bghazzal

I just have a bit of time on my hands, and a tendency to go untethered online 😁 There definitely seems to be a steep learning curve, especially for video - after watching these, what i'm planning fits in the "bonfire-dive" category, which requires much less logistical planning (and no boat...) Only variation is that I plan on placing the light on a mooring light in mid-water rather than on the sand, which brings it closer to blackwater, but with only 10 meters of water under my fins.... Main issue I see at the moment is getting a powerful lure light with decent autonomy - apparently it's better to set it up, then wait for 30 minutes for the food-chain to build up around the light...

Very interesting that based on your respective experiences, both of you seem to concur that image quality improvements hasn't been mindblowing with each generational updates - overall, it's more about new features, some being good for UW use (stabilisation, and didn't know about GoPro Labs and QR codes, interesting!), other more detrimental (reliance on wireless, touch screen, voice activation and other non-UW compatible ̶b̶e̶l̶l̶s̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶w̶h̶i̶s̶t̶l̶e̶s̶ features. What's been very clear to me is that GoPro's product development has been focused on "be-a-hero" POV action-sports-lifestyle clips to be shared on p̶h̶o̶n̶e̶s̶ social media and also now live-blogging. The fact that many users have started using their products for different, sometimes more "cinematic" purposes or for scuba UW vids (as opposed to more common surface in-water applications) hasn't had much of an impact, as it has less much weight than viral-compatible footage, and is somewhat less sexy than young-at-heart-dudes-and-dudettes-being heroes, and over the years there hasn't been much done for this marginal (old-fart? cine-nerd?) section of their user market.... This is why I was interested in moving away from GoPros at some point as well, and looked for more "rounded" action-camera type products, but this is difficult. The DJI Osmo cams looked good, but honestly, I've yet to see a proper diving video shot with one. WePix user Aquatic Images posted a GoPro / Osmo comparison YouTube vid a while back, but again no, actual UW footage (I don't think he ever got the cam) - there's just nothing out there, other than those (slightly-cringe) "GoPro killer" / specs comparison vids. And yet the fact that brands like AOI and Inon are picking up and expanding on well-designed scuba UW accessory lines is good, (first to do so were Snake River Prototyping / SRP and Backscatter, but SRP no longer exists and Backscatter's line hasn't really been extended over the years), and this is also probably a good reason to return to the GoPro line after all. One of the main issue for us housing-dependent GoPro users is that any major design update carries the risk of making all accessories unuseable (cam/battery format change = housing size change = accessories no longer compatible)... Cue in sad-trombone jingle and a frantic online quest for the odd Chinese company making plastic bits and pieces which might or might not somehow make your beloved accessories work with the new line... It's funny that you mentioned modification of Yi cameras, i just remembered that i had actually changed the lens on my unloved GoPro 6, idea was to have a wider field of view without the ugly fov distortion. Lens i got was a 3.37mm lens from MAPIR Peau Productions, but hardly used it as the cam was left in Japan for luggage trimming reasons. Company's still around btw, and sell interesting products, see: https://www.peauproductions.com/ If I was to bring out the pipe, puff a little and dream on, ideally, someone out there should work on a more "mature" go pro - no longer really an "action cam", but a rugged, practical waterproof video cam. A video-centric cross between an action cam, a TG and a compact! [puff-puff ] Ladies and Gents, i give you the rugged GoPro Cine line, with its dedicated underwater accessory pack: - waterproof to 10m (that way no real need for a vaccum system) - bigger sensor (1" or more), 10bit, 4K 60fps, overheating kept in check, good stabilisation - full automatic point and shoot mode, but manual controls knobs for 1. ISO 2. shutterspeed - dedicated manual white balance button for UW shooting, and a WB preset bank (gasp!) - a reasonable (non-fisheye) set zoom lens, and an aperture ring (re-gasp! - maybe rename it the "blurry background ring" or the "bokeh-buddy ring"?), and a basic zoom knob. - a slightly bigger screen, and/or a practical option to mount one to use UW, and re-re-gasp focus peaking display so you can see the focus point - a polycarbonate double o-ring dive housing, with a flat port with a reinforced threaded mount and space for extended battery pack - third-party makers will be delighted to handle the pricey aluminium housing market, notably with cutting-edge products like the Inon GoCnThX 04-22W and the AOI CineGP WaL2.01b 😉) - waterproof extended battery solutions - ok, some sort of ND filter and XLR (?) mic-in option for on-land shooting, and an optional manual focus gear knob-button - gotta give the land-based market something for cinematic-vlogs and all.... *** In a way, the TG line is already close, but it's really not that great for video... Compacts are also very close, but not waterproof, stabilisation is not great and UW screen / battery pack options inexistant (logical, since they're not designed for uw use and still have to please the dominant still-shooter market, as always....), and they are on the verge of extinction anyway... ff (image source: StableDiffusion 😇) [/puff-puff] cheers b

