mountainsean
Contributor
Hi there-
I'm looking at getting a Divevolk housing for my iPhone 13. My primary use case is just snapping photos and some videos on recreational dives to share on social media. In the past I've used a very simple setup with a Gopro Hero7 Black (shooting just video) with a single Sola 1200 (in flood mode, mounted on the back of my hand with their Goodman-style glove, for day and night dives). This setup was fine for wide angle (video), pretty crap for macro (anything), and so-so for grabbing screenshots from the video for stills (see attached examples). I found that using the flood without a filter worked much better than no flood + red filter.
I've found that stills are more interesting than video for most non-divers - people will click through an album of 10 stills, but probably won't bother watching a 3 minute video. So I'd like to improve my ability to shoot photos, but still retain the flexibility to shoot video. The Divevolk seems to tick a lot of boxes that way (better stills than GoPro, probably equally good video). Plus I love the simplicity of it - everything on one device, native apps, native editing, sharing, etc. Fewer things to worry about charging, etc. Does this make more sense than trying to get better stills out of the GoPro with some sort of lens setup to correct for its wide angle?
My main questions are around lighting. The Sola 1200 flood had been pretty good for me (though battery life is starting to be an issue). If I added another flood on a tray for the Divevolk (thinking of their 1-arm tray with maybe another Sola flood or a BigBlue on it to complement the one on my hand), would that be a decent setup without having to fuss with strobes and such? I assume I wouldn't need a red filter at that point since the floods would provide all the necessary light? (That would also provide a nice way of carrying redundant light sources for night dives.)
Is the Divevolk macro lens useful? Or are the iPhone's lenses adequate for macro? Any other thoughts/advice/sanity check are most welcome.
Lastly, a somewhat complicated bonus question(s). The last shot below is from a night dive where the DM had some sort of blue/UV flashlight. He lit up the anemone and I videoed it with the Gopro without my light on. It was really cool, and I'd love to have that option once in a while. I've read a bit about the Sola Nightsea, but I'm confused about the yellow filters for your mask and camera - are those strictly necessary? Because I didn't have any yellow filter to get the shot below. If I can get something decent w/out the yellow filter, would it make sense go with the Nightsea as the new light? If I understand correctly I can put a yellow filter on the light itself to get normal white light (default setup), but then remove it to get UV shots? And maybe down the road add a yellow filter to the Divevolk lens attachment?
Thanks,
Sean
I'm looking at getting a Divevolk housing for my iPhone 13. My primary use case is just snapping photos and some videos on recreational dives to share on social media. In the past I've used a very simple setup with a Gopro Hero7 Black (shooting just video) with a single Sola 1200 (in flood mode, mounted on the back of my hand with their Goodman-style glove, for day and night dives). This setup was fine for wide angle (video), pretty crap for macro (anything), and so-so for grabbing screenshots from the video for stills (see attached examples). I found that using the flood without a filter worked much better than no flood + red filter.
I've found that stills are more interesting than video for most non-divers - people will click through an album of 10 stills, but probably won't bother watching a 3 minute video. So I'd like to improve my ability to shoot photos, but still retain the flexibility to shoot video. The Divevolk seems to tick a lot of boxes that way (better stills than GoPro, probably equally good video). Plus I love the simplicity of it - everything on one device, native apps, native editing, sharing, etc. Fewer things to worry about charging, etc. Does this make more sense than trying to get better stills out of the GoPro with some sort of lens setup to correct for its wide angle?
My main questions are around lighting. The Sola 1200 flood had been pretty good for me (though battery life is starting to be an issue). If I added another flood on a tray for the Divevolk (thinking of their 1-arm tray with maybe another Sola flood or a BigBlue on it to complement the one on my hand), would that be a decent setup without having to fuss with strobes and such? I assume I wouldn't need a red filter at that point since the floods would provide all the necessary light? (That would also provide a nice way of carrying redundant light sources for night dives.)
Is the Divevolk macro lens useful? Or are the iPhone's lenses adequate for macro? Any other thoughts/advice/sanity check are most welcome.
Lastly, a somewhat complicated bonus question(s). The last shot below is from a night dive where the DM had some sort of blue/UV flashlight. He lit up the anemone and I videoed it with the Gopro without my light on. It was really cool, and I'd love to have that option once in a while. I've read a bit about the Sola Nightsea, but I'm confused about the yellow filters for your mask and camera - are those strictly necessary? Because I didn't have any yellow filter to get the shot below. If I can get something decent w/out the yellow filter, would it make sense go with the Nightsea as the new light? If I understand correctly I can put a yellow filter on the light itself to get normal white light (default setup), but then remove it to get UV shots? And maybe down the road add a yellow filter to the Divevolk lens attachment?
Thanks,
Sean
