Anyone New England divers have experience with the GoPro Surf?

[decapoddiver]

Thinking about picking one up but some reviews talk about an underwater blur due to the lens. Anyone here used one in our low-vis waters? Thanks.
http://gopro.com/cameras/hd-hero2-surf-edition/

 

[jsm2090]

Sorry, I don't know about the waters over where you are, but I received a Go Pro HD Hero 2 for Christmas, and it is a great all round camera for the size and price, and works very well in the murkier low-vis waters of Australia. It is true that the domed lense creates a slight blur underwater, but this can be rectified by attached a flat lense housing. I bought the Blur Fix and it not only looks great but works well underwater too. It may be useful to note that I found the 'Outdoor' version of the camera is probably better if you don't surf; it comes with a headstrap, helmet strap, and various arms to attach the camera.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Same as jsm said gopro is a great little camera and can do pretty good results in low vis, I think the hd2 does better then the original in poorer conditions as its been improved a bit in low light over the earlier model. Its still not DSLR or pro cam levels but can do pretty well for a pretty simple to use relatively cheap setup.

Here is a video I filmed shooting an open water course a couple of my friends were teaching, Its in Melbourne Australia so cool and not great vis usualy but the video turned out much better then it looked down there, the vis was less then 2 meters in most spots and wouldn't have got much beyond 3m in the best sections.

I use the Blurfix fix also as it does a great job of fixing the blur issue and also makes it easy to use filters, this one had a shallow water cyan filter from URpro as max depth was only 5.3m considering the conditions everyone was surprised how well it turned out.

[video=youtube;4sawf2_JQHc]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sawf2_JQHc[/video]

 

[robint]

Marty... that is very nice. I was watching it at first thinking it was really yucky vis, then when I switched to 1080p it got pretty clear! In fact, when you found the seahorse it looked very nice!

I wish we could teach students at a site with fishlife like that! Our local OW cert spot is 90' vis, but only a few goldfish and crawfish to be seen.

robin

 

[Marty Cerven]

Thanks Robin, The wide angle lens does help in these sorts of conditions. I filmed this all in 1080p wide mode I think which as long as you get very close to the subject gets pretty good results. Im surprised they didnt lose a student and there was a huge stingray that was swimming around which i filmed a few days earlier. It swam pretty much through the group but only a couple people actualy saw it so that says how poor the vis actualy was.

Sounds like your teaching in a fishtank, maybe you should throw a few more fish in next time to add to the atmosphere lol.

 

[robint]

Thanks Robin, The wide angle lens does help in these sorts of conditions. I filmed this all in 1080p wide mode I think which as long as you get very close to the subject gets pretty good results. Im surprised they didnt lose a student and there was a huge stingray that was swimming around which i filmed a few days earlier. It swam pretty much through the group but only a couple people actualy saw it so that says how poor the vis actualy was.

Sounds like your teaching in a fishtank, maybe you should throw a few more fish in next time to add to the atmosphere lol.

haha... problem is we are diving a fresh water spring, 60 degree water year round, and not much will live in it. That and local aholes seem to think it is okay to fish there (signs everywhere say no fishing).

here's what it looks like:




students hold onto a floating platform to do skills. It's a great place to teach as it's hard to lose a student (you can see from wall to wall normally), just not much fish.

robin

 

[macado]

I know this is an older thread but I just ordered GoPro Hero2 with BlurFix Lens and hoping it gets here before this weekend so I can use it. Hoping I can use it for some scallop dives since people always ask me what they look like and what I see..

decapoddiver, did you ever purchase one? I've seen a few divers in New England with this camera but it looks like most people were using the stock lens/housing which doesn't address the focusing problems underwater.