Video tests of GoPro HD underwater housing (merged)

This little camera continues to surprise me. This test was in varied lighting conditions and I also hand held a magic filter over the lens at times. The camera was removed for the boat shots. Light was an Inon 550. Edited only to remove the shaky footage and to shorten the clips. Nothing else added.

http://vimeo.com/14102925

Embedded:

[vimeohd]14102925[/vimeohd]

Super stuff Eric. I just opened mine this morning and played with it. Will be meeting with the manufacturers and Rick Loughery tomorrow at the ASR convention in San Diego. I am assuming these clips were shot in the 1080 p mode. Have you played much with the 720p at 60fps and used Cinema Tools? Did you hand hold it or was it mounted with the strap around your head? Were the lights hand held?

In my 1st experiments this morning there is a real fish eye look to much of the footage. Tell me more.

Steve

Anyone got any experience with the Contour HD camera?

http://www.emeralddiving.com/H2OV.html

L

I was just given the Contour yesterday by the manufacturers at the ASR convention. It takes very nice footage, similar to the Go Pro but the housing for it is only good to about 15 ft and really does feel a bit flimsy. The Contour itself reminds me of a tiny Red One and feels solid but I have not played with it for review as yet. One thing I like about it is that when set to record, at first 2 laser beams shoot out on the subject so you can, at least know that it is aimed properly.

Steve

ps. The housing you show for it is from another company, not Contour.

Hi Eric

I have one of this cameras, but I found the image underwater to be not as sharp as it is above water. It seems it is out of focus. I 've heard that they would announce a housing specific for underwater. Do you have one of this or did you find a way around the problem?

Thanks

Marcelo Krause

Hi Eric

I have one of this cameras, but I found the image underwater to be not as sharp as it is above water. It seems it is out of focus. I 've heard that they would announce a housing specific for underwater. Do you have one of this or did you find a way around the problem?

Hi..The housing used for the underwater footage is made by Eye of Mine. It corrects for the soft look of tte GoPro housing. http://www.eyeofmine.com/gopro/index.html

Pete

OK, this is the last one. I promise. I received quite a few questions and a few requests to show close up clips, so here ya go. To answer some questions:

1. The housing used is NOT the GoPro housing supplied with the camera. It's made by Eye of Mine, and has a flat port with plenty of coverage. The standard GoPro housing supplied with the camera has a soft focus issue if it's used underwater. Been told they're working on it.

2. The filters were blue water corrections ones that I had laying around and I hand held them in front of the lens.

3. There is no way to white balance the camera. It's daylight balanced in the software.

4. In clear water above 20 ft you probably don't need a filter.

5. No back lcd....this means that if you don't "aim" the camera correctly you're gonna get a lot of off axis video. Which, of course, I did.

6. The fixed focus lens of the camera with the flat port makes everything from 5-6" and beyond in focus. I measured it. Closer than that, forget it.

7. It would be WONDERFUL if there was a light on the back of the camera to let you know you're recording. To check it now, you always have to look at the front of it at a little red light or at the small lcd screen to see if either is blinking. Which also means you see your face a lot in the videos looking to see if its on.

8. The camera's a lot of fun to play with. I'm gonna keep it in my bc pocket.

9. If you're going to get it I recommend the helmet kit. It has lots of extra clips and a headband that you can wear u/w. I used a short pvc pipe and epoxied one of the clips on it. That way I could get the camera away from me and get it closer to things that don't like bubbles in their face.

Any other questions, pm me.

Updated video is here: http://vimeo.com/14169610

I should clarify that all I did was embed Pete's footage. It is not my footage.

Eye of Mine is the current best place to go to get a GoPro that will focus underwater. He was supposed to send me one to review, but it never arrived, and I have not followed up.

GoPro will be releasing a new design that will focus underwater at some point, as well as a 3D housing (which they showed at NAB this year).

Pete -- you can embed your vimeo videos by doing:

[vimeohd]14169610[/vimeohd]

[vimeohd]14169610[/vimeohd]

Also, I'm merging this thread with your last one.

Pete and Eric, thanks for the replies.

I will look for the housing.

Marcelo Krause

Also, I'm merging this thread with your last one.

Thanks Eric. Appreciated.

wow! that filter really seems to help!

Nice DiverR fins. Do you free dive?

I played around with adjusting the WB post production and it worked pretty well ( i think)

[vimeohd]14188947[/vimeohd]

I was at a friends house today and he had some footage shot at 60 fps with the Go Pro. I exported it for him as a Pro Res LT file using MPEG Streamclip and then brought it into FC7. Looked pretty good. We then changed the speed to 50% to slow it down and the quality looked just fine to me. The footage was of him white water rafting so I was able to see the splash of the waves without any artifacts.

I was also given the Contour cam at the ASR show this past weekend and their housing is only good for snorklers but the footage is good. Emerald didn't want to send me a housing for review. Oh well.

Steve

Go pro has quite a wide lens, . Gopro is working on a flat port for underwater-wouldnt a dome port make more sense?

Aboshoff

The camera can't focus on the virtual image of the small dome underwater. That's why they are using a flatport. They probably could make a dome port for the housing but will probably cost 3x as much as the camera.

Hi

I had Ron Taylor on my boat recently and he was using a contact lens inside the housing to deal with the focus issue and was getting really nice sharp images

Ciao :-)

Hi

I had Ron Taylor on my boat recently and he was using a contact lens inside the housing to deal with the focus issue and was getting really nice sharp images

Ciao :-)

yes a +3 or +4 may do the trick I think?

My review of the GoPro HERO HD just went up on the kenstone.net site. Important to keep in mind is that they should have both a back monitor and double battery by the year's end. If I could buy stock in this company, I would. I really think they are going to grow as a business.

Steve

A link will greatly increase the number of click throughs. We can also link to it on the front page, if you submit to news@wetpixel.com.