Here is are some blackwater diving video shooting tips from DPG: from the original article available here: https://www.divephotoguide.com/underwater-photography-special-features/article/quick-tips-black-water-video-macro Otherwise here is a Q&A with Simon Buxton with some video-focused tips in there: Finally here is a little playlist I compiled of some actual blackwater / "Bonfire" videos available on Youtube:

I'm jappy to see Inon is giving us filter mounting options again (even if it's intended for their lenses), as it's not really in the zeitgeist. There's no reason stepping to a 67mm filter won't work. Stepping down is more risky because of vignetting risks, but the go pro lens is small. Original SRP UR-Pro filters were 55mm, but the glass 52mm UR-Pro I have doesn't vignette as well, so no issues stepping up to 67mm. edit - The sidestep-slide on yearly GoPro cam upgrades and image quality is now in a seperate thread cheers b

Have you noticed a real improvement in the quality of underwater footage over the upgrades? The thing about action-cam footage and their clockwork yearly upgrades is that there's a lot of talk about how great the new upgrade is, but when it comes to actual footage produced with it, it's difficult to find more than the odd tests - which abound every time a new model is out -but don't really tell us much, especially for UW video.... People working with action cams to shoot and produce finished underwater clips are rare. Most are tests, side by side comparison and the like, and then you have the odd ungraded clip where it's more about what is shown than image quality, etc. It's not really consistent as a sample base, and difficult to measure image quality upgrades for UW shooting. The latest demo clips shot by Kay Burn Lim for AOI are nice for instance, but it's difficult to pinpoint the mind-blowing improvements that the new cam / gear / accessories actually allowed. In my GP user history, the biggest jump was from 4 to 5 - The 4 had no stabilisation, and the colour / light dynamics were poor. However the image was crisp, sharp, really good. And the Medium field of view really pleasing. Skip to the 5, and we get great stabilisation (well, it started getting really good with the 7 and up), cam was waterproof (saved a lot of stress of checking the 40 m or 60m housing), and colours / dynamics were much better, and you had more shooting modes. However, the field of view was really not great, more distortion in the new Linear than in Medium fov, and image quality had dropped somehow. The introduction of the touch-screen zoom mode also made things much more difficult for UW macro shooting (compared to just choosing "narrow" fov, especially since the zoom would reset when the cameras was off for example). Sure, better colours and dynamics on the 5 and up new gens, but also less sharpness/ precision, and more side distortion overall (which i believe is linked to the introduction of stabilisation). The GoPro 6 was not great, buggy and quickly forgotten, as the 7 was much better and stable. I stopped there, because for the 8 and up an whole housing/battery upgrade was required, and filter solutions lacking. To illustrate this experience, here are some clips: this was shot on the GoPro 4, with no stabilisation: GP4 - colours / dynamics are lacking, especially at depth, but i like (and still miss) the image quality this cam had. I hopped straight to the 6, which was clunky - this is one of the rare clips I shot on the GP6, and from there I quickly hopped to the 7, which was solid, and used that a lot: GP7 All of these are shot in flat profiles, with the same UR-Pro Cyan filter, and white balanced / graded in post. You can see the corner distortion and loss of image quality from the 4 to the new gen, but also the improvements in colour captation and low(er)-light handling. Not really using a GoPro at the moment, I'm in no hurry to update, I guess I'll probably hop on to the GoPro14 or 15 at some point when they're out....😆 A thread like this one seems to indicate that some users are not finding a massive difference in the quality of UW footage, but YMMV... In post, I work with Final Cut Pro X - work flow is to first reset the WB point (picking a white balance point in the image, sand, tank, bubbles, white/grey bit of rock) and work from there. I have a preset with color wheels (increase dynamic range, desat the blacks), color board (fine tune WB) then curves.

