Asking for advice for GoPro settings for night dives and a few others

[DukeAMO]

Hi all,

We have two GoPro Hero 3 cameras - one Silver edition and one Black edition. My husband and I each plan to dive with one of them on our upcoming trip to Hawaii. My husband has used the Silver edition several times while diving, so he has a little more practice than I do.

We were thinking about setting up one camera (the Black?) to take a continuous video of the entire dive, with the extra battery bacpac on that one. I'll probably wrist mount it to keep my hands free, but if anyone has tried and liked one of the other GoPro mounts, please let me know. I prefer to use to the GoPro branded stuff where possible, because I can get it for free. Long story.

Then the other camera (the Silver?) would be used for still shots, with the LCD bacpac on that one so we can get up close and frame the shot more carefully. I think we'll just use a wrist strap for that, so we don't lose it.

Does that make sense? Or would you split up the cameras' jobs differently?

We're not ready to deal with camera lights or rigs yet, so we'll take what we can get without them. We usually dive with small LED lights in the daytime, and on the night dives we'll each have a big handheld light to shine on things.

I would say that we are game for a small amount of post-processing work... as in, the post processing should not take longer than the dive itself. DH has a Mac and some video editing software, but I forget which software.

The dives we have planned are:
* A just-before-sunset dive and the manta ray night dive in Kona
What camera settings would you guys use for those? I'm hoping these are popular enough that a few people here have actually filmed them with a GoPro! I assume you take the filters off at night, to start. Do we need to use the 30fps rate at night to give the video camera more time to capture light?

* A pelagic blackwater night dive
I'm not too optimistic about what we will record, but we might as well try. This is a night dive with mostly small creatures (1"-4" long) that either reflect light or glow in the dark, and we can illuminate them using dive lights. Some things will be larger and farther away. If anyone has an idea of what settings to use here, that would be cool too. I was thinking we could put a macro lens on the "still" camera and set it to a narrow angle, and use the same settings as the manta ray night dive for the video camera?

* A couple of (outside-of-the-)wreck dives and a couple of reef dives
The standard advice applies here, I'm sure. I'm leaning toward using 1080p/60 fps continuous filming, Camera RAW white balance, Protune mode, and a red filter for the camera that takes video. For the camera that takes stills, we might get one of those flip lenses that has macro lens and red filter options, such as this: GoPro Hero3+ Accessory SwitchBlade3+

If you made it to the end, we would greatly appreciate your advice on the best camera setup for these types of dives!

 

[jphehe]

Hero3 Black already has simultaneous video/photo mode. I always set it at 720/60p, 5 sec a shot. Works out quite well.
Any time during the mode, you can also press "power" button once to take a shot if you want.
Download the manual from GoPro site, page 34.

Night dive:
- you still need the filter
- you will really want to get a wide angle (spread light). At low light condition, any focus light will ruin the video (the focus light beam in the video will be too bright and everything that are under the spotlight will become too exposed). I've done 2 night dives so far; learned the lesson. Videos were mostly un-usable with focus light.
- With wide angle torch, I had very good result.

And please dont use Protune. Most people also dont use it. It is quite useless and eats too much memory.
With a filter and the right torch, your video will be sufficiently pretty.

 

[Subcooled]

It is more important to have a wide light beam, flood light, a diffuser, ... than to have maximum brightness.
It is boring to watch a bright white spot travel around a black frame.

Ideally you would do the filming while your buddy would stay at a distance and light up the scene from an angle. That avoids back scatter and allows the light beam to spread a bit wider too.

 

[Scubanoobi]

I love having a gopro for scuba (gave up my point and shoot). I should mention that I have no interest in stills.

For mounts I really like have an extended pole, great for getting close to things as well as self shots.

I also have a tray/lights setup but use the pole as well.

You'll need a filter as well.

 

[EL Pistoffo]

Hi all,
The dives we have planned are:
* A just-before-sunset dive and the manta ray night dive in Kona
What camera settings would you guys use for those? I'm hoping these are popular enough that a few people here have actually filmed them with a GoPro! I assume you take the filters off at night, to start. Do we need to use the 30fps rate at night to give the video camera more time to capture light?

