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!

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

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.

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.

I see that Paul Humann is mentioned several times in our list of books for identifying sea creatures. Sadly, Paul Humann left us a few days ago. R.I.P. https://www.reef.org/remembering-paul-humann

I see that there are several lights on the market that offer strobe function. I am skeptical about the real usefulness of this solution but I leave that to the photographers. However, it is already difficult to mix light temperature from two different strobes let alone a strobe and a light. For video, working with a single light is difficult but you should tell us whether your photographic subjects are macro or wide and whether you shoot in temperate waters or shallow in clear tropical waters. 8000 real lumens may be low and if you are doing macro, a wide light (120°) illuminates practically nothing.

Link to this thread added to our working and tested project list

I updated the first post with the latest links from this thread. If you want your project added just post a public valid link here. Thank you all, this is becoming a terrific useful list!

IIRC @RichN has fallen into compulsive shoppig and can give you feedback on how it works 🙂 On that thread I remember other members were using their smartphone.

We should hide this thread 😉

Wow! Looking at my footage of the 11 with AOI lens and the other 11 without it is like comparing a gopro 3 with a 11.

Nikolausz is essentially right: li linear FOV is obtained by cropping the sensor is applying a de-fishing algorithm in camera. This is one of the most common questions on forums, articles and videos. There is a clarification to be made, though. Cropping does not necessarily mean deteriorating quality. In earlier models the sensor was practically 3840 horizontal pixels and cropping involved an actual decrease in resolution and subsequent upscaling to 4K. Since the gopro 11, the sensor is 5.3K and even has an 8:7 or nearly square ratio. This means that 4K can be achieved by cropping but maintaining a 1:1 ratio of image pixels to sensor pixels. In all the articles I've read everyone is dancing around it but no one has the certainty and Gopro has never been clear and definitive. Sure, the best theoretical quality is shooting at 5.3K 8:7 wide without hipersmooth and then cropping and de-fishing in post... But why so much hate? Who has the will and time to do this hard work in post? Besides, are we sure we would appreciate the difference? I mean reading all the bombastic articles about how to get the most out of these cameras reminds me of when I was 14 years old and we used to spend our days putting mufflers and other modifications on our mopeds to get an extra sprint 🙂

That's what I teied now in the river but I'm not sure if it's exactly like that. Using the wide and cropping in post, the images still have a slightly fisheye look that is not there in the linear. P.S. The AOI lens is stunning . Quality in water from night to day. At that price it should be the default kit for anyone using it underwater.

99% per cent of underwater monitors are simply Chinese monitors (from the controls and fw you can see that many are Feelworld monitors), Two parameters are crucial: - brightness - weight in water. 4/500 nits may be low for tropical seas. You would need at least 1000 nits. A fine, streamlined monitor is not necessarily better. Maybe it weighs a heck of a lot and thetroublea nightmare to get the whole kit with a decent weight and trim. This is very important for video makers. I'm seeing fake reviews on YouTube with monitors mounted in absurd ways. Another parameter to keep in mind is the position of the connectors on the monitor and your housing bulkheads. There may be cases where you only have one option to mount it due to bad cables routing or connectors banging.

Welcome aboard EFLT! Out of curiosity, what's the meaning of PWN? 🙂

Hi Mark, plain jpg or png images are best suited.

Do you have a Kiss rebreather?

Hi Gibby, Welcome aboard!

Link added

If you point me directly to some project I'm happy to link in our list pinned above. Ciao

This is what several rumors sites are writing.

Welcome Andrei, Video section has been missing you!

Happy to have you with us Kay!

IMHO linear is the way to go with flat port/lens.