Lack of 3D GoPro Videos and 3d recording in general

[JamesC]

I've been looking at misc 3d amateur diving videos on the net. The best one I've seen with the GoPro (for my eyes at least) is Marty Cerven's GoPro seahorse video on Vimeo. His Puffer fish one is pretty cool too. However, that's really the only ones I've found out there. Is there a reason for this that's not readily obvious? Is it just too much of a pain to do, short range only, needs the special flat lens case, etc?

His videos have been posted here before, but here's the links:
Weedy Seadragons and a Seal in GoPro 3D on Vimeo
3D Puffer fish chase GoPro3D on Vimeo

 

[Marty Cerven]

Thanks, glad you liked my little 3D videos and it would be nice to have more people shoot 3D underwater footage in general.

There seems to not be too many people with 3D underwater gopro housings. At the moment only the EOM and drop in lenses are available for use. SRP are in the process of making a new 3D adapter that will also take filters which I cant wait to take down with some sharks at fish rocks on my next trip there.

The 3D editing process does take a fair bit more work and the original gopro cineform 3D software was a little bit buggy too. This would have turned a few people off and some maybe just dont grasp how best to use the 3D settings so the videos dont end up as good as they can be. Now they have put a fair bit of work into it and the software is much more stable but there is still a bit of a learning curve to get the most out of the footage.

Neil Surry has some cool gopro 3D videos in his channel but only one underwater which is a pretty cool wreck dive.

you need to go to youtube for the3D viewing options.
[video=youtube;sfZzfkb8LXg]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sfZzfkb8LXg[/video]

If you search youtube you will find a few more there and I have a couple of others in my channel yt too. YT gives more stereoscopic viewing options and using shutter glasses or any other method that gives each eye its own full colour image does improve the 3D experience over the anaglyph method.

 

[JamesC]

Thanks Marty, that explains the lack of recordings out there. I wasn't sure if it turned out to be worthless for anything but close in shots or what.

 

[Marty Cerven]

The gopro 3D works best with closer objects but thats similar to how our eyes actually work too, you do lose depth perception the further images are as your eyes are a set distance apart and we dont have any zoom with our eyes or at least I don't lol. As most 3 dimensional depth perception is for objects not that far away this works great underwater as generally we are limited to the distance we can see anyway to 5-40m depending on conditions so everything in the frame is relatively close compared to when doing other land based activities.

The main difference though is that human eyes turn in to see closer objects the same as other professional 3D systems, the gopro is a fixed lens and you cant adjust the physical lens angles in any way so your not getting the optimum 3D experiance, this can be adjusted in software to within certain limits that you must understand when using the gopro for 3D images.

However for what the Gopro is designed for being a wearable sports camera to capture cool videos and images while doing things that its not practical or possible to bring any other camera, its a basic point and shoot setup and many uses of the gopro you dont have any time to adjust camera settings mid action so a proper pro level 3D system would be impossible to use properly anyway.

This also makes the gopro 3D very easy to shoot but you need to work out the limitations and at which level can correct these issue in software to make the 3D effect work and avoid eye strain for the viewer.

I think for what it is it works well enough and some cool video can be made using this setup, your not going to film Avatar 3 with a gopro but you can make something pretty cool that not many cameras are capable of, its still one of the smallest/toughest 3D camera setups available that can be used in ways not many other cameras can be.