When its going to be dark opt for the Black edition. It has better low light capability. Once lights become your primary source of illumination, filter comes off otherwise most everything will have blown out red color. 30fps is a good idea for the reason you mentioned.

---------- Post added March 15th, 2014 at 11:26 AM ----------

* A pelagic blackwater night dive
I'm not too optimistic about what we will record, but we might as well try. This is a night dive with mostly small creatures (1"-4" long) that either reflect light or glow in the dark, and we can illuminate them using dive lights. Some things will be larger and farther away. If anyone has an idea of what settings to use here, that would be cool too. I was thinking we could put a macro lens on the "still" camera and set it to a narrow angle, and use the same settings as the manta ray night dive for the video camera?

I'm not sure how close-ups with a narrow beam dive torch will look in video or photo's but your idea of a macro lens and narrow angle is the right idea for close ups. Video with medium FOV at night is a good idea but the same dive torch will probably give you bright hot spots in the center of your image (bad exposure).

---------- Post added March 15th, 2014 at 11:36 AM ----------

* A couple of (outside-of-the-)wreck dives and a couple of reef dives
The standard advice applies here, I'm sure. I'm leaning toward using 1080p/60 fps continuous filming, Camera RAW white balance, Protune mode, and a red filter for the camera that takes video. For the camera that takes stills, we might get one of those flip lenses that has macro lens and red filter options, such as this: GoPro Hero3+ Accessory SwitchBlade3+

All good ideas. Those are my settings for shooting daytime video. The advantage to Protune is that the detail that would normally be lost in the shadows or darker areas of the image when there is a lot of contrast instead is present. Protune gives you a brighter, washed out looking image as a result. Adjusting the contrast/brightness is required but you have more detail to start off and work with. GoPro Studio has a Protune preset than can be applied quickly to adjust those.
Camera Raw allows you to get more accurate and consistent colors. It will probably require color correction in an editor as well. Almost all my vids are recorded like this, you can view the results by going to the link in my signature below.

The Switchblade might be a fine, cost effective solution red filter for macro but remember, if your shooting close-up to a subject with a red filter on, macro lens or not, you don't want to use lights( blown-out reds).

 

[DukeAMO]

OK, lots of good advice here. Thank you!

Our first experiences with diving with the GoPro Silver taught us:
* The little buggers are tough, but the battery life is short.
* If you have both a camera and a light, they should both be on tethers or mounts, or you are likely to drop one. On entry, on exit, when checking consoles, if you have to write on a slate, if you have to adjust your gear...
* You really should use a red filter, or everything will be "blue on blue" on deeper dives. Ugh.
* You can't add red that's not there in post-production, even for stills. Bummer.
* Get close to the subject whenever possible, or you'll be searching the frame for the interesting bit (especially with stills).
* Get something in the frame for reference size, if possible, especially for very big subjects.

I also find it interesting that our brains automatically compensate for colors getting filtered out at depth. For example, at 50ish feet down, our eyes could see that a lot of fish were bright yellow, but they looked nearly colorless in the photos (with no filter).

We've never tried filming a night dive, so that's new to us. Our previous night dives were in a lake with 3-10ft of visibility, so there wasn't much to film anyway. ;-)

If I have a choice, I'll ask for the wide-angle lights for the night dives. We'll have rental lights, so we'll see what they have to offer. We'll see if the "one buddy illuminates things and the other one films" tactic works out too. Alternatively, if someone has a professional rig, we'll see if we can get them to send us their video instead. ;-) But again, it's usually worth trying to get our own pictures, for practice if nothing else.

jphehe, for night dives, why would you still use a red filter? Most good night dive videos I've seen almost look black-and-white.

I remember now that the camera can take stills every 5 seconds while filming. Hm. It probably doesn't hurt to just leave that setting on.

So much of this is practice too, but that's part of the fun.

 

[diversteve]

There's going to be a lot of light at the Manta Dive. The people with the brightest lights are the most popular with the Mantas. So try to stay near those people.

* A pelagic blackwater night dive
Some things will be larger and farther away.

And have teeth...

 

[MAKO Spearguns]

OK, lots of good advice here. Thank you!