Yep, totally agree - one of the reasons I didn't upgrade the GoPro7 I was using was primarily the lack of filter adapters for standard housings. I considered switching to the Dji Osmo at one point, but same issue, worse maybe. Despite all the "no-filter required" statements found online, I'm used to and enjoying grading GoPro flat footage, and for that shooting flat with a good filter (I was using UR-Pro Cyans filters, 55mm and 52mm), then adjusting the white balance in post (since there is no way to custom WB underwater) works really well (here's a sample, or a more recent one here, all shot in ambient light + filter, WBed and graded in post) Started doing this on the 4 (which, as an aside, had really good image quality, something was lost in the upgrades to the 5 and up - though of course there were other improvements, colour, low light, stabilisation, waterproofing) and never looked back. There's really 2 approaches to action camera footage: people who will be working on GoPro UW footage in post (in which case a flat profile + filter will get best results in post), and those who are trying to get the best results in camera which, in my opinion, doesn't work as well with GoPros underwater. Shallows will be good enough, but footage will be difficult to adjust in post and colour results not as smooth. The Inon 67mm filter mount is great - I probably would use it with stepdown rings with my filters - I'd like to try the Inon variable red filter, but filter quality is actually important here - I've tried shooting with a Keldan Spectrum Filter on the GoPro and results were bad for instance - I haven't tried Magic Filters on the GoPro, which would be interesting, but the now legacy UR-Pros Cyan I've been using since the GoPro4 to 7 just work well. Would love to see more convincing clips shot with the variable filter, as clips like this are not the most convincing, and I imagine it would be difficult to have an idea of the adjustments made in-situ on a GoPro (well, this is where a bigger screen might come in handy) I will upgrade at some point as I like the idea of simplicity of a GoPro in a BCD pocket, but personally wouldn't spend a lot of money on accessories trying to bulk up and improve what is a great little camera as is. Despite the screen, handles a wide lens (on a camera which is already wide-enough for most applications....), it will still be a GoPro, with no manual WB, no aperture control, etc... Closeup lenses will indeed make closeups possible, but shooting actual macro on a GoPro sounds like a headache more than anything else, as for handles (which I used at one point, I had a tray on the 4 which had no in-camera stabilisation), a two handed grip directly on the sides housing also works really well (maybe better actually, but shh) especially with the fantastic stabilisation introduced on the 5 and up.

Welcome Tim - as a conservation photographer, there's a thread that might interest you in this corner of the forums: cheers b

Looks fantastic - doesn't seem to exist as an e-book, unfortunately for those of us in slightly more remote places and with luggage restrictions 🙂

Thanks - 18K is a lot of power! i imagine the lights were positionned downwards?

Welcome Ann! Very nice place to be, and easy to hop over to Palau too for a change of scenery 😀

