Fishrock Dives SRP filter on GoPro Dive housing

[Interceptor121]

For transparent glass the thickness plays a small role
But some of those you mention are plastic and coloured so you have both an issue of opacity and scattering
A 'cheap' filter made of lower quality less pure plastic will perform worse then a glass filter in terms or scattering
Opacity wise looks like the magic is overall more opaque so it will definitely be less effective at depth than a Glass URPRO that is more transparent
All in all if the quality if the plastic is good is only the colour of the fitter that matters
Still that oculus doesn't look too bad at all

 

[ChiroManta]

Hi Marty.
I have gopro HD1 with srp blurefix and cyan filter. with two 900 lumens video lights.
video depth 45-75ft with good viz 70-100ft.
I record in R3 720 setiings.
Should I change the settings to get more resolution or keep it the same.
thanks for help.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Hi Marty.
I have gopro HD1 with srp blurefix and cyan filter. with two 900 lumens video lights.
video depth 45-75ft with good viz 70-100ft.
I record in R3 720 setiings.
Should I change the settings to get more resolution or keep it the same.
thanks for help.

Have you got any footage up to have a look at your results, r3 in lower light may have a negative effect due to the high frame rate but in the HD1 the only full wide modes are r2 r3 and r4 so but only r3 is 50/60p the others are 25/30p which may get better results as the light starts to go away.

I did shoot most of my early HD1 footage in r3 mode though and in conditions like yours got pretty good results if you check my Thailand videos on my channel. These were mostly deeper then your depths but vis would have been at your level, I think a good thing is to go out one dive and try out all the modes to see what works best for you. I have always gone out and done test dives trying out every option to figure out what real effects they have on the end result, doing this you find the benefits of each and you will get an idea of what you should use next time you go out with the camera.

I personally prefer to view 60p playback as I really like the much smoother motion, but as most of my videos are for online stream sites then these end up being played back in 30p so the 60p smoothness is lost in this case and you may want the added resolution. But with the HD1 only doing medium FOV in 1080p you may prefer the wider modes so thats why its good to try them all out and see what you like the best.

This is quite easy on the HD1 as there are only the 5 modes and you dont really need to try r1 as its only 480p and you most likely wont be using that. I found the HD1 1080p mode underwater produced more noise then the 720p modes which are wider FOV and 720p60 in most cases was pretty much the same as 1080p30 due to this but in lower light 720p30 or 960p30 did get some better results so well worth a try to see how it goes for you.

 

[ChiroManta]

Hi Marty. Thanks for this info. I watched all your videos and posts. It is very useful info for those who dont dive with 4 cams at the same time.
I need a versatile red filter for different conditions. so, do you think it is SRP new version for new gopro dive housing or a wet clip on to their old srp housing "blurefix".
I have both housing and I want to know which filter works better for you?
thank a lot for help.

 

[Marty Cerven]

No worries and I wouldn't recommend anyone to dive with 4, 5 or 6 cams at once as its quite a pain dealing with all more before and after use then during where I just left them running.

Filter wise both Clipons work pretty much the same and are actually the exact same lens just in a different mount,for the Blurfix and GoPro dive housing. Only real difference between the 2 is the GoPro dive has a slightly higher FOV as the stock round lens in the blurfix does reduce the lenses fov slightly to avoid the excessive fisheye effect on land. As you have both and want a wet filter just get it for whichever one you prefer to use underwater if you've used them both underwater already you may prefer one over the other.

I really dont need a wet filter for most of my dives, The surface stuff isn't as important to me and from a couple meters down to about 25m the urpro cyans do a pretty good job. Beyond that if the filter is struggling then without the filter will generally be even worse so Id still just keep the filter on. If I was going beyond 30m though I wouldn't use a filter and just use my lights so thats a plus of the wet filter so you can have it off at that depth but I rarely go beyond 30m and with a gopro it would be pretty much just lights that will help at that point.

I need to find a bit of time to finish up my comparison videos as other things have just been taking up my time the last couple weeks. I was going to upload the full comparison dives but with my internet connection it would have taken a week to up 14GB of footage lol. If I compressed it any more it would have turned to crap so it wouldn't be of any use to anyone seeing compressed blurry videos.

