Roatan video: GoPro Hero 3+, Backscatter 3.1 filters and SeaLife 1200 video light

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large_diver

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Trip report on our March 2014 trip to Coco View (March 22-29).

Beautiful weather, with air temps in the mid-high 80s. Water was a consistent 82F. Sea conditions were what I guess I would call “as expected” = generally steady winds out of the East at 10-15 mph, which meant 1-3 footers when heading east (we did have 1 afternoon of flat calm). We’ve been on 3 trips to CCV, all in March…and during 2 of the 3 years the seas have been like this. No problem at all with the CCV boats……especially with these boats being very stable and having the center well for re-boarding. Also nice to have a steady breeze to keep bugs away and to keep things from getting too steamy.

I completed 26 dives during the week; my daughter did 25. Highlights included 3 night dives, a dawn dive where we went into the water just after 5AM and experienced the sunrise and changing of the guard underwater, octopus encounters on each night dive, including watching one trap and eat what appeared to be a crab, a pod of dolphins on the surface….and perhaps most enjoyable of all, watching my daughter’s confidence and skill level increase at a rapid rate. She went from 40+ to about 70 career dives during this week and the rapid lather/rinse/repeat cycle of this many dives in a week was awesome to behold.

I tried out my shiny new GoPro Hero 3+ on this trip along with the Backscatter 3.1 filter system and a Sealife 1200 video light/tray combo. What a great little set-up. The addition of the filters and video light make the colors really POP underwater…and this light was sufficient to act as my main light on night dives (I always had a back-up along as well).

Link to my resulting video below = about 11:45 long. Highlights are the octopus feeding at 4:41 and cool octopus movement along the bottom at 8:03.

Note for video watchers – hover your mouse on the video window and click on the “auto” button on the bottom right when the video starts = set to 1080 HD.

Some notes from a first time GoPro underwater user (probably stating the obvious with many of these):


  • GoPro backpack display monitor is a battery hog. I was able to get 1 full dive+ when using the camera liberally out of a full battery. I was bringing an extra battery and switching between each dive on boat trips morning and afternoon (CCV does 2 boat dives in the AM and 2 boat dives in afternoon). Depending on dive logistics of a given trip, you might want 3-4 GP batteries and the multiple battery charger (I had 4 plus battery charger). I’ll admit the backpack display is a little small for old eyes to clearly see, but I still found it helpful for framing shots. The Sea Life video light was generally good for full dives.


  • A tray makes a huge difference in terms of image stability with the GoPro


  • I was using the Backscatter underwater filters along with the dive light in daylight and on night/dawn dives…you can be the judge of the results. There are some sequences where things are slightly yellow or blues are overemphasized…but still, I was pretty happy with outcome. I was using the 20-50 foot filter almost exclusively, since with y daughter being a newbie, we were diving mainly in the 20-60 foot range. Backscatter filters worked really well and are so easy to flip underwater. Some TLC needs to be paid to avoid water spots on the filters….not a big deal (I just wiped carefully with non-abrasive cloths after soaking). I've also seen some comments on the Backscatter web-site recommending using a windshield treatment like Rain-X for low-hassle avoidance of water spots


  • With memory relatively cheap, I tend to use 1 memory card per day…minimizes lost pics in the event of a flood and if you (like me) don’t like lugging a laptop while traveling.


  • GoPro plus light and tray were slightly negative…..seemed pretty optimal


  • iMovie workflow and the GoPro: I ended the week with over 3 hours of video. Took some time to get through the editing process. In terms of individual video clips = I would say I started with about 350-400 clips or so. I made the mistake of trying to transfer all 350 of these into 1 iMovie “event”…the workspace in iMovie where you stage/review clips before dragging them into your project (finished video). iMovie seemed to pretty much lock up when I did this. I did some googling and based on other user comments (probably varies based on size), iMovie events seem to have a rough capacity of about 50 clips per event. I deleted everything and started over, setting up many events with a limit of ~45 clips each….seemed to work fine.

Coco View 2014 - March 2014 - Zurich-Diver

Hope you enjoy the results.

Chris
 
What a critter-packed video! Very cool your daughter has this nice vid to reflect back on! I did notice the seahorse in the fan too. I haven't used my GoPro too much yet so I'm watching vids and learning from posters what works and doesn't. I just bought the Backscatter green water filter and Macromate mini as my diving is mostly cold green water with low viz. I have a canon G-9 but it's too bulky to travel with along with the strobes. I have a tray for my GoPro 3+, sure does help out with stability. There's an occasional Hawaii trip for me in blue water, so I'm learning. I did buy a few extra batteries from Wasabi, there are reviews stating they may or may not last longer than the GoPros but they did have a car charger and a wall charger that could also charge via USB. Many charging options for traveling. Thanks for the Rainex tip, good point--glad to know that now rather than after the fact. This vid shows how my GoPro and two 800 eLED lights performed at night 1080/48 frames per second: Manta Ray Bumps and Brushes Me! - YouTube.

Thanks again for sharing!
 
I did notice the seahorse in the fan too.

Good spot. He/she was in a tough spot, couldn't really get very close despite performing the requisite head stand to avoid bumping anything.

I need to pick up a green water filter as well - hope to get out diving locally here in MA this weekend

Thanks for all the comments!
 
thnx for sharing
 
Good spot. He/she was in a tough spot, couldn't really get very close despite performing the requisite head stand to avoid bumping anything.

I totally understand about doing head stands. I can't use a tripod with my GoPro. For the Manta Ray vid I was laying on my right side on rocks trying to hold steady....that kinda failed as I got uncomfortable. The green water filter is amazing. It pulls out a lot of green and deepens the grays and blacks making for better contrast. I have a test video here Lake Pend Oreille Scuba Diving with GoPro Hero3 - YouTube I saw a lot of nice critters in your vid, and it agree the music was very good. Music is such a personal choice, and it can keep viewers interested or have them turning the channel. Keep up the good work!
 
I totally understand about doing head stands. I can't use a tripod with my GoPro. For the Manta Ray vid I was laying on my right side on rocks trying to hold steady....that kinda failed as I got uncomfortable. The green water filter is amazing. It pulls out a lot of green and deepens the grays and blacks making for better contrast. I have a test video here Lake Pend Oreille Scuba Diving with GoPro Hero3 - YouTube I saw a lot of nice critters in your vid, and it agree the music was very good. Music is such a personal choice, and it can keep viewers interested or have them turning the channel. Keep up the good work!

Thanks for the comments Deb and for the sample videos. Hard to conceive of that many mantas in one place. I stopped by my dive shop today at lunch and bought the green water filter…will try to get it into action here soon.

---------- Post added April 8th, 2014 at 09:52 PM ----------

Nice job. Like the music selection too.

thx - glad you enjoyed.
 
I just bought my gopro stuff. I won't get a real chance to use it until July.

Thanks for posting and I hope my attempts