Most stable way to take swimming shots with Gopro

[3D diver]

About how much weight does your tray have? Do you counter act it with some bouyancy to get it neutral? I'm thinking about putting something together for my florida dives. They are all drift dives so I should be able to just hang and shoot.

My rig is 10lbs in the air and just about neutral under water:

I think I've already given you links to my build thread and videos in other threads, but am glad to repeat here if/when you like.

 

[00wabbit]

Thanks I remember that one. I think I am going to put something together. Probably wont take it on this trip. For this trip I'll just keep things simple.

I've harassed the dogs and cat a ton on land. Things get different underwater though. Just need more practice but I also think more mass will help.

I was thinking of something ridiculously heavy but then counter balanced with sealed PVC pipe floats so its neutral underwater but resists sharp movements like a bigger rig would. I'll do some experiments this spring.

 

[fbk]

Holding a 2 handled tray with both hands is going to give you the most stable footage. You really have to concentrate on holding it steady, panning smoothly, etc so maintaining good bouyancy and trim needs to be second nature. There is no IS in the camera so every little movement shows up, you can stabilise it to a certain degree in post processing. Yes having more mass (inertia) is going to also help steady it a little but you'd have to make it many times more massive, then neutralise that negative buoyancy, to make much of a difference I feel. I would be interested to see the results of such an experiment.

Here is my first gopro video (and first time holding a video camera underwater) so it could be smoother. This was with a 2 handled tray... mounting to the head, chest or any other body part makes for unwatchable footage IMO.

[video=youtube;93J7a3Srf1Q]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93J7a3Srf1Q[/video]