would be that the weight of the lens is pulling on the protective lens cover as you'd already figured out, and this is still happening, over time during the shoot, despite all the care taken on setup.
Maybe this is generating a greater temperature differences with the lens somehow, and generating fogging inside the lens.

One way to test this crackpot theory would be to remove the protective lens cover on one of the other gopro to see if this generates fogging as well

 

no warp-free pans and fly-bys on the gopro then eh... Good chance the lens helps a bit though, we'll see!

Edited February 10 by bghazzal

[Davide DB]

8 minutes ago, bghazzal said:

One way to test this crackpot theory would be to remove the protective lens cover on one of the other gopro to see if this generates fogging as well

 

Actually in the subsequent test, we never found fogging on the gopro lens... only the first time because I dislogded it by mistake.

 

I would have tested it without protective lens but I couldnt find reliable info on being 100% waterproof. Someone says it's waterproof but not as before. 

That's means nothing to me.

BTW given that my wet lens holds on the gopro protective lens, I should remove the glass and keeping the frame.

 

Mistery