Light recommendations....

[ScubaDoo83]

This is exactly what I was looking for! I'll be buying 4 of these, thanks guys!!!!

 

[dfx]

This is exactly what I was looking for! I'll be buying 4 of these, thanks guys!!!!

A word of warning about those yellow lights though: while they're awesome for their price and performance, they're extremely poor at managing the heat produced by the LED. In fact they're so poor that pretty much every single one of them that I bought eventually failed due to the insulation of the internal wiring melting and shorting out the electronics. In order to fix or prevent this from happening, I opened up the light head to expose the wires, got some 5-minute epoxy ready and gooped up the wires. Once the epoxy hardened I closed it up again. The epoxy is heat resistant and the lights haven't failed since. Obviously other options to fix this problem exist.

 

[ScubaDoo83]

A word of warning about those yellow lights though: while they're awesome for their price and performance, they're extremely poor at managing the heat produced by the LED. In fact they're so poor that pretty much every single one of them that I bought eventually failed due to the insulation of the internal wiring melting and shorting out the electronics. In order to fix or prevent this from happening, I opened up the light head to expose the wires, got some 5-minute epoxy ready and gooped up the wires. Once the epoxy hardened I closed it up again. The epoxy is heat resistant and the lights haven't failed since. Obviously other options to fix this problem exist.

Excellent, thanks for the tip! I just pulled the trigger on 4 of these. It's a cheap gamble IMO. It'll be nice to have a couple of spares as well. I plan on taking these apart, spraying the reflectors white, insulating the wires and painting the outside casing black.

 

[Spg01]

This was recorded with a Contour camera and two of these with the mirror spray painted white: Cree XM L T6 1600LUM Diving Torch Flashlight Lamp Waterproof Light W Wristband | eBay

That video basically shows what people are talking about. I bet at night those lights would be fine in clear water. But unless you were very close or looking in the shadows I could barely tell that you had lights at all. A red filter might have done more good. But then again it does not matter what I think as long as you are happy with the results.

But I am also in the same boat as you guys, I wanted to try with a cheaper light to see if I ever wanted to progress further.

 

[dfx]

That video basically shows what people are talking about. I bet at night those lights would be fine in clear water. But unless you were very close or looking in the shadows I could barely tell that you had lights at all. A red filter might have done more good. But then again it does not matter what I think as long as you are happy with the results.

But I am also in the same boat as you guys, I wanted to try with a cheaper light to see if I ever wanted to progress further.

Nobody's claiming any professional quality here :tongue: and yes, this setup is intended for exactly what you describe, highlighting dark areas and close-up shots (and I agree with the red filter for daylight shots). Personally I see no point in adding a big expensive light to a small and inexpensive video camera, and for the performance of this DIY setup, I don't think you can beat the price. I'm certainly not convinced that a video light costing 10x as much as this setup also performs 10x as well.

 

[scubastingray]

This was recorded with a Contour camera and two of these with the mirror spray painted white: Cree XM L T6 1600LUM Diving Torch Flashlight Lamp Waterproof Light W Wristband | eBay

That doesn't look too bad, but the angle is still limited compared to moving the LED forward. The other nice thing is that I use sanded pennies as a heastsink (I think it's pre 82 that are pure copper), so they should be more resistant to overheating now. This is called a pillbox design and there are countless threads on it on the light forums.

I have a couple of these I haven't done anything with yet. It has to be matte finish, right? I just have gloss so I'll pick some up so I can take a comparison video showing the difference.

edit: Also, my setup was made for caves, and night diving so when the camera is stopped down from bright sunlight the lights obviously don't do much (as evidenced in your video).

I've been thinking about adding a couple more brackets for added output though (4 lights total).

 

[fire_diver]

Ridiculous, I find it extremely hard to believe its either spend $500 or nothing at all.

It's not really $500 or nothing, it's more like $500 or be disappointed with the results (or have lights that fail quickly)

 

[scubastingray]

It's not really $500 or nothing, it's more like $500 or be disappointed with the results (or have lights that fail quickly)

I think I, and countless other divers would disagree with that. The LED field is changing rapidly, and the antiquated brand name lights selling for 10x the price are offering less and less in terms of advantages. They're going to have to drastically change their prices if they hope to compete in the future on anything other than a name.

 

[scubastingray]

I had a chance to test out the painting method on those reflectors, and I fear they are inadequate for wide angle. The angle of the beam seems to be about 60 deg, as opposed to the near 180. Somewhere in between would probably be ideal, as 180deg covers way more than it needs, and 60degrees is not enough. Even with two of them it is hard to cover the go pro fov, although in the narrow mode it would probably be adequate. They are much brighter though because of the reduced area covered.

so if it sounds like you want a more narrow FOV go with the paint. It was 1/20th of the effort of modifying the led in the other method. I'll probably keep a couple with the led forward for wide angle stuff and a couple with the painted reflectors for narrow.

You guess which is which.

 

[DazedAndConfuzed]

Only reason I'm so cynical here is I know typically in gear related forums people like to "shock" or gloat about their expensive gear. All I'm looking for is a light that can act as my dive light and possibly provide some assistance to my GoPro. That's it, simple.

Go Arri or go home.