 

[ChiroManta]

Hi Marty. Tanks for info. Really helpful.
my set up looks like this https://www.tecdivegear.com/underwater-photo-video-scuba-gear/107-gopro-hero-video-lighting-set.html
should I lift the lights above the cam level for better shadow angle or just leave it like that.
thanks for your input.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Hi Marty. Tanks for info. Really helpful.
my set up looks like this https://www.tecdivegear.com/underwater-photo-video-scuba-gear/107-gopro-hero-video-lighting-set.html
should I lift the lights above the cam level for better shadow angle or just leave it like that.
thanks for your input.

Thats a very compact setup, I prefer to have longer arms and have the Lights above for a better angle more resembling natural light, plus giving me room to adjust them for different effects if needed. This also helps reduce backscatter effect a little if there's lots of particles in the water, but as with all things in the end its personal choice.

If your getting results good enough for what you want its fine, if your finding its causing a few issues and would like a bit more play with lighting then some longer light arms would come in handy.

 

[ChiroManta]

Thats a very compact setup, I prefer to have longer arms and have the Lights above for a better angle more resembling natural light, plus giving me room to adjust them for different effects if needed. This also helps reduce backscatter effect a little if there's lots of particles in the water, but as with all things in the end its personal choice.

If your getting results good enough for what you want its fine, if your finding its causing a few issues and would like a bit more play with lighting then some longer light arms would come in handy.

Hi Marty.
finaly I upgrade my setup.

I pulled it under a $1000 with 1800 lumens of light and new spr filter. Hd1 though. Will test it in a month. Thanks for all the valuable info. I think it shal work.

---------- Post Merged at 02:16 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 02:14 PM ----------

---------- Post Merged at 02:20 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 02:14 PM ----------

---------- Post Merged at 03:49 PM ---------- Previous Post was at 02:14 PM ----------

sorry, could not uploaded right the way.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Nice Chiro, look forward to seeing your new videos. I did shoot some pretty decent stuff with the hd1 and urpro filters just wish I had a tray with more of those dives as they are a huge help.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Here is a video I shot a little while back, using up to 6 GoPro Hero2 HD camera's.

The point was to try and compare filters but conditions ended up quite poor and results were not very conclusive.

[video=youtube;NeLn-B-3faw]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NeLn-B-3faw[/video]

Filters used

URPro CY dome for GoPro dive and Blurfix
URPro CY 55mm thread on Blurfix
Backscatter Magic Flip for GoPro Dive
Oculus filter for GoPro Dive

The main thing found is that the Hero2 has pretty bad auto white balance and doing a filter comparison in less then ideal conditions just didn't work and results dont show as much as I hoped.

I didn't post this originally as I thought it would just cause more confusion as the WB was more of an issue then the filters at most times. The results under 15-20m where generally ok but still some wb issues, beyond that in this light and vis all cameras struggled in these conditions.

I did try some more filter tests using protune modes in the hd2 with newer firmware recently, but WB is still fully auto there and so results were not any more consistent. I intended to test the max depth of each filters effectiveness but the conditions reduced the effective range compared to other dives I have done in better conditions. As I dont actually own so many cameras trying to arrange them and a dive trip together had to be planned in advance with no idea of what the weather will end up bringing to us. I got the worst case scenario as these were the worst vis conditions of all my dives at this site and it was quite disappointing.

The data overlay is accurate for depth but for some reason the air pressure reading is not correct. My computer does give correct air reading on its screen but the recorded data is about as random as the GoPro's AWB, I apparently would have died on some of these dives if you pay close attention to the air pressure left lol.

I will be back here in about a month and will shoot some video with my hero3 black and it will be interesting to see how it does. With results I have had using cam raw WB the wb issues have never come around and no greened out footage at these same depths using this option in the new camera. It should also give a more effective Idea of how well the filter works at depths without the wb issues. With some luck we will also get some better conditions that are quite likely here.