Our first experiences with diving with the GoPro Silver taught us:
* The little buggers are tough, but the battery life is short.
* If you have both a camera and a light, they should both be on tethers or mounts, or you are likely to drop one. On entry, on exit, when checking consoles, if you have to write on a slate, if you have to adjust your gear...
* You really should use a red filter, or everything will be "blue on blue" on deeper dives. Ugh.
* You can't add red that's not there in post-production, even for stills. Bummer.
* Get close to the subject whenever possible, or you'll be searching the frame for the interesting bit (especially with stills).
* Get something in the frame for reference size, if possible, especially for very big subjects.

I also find it interesting that our brains automatically compensate for colors getting filtered out at depth. For example, at 50ish feet down, our eyes could see that a lot of fish were bright yellow, but they looked nearly colorless in the photos (with no filter).

We've never tried filming a night dive, so that's new to us. Our previous night dives were in a lake with 3-10ft of visibility, so there wasn't much to film anyway. ;-)

If I have a choice, I'll ask for the wide-angle lights for the night dives. We'll have rental lights, so we'll see what they have to offer. We'll see if the "one buddy illuminates things and the other one films" tactic works out too. Alternatively, if someone has a professional rig, we'll see if we can get them to send us their video instead. ;-) But again, it's usually worth trying to get our own pictures, for practice if nothing else.

jphehe, for night dives, why would you still use a red filter? Most good night dive videos I've seen almost look black-and-white.

I remember now that the camera can take stills every 5 seconds while filming. Hm. It probably doesn't hurt to just leave that setting on.

So much of this is practice too, but that's part of the fun.

For a night dive, your subject will be illuminated with a dive light. The Go-Pro has a pretty wide angle, so as you found out, you need to be reasonably close to your subject probably about 1 to 10 feet away from your subject. This corresponds to the distance that a wide angle video lights will illuminate reasonably well.

Since your light source is only a few feet from the subject (at night) there is little opportunity for the red spectrum (thrown by the dive light) to be absorbed. Since the red light component will still be present, the use of an additional red filter at night is not needed, and can be expected to result in images that are too red.

It might be fun to experiment with at night, but the red filter is most useful in the day when the illumination is only from the sun which has been filtered by 20 or more feet of water.

If you are looking for an inexpensive, wide angle video light suitable for the Go-Pro.. check out this link:

http://www.makospearguns.com/product-p/mul.2.htm

 

[DukeAMO]

Diversteve, was that manta ray dive filmed with a GoPro? If so, what settings?
That's a nice video. Fingers crossed that it's equally awesome the night we're there... you never know.

 

[RockyHeap]

Filmed with a hero2, both the Manta Dive and Pelagic Magic dive off the big island. (suggest you use Jacks Dive locker for the Pelagic Magic, they use a better down line rigging and sea anchor set-up, instead of Big Island Divers.)


My manta footage is between the 2:15 and 3 minute mark of this video:


https://vimeo.com/63344312


Being the Hero2, you can see a bit more pixilation and redish/purple digitization. I'm sure a Hero3 black would do better.

I shot 720 x 60 fps. Twin SOLA 600 lights aimed WIDE on long arms to try and reduce backscatter right in front of the camera. The mantas were even bumping into the lights, so keep your arms wide and low at camera lens or lower height.


Filming the Pelagic Magic, you're REALLY going to need to get SRP macro filters, at least a +10, I wouldn't bother trying to multistack lenes, if you drop one, it's gone down into 5000 feet deep water. The creatures you see are just too small for a gopro to focus as you need to get realy close to see anything on film besides a small white wiggling spec. Once again, get your lights wide and aimed straight ahead or even outward, not inward like a cone.

Your average plankton/krill critter will be only .25-1" across, a few larger salps maybe the size of an orange, so you really NEED a macro lens (I didn't at that time) For the Pelagic Magic dive, just let the camera run continuous, as things are drifting by so fast that you really are composing and aiming blind and 3-5 seconds later the creature drifts by. It's a wild wild dive, I've done it 3 times.! What an adrenaline rush, makes even a daytime shark feed dive seem sedate and boring.


REALLY try and get out with Mathew D'Evella with Jacks Dive Locker for the Pelagic Magic (special request him), he's studied this micro-fauna for years and has some stunning history and genius/species as well as filming experience:


Pelagic Magic Black Water Night Dive | Jack's Diving Locker | Jack's Diving Locker