I am not going to be emotional about this because while I hold all of my gopro cameras near and dear to my heart I do understand that at some point they are going to meet the maker.
2 years ago (2013) I spent a week diving in Roatan. I travel with multiple gopros so losing one was painful but it was quickly replaced with another I had on boat. 2 years ago we do the plunge, get to top of wreck at back section, do the swim around. I decided to get down to the sand and got myself to 110 ft. Much to my horror as I was coming back up to 80ft mark I started seeing water oozing in. Err.. so much for a housing specifically rated for 181 feet. This was a gopro hero 3 black with a battery back pack, 32gb card etc etc. Somehow even while completely flooded my camera managed to stay on for entire dive and not a second too soon while climbing back onto boat I was able to salvage sd card out of it before it took its last breath. Fresh water rinse, bag of rice... damage to card bay was irreversible as I could see all sorts of corrosion there. Soon there after sd card started to corrode. All I got were 55 minutes of corrupted mp4 files which I was able to repair with a repair tool. At the time there was no damage at all to the housing nor the seal and I was able to have 15 more dives with same exact housing but different gopro inserted. All dives on that drip (skip for the wreck) were shallower than 80ft.
2 weeks ago (2015) I spent a week diving in Roatan. This time I came prepared with a brand new 197 feet housing also with a hero 3 black. Yet again on the same very wreck... this time never went below 96 feet... it started to flood. This time camera stayed on skip ahead skip ahead... it met the maker in the same identical way. Identically I salvaged the files (doing so right as I type actually). Right after it flooded I put in my last of the hero 3 black cameras and had 20 more dives with same exact housing.
Obviously I religiously check my seals, religiously look for bubbles in water tub on boat... and the fact that camera works like normal at 0-80ft...
What I think is happening folks is that 181 ft and 197 ft rating is absolutely bogus. Sure sure... there is some margin of error... and sure sure... recreational dive limits are shallower than 140 with most divers diving 30-80ft. But why... is it that the darn housing flooded at a depth that is about half of rating?
I have been able to deduce through 400 some dives with my gopros that they generate a ton of heat and temperature differential causes them to fog up a little, which is why a lot of people are using anti fog strips. I also found that when going through thermoclines (which there were on that dive) camera fogs up even faster. What I think is happening is camera heating up is causing dive housing and the seal to warm up to camera temperature and sudden thermoclines cause either seal or housing or both to contract and in that very moment... is when cameras flood.
At this point I am down to a last hero 3 black camera and if and when it goes I am going to get a hero whatever. I already have hero 4 black on my drone but it stays permanently attached so cant use that for diving.
To some degree when I switched from bonica camera to a gopro I knew there would be drawbacks. Years later these little cameras are used for everything that I do, be it mountain biking, kayaking, scuba diving, traveling, drones... I have learned to accept that I am going to lose them and enjoy the time together.
Since I plan to go back to Roatan many more times I think I may need to find a solution to the Aguila wreck curse. It just seems like housings cant withstand those depths.
2 years ago (2013) I spent a week diving in Roatan. I travel with multiple gopros so losing one was painful but it was quickly replaced with another I had on boat. 2 years ago we do the plunge, get to top of wreck at back section, do the swim around. I decided to get down to the sand and got myself to 110 ft. Much to my horror as I was coming back up to 80ft mark I started seeing water oozing in. Err.. so much for a housing specifically rated for 181 feet. This was a gopro hero 3 black with a battery back pack, 32gb card etc etc. Somehow even while completely flooded my camera managed to stay on for entire dive and not a second too soon while climbing back onto boat I was able to salvage sd card out of it before it took its last breath. Fresh water rinse, bag of rice... damage to card bay was irreversible as I could see all sorts of corrosion there. Soon there after sd card started to corrode. All I got were 55 minutes of corrupted mp4 files which I was able to repair with a repair tool. At the time there was no damage at all to the housing nor the seal and I was able to have 15 more dives with same exact housing but different gopro inserted. All dives on that drip (skip for the wreck) were shallower than 80ft.
2 weeks ago (2015) I spent a week diving in Roatan. This time I came prepared with a brand new 197 feet housing also with a hero 3 black. Yet again on the same very wreck... this time never went below 96 feet... it started to flood. This time camera stayed on skip ahead skip ahead... it met the maker in the same identical way. Identically I salvaged the files (doing so right as I type actually). Right after it flooded I put in my last of the hero 3 black cameras and had 20 more dives with same exact housing.
Obviously I religiously check my seals, religiously look for bubbles in water tub on boat... and the fact that camera works like normal at 0-80ft...
What I think is happening folks is that 181 ft and 197 ft rating is absolutely bogus. Sure sure... there is some margin of error... and sure sure... recreational dive limits are shallower than 140 with most divers diving 30-80ft. But why... is it that the darn housing flooded at a depth that is about half of rating?
I have been able to deduce through 400 some dives with my gopros that they generate a ton of heat and temperature differential causes them to fog up a little, which is why a lot of people are using anti fog strips. I also found that when going through thermoclines (which there were on that dive) camera fogs up even faster. What I think is happening is camera heating up is causing dive housing and the seal to warm up to camera temperature and sudden thermoclines cause either seal or housing or both to contract and in that very moment... is when cameras flood.
At this point I am down to a last hero 3 black camera and if and when it goes I am going to get a hero whatever. I already have hero 4 black on my drone but it stays permanently attached so cant use that for diving.
To some degree when I switched from bonica camera to a gopro I knew there would be drawbacks. Years later these little cameras are used for everything that I do, be it mountain biking, kayaking, scuba diving, traveling, drones... I have learned to accept that I am going to lose them and enjoy the time together.
Since I plan to go back to Roatan many more times I think I may need to find a solution to the Aguila wreck curse. It just seems like housings cant withstand those depths.
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