Yes, very interested in logistical details as well - what kind of lights were used for the lures on the line, and how were they positionned? And was anyone shooting video on those dives? How did this work out with photgraphers? From what I read so far on basic black-water dive logistics, critters are attracted to the lure lights on the line then photographers focus on them and shoot away, eventually moving away from the line to some extent. But for video's constant lighting, I guess this would leave the option of either staying away from the lure lights with lights off, and turning on the lights when required or using one's one lighting as a lure light (which seems to be what is going on with Aquatilis), but this would probably be more of a solo option. Given the amount of critters we have even in shallow water here, my plan for "shallow black-water" tests is simply to tie a lure light to a deeper mooring rope at 10m and hang in the area, see what shows up (hopefully not just lionfish...) Current is usually mild enough to hang around, so if conditions are ok it would just be a question of following the critter a little, then returning to the line. I know some ops in Tulamben organise proper black-water from boats (not sure how far out they go), but I'd rather practice shooting video in similar conditions first, to try to figure out what works. I shot this tiny little critter yesterday at midday (lost it before I was setup for hand-held shooting, so no useable footage, unfortunately...) - no clue what this is, but if oddities like this can be spotted during the day, there's reason to hope l̶u̶r̶k̶i̶n̶g̶ hanging around in the dark (with DIY readers, hood and leggings - laundry basked optional 😁) might bring about some interesting encounters....

Guilty for the (neoprene) hood - knifeless calves, but nicely wrapped in black leggings under the shorts, my standard underwater guise when not wearing a wetsuit ... Wait, is this what they call oversharing? 😅

Indeed... not even sure that kind of thing is entirely legal in these parts 🤣🤣🤣

Wow - amazing footage indeed!! I'll be going for a deep dive in the Aquatilis project, thanks so much for this. Amazing critters as well, really fascinating. The simplicity of the stabilisation device is mind-blowing - I can totally see the logic, bulkier means more damping of handling movements. He's also not really using that many floats, but I think this is due to the large dome port, which must be quite posistive. Light positionning seems pretty straightforward, just angled-in a little for closeups - overall a really simple kit but seems to work great. To rebound on depth required, I totally agree - when I was on Hachijo Island in Japan, planktonic / larval were really special (I remember spending time try to shoot a larval mahi-mahi, which was pretty great), even though we were in a shallow harbour. Granted, it was quite deep and exposed to the Kuroshio current just a couple of miles out, but there was a lot going on in the shallows. Same thing in east-Bali - there is some depth closeby (the fishermen setup their fish-aggregating devices in a spot about 1500m deep...) and really powerful Indonesian through-flow current pumping through the Lombok straight, and there's a lot going on even in the shallows... I've become really lazy with night diving logistics, but seeing footage like this is really motivating and reminds me of what I'm missing out on....

Nice find! Allows the use of the Digipower extended battery kit down to 250m apparently

Sounds tricky - all Inon products are made for the GoPro dive housing. If the wide lens only come with custom SD mounts, one way to approach it would be to find some kind of adapter to get the wide lens to fit to a regular threaded mount, then use step-up/down rings You could maybe use something like this with the Digipower frame, since it mounts on the bare camera's lens protector, but this would need to be tested given the Digipower frame's added bulk Otherwise Puluz makes an adapter that fits directly on the bare cam's lens like so: Then it's just a question of making the wide lens of your choice work with a 52mm thread.

I used the Backscatter MacroMate Mini (+15) for a bit, it works quite well, when you get the working disance dialed in. I just sold mine to a local dive shop owner who's shooting primarily with a GoPro and getting good footage with it: Here's a closeup example he shot with the MacroMate cheers

As an update, the replacement MS-10 finally arrived today, January 5th 2024! 😀 SUPE came through and helped coordinate things between two Indonesian distributors!

Hello all, I've been shooting mostly macro video over the past few months and increasingly interested in juvenile / larval forms, and find "black-water" subjects quite fascinating. I personally haven't had the chance to try actual pelagic black-water diving yet, but have encountered interesting juvenile/larval critters in the water column on a standard shallow night dive, and fumbled to get shots -- While this is not true black-water diving, night-time critter migrations can be quite interesting in some locales, if the topography is right. I thought I'd open up a thread on the subject for people to share technical tips and ressources on how to get good video footage in a black-water shooting scenario, One aspect I'm particularly interested is video light positioning. A lot of the info for black-water still-shooting and strobe/light position can be transfered to video, but I'm sure there are also some specificities for video and constant-light shooting. There's an interesting article on the subject published by Mike Johnson in (now Waterpixels sponsor) X-Ray mag here: https://xray-mag.com/content/shooting-video-black-water-diving It has the following recommendations for video light positioning: "Regardless of how many lights you choose to shoot with, they should be angled from the side, top or bottom and set to fill the area where your macro lens is focusing on. I used two Light & Motion Sola 2000 Video lights, with one positioned at 9 o’clock and the second at roughly 1 o’clock. The light at 9 o’clock I set at 1000 lumen output, and the light at 1 o’clock I set at 500 lumen output. This did a really nice job of illuminating any translucent bodies, yet was still not too bright to overpower most of the bioluminescence." Rig buoyancy must be quite tricky as well - even though we are dealing with macro subjects, since most of the action takes place in the water column, the rig would need to be as neutral as possible to allow for short stable sequences, which is a world away from usually very tripod-dependent macro video... The difficulty of getting stable hand-held video footage of small critters moving freely in the water column would probably mean having to slow down footage at some point, not so much for actual slow-motion/stabilisation but rather to extend the length of a useable, in-focus sequence - meaning 60fps is probably required. I'm guessing this really depends on the critters, but I was wondering if using some kind of fixed highly directional light beam (thinking of a snoot beam, pointed up) might be an option to get planktonic critters closer to the rig, and other critters interested in these, functioning as a kind of critter-aggregating-device... This is just an idea, which would not be possible in a typical black-water with other photographers and divers hanging on a line - but I'm not sure how the constant-light requirements of black-water video shooting would combine with black-water still-shooting anyway. Looking forward to reading about your black-water video shooting experiments! cheers ben

Yep, I'd never tried for Japanese but it's not bad. Giving the conclusion (section begining 20.03 minutes in) a quick listen, to summarize he recommends the Inon, as it allows you to shoot in super view mode and switch to wide mode if you feel there is too much corner distortion while keeping roughly the same image quality as the AOI, whereas the AOI would vignette - since a fisheye lens is designed to shoot wider, he feels that Inon gives you more options in this sense. Note - Not having watched the whole thing, I'm not 100% sure what he means for the corners on the AOI - he uses a slightly technical expression ( 四隅けられる ) which usually refers to vignetting

Yep, it's one of the downsides. Considering it's easy to get a screen in most places, I'm starting to think Mac Minis might be an option for a semi-nomadic lifestyle. I actually left the macbook pro in Europe in 2017 - the macbook air has been surprisingly reliable, but I'll be happy to move back to something more punchy in the future. Great thanks

You're all making me drool - I edit 4K video in Final Cut Pro on a 2017 1.8 GHz Macbook Air with 8Gb of ram at the moment. I run FCPX directly from a Samsung T7 SSD instead of the macbook's hdd, which helps a lot. Not having a home to settle down in at the moment led to such minimalism, but a laptop with M1 processor would be fantastic, and the first thing I would get. I used macbook pros in the past (editing, and also visual mapping in Modul8), and also a souped up MacMini, but this was a while ago. Final Cut works running from the SSD works fine enough (I don't even use to use proxies to edit) but I can't run DaVinci Resolve for instance - well i can but can't get fluid playback, even with proxies...

Great stuff there! AOI products are really starting to get an edge these days, it seems. On the naming, i agree, I agree... Even ChatGPT could do a better job... It's one of the things that seems to live in a parallel dimension of its own - that said I confess to feeling a somewhat similar confusion regarding names of Sony Alpha cameras and Samsung Galaxy phones, so easily disoriented and probably not much of a reference 😄

Welcome Pete. I was working in Khao Lak for a few seasons and ended up staying over a year in Phuket during the pandemic (moving down there after the tambon lockdown was ancient memory...). We did some shote diving there, and have great memories of the Kata Beach mimic octopus colony! Really interesting macro in the area as well, a bit more difficult to find than further south, but great! cheers ben

I'm starting to think I have a doppelganger in the area, too concerned about style to go for the DIY option - I'm sure he probably shoots stills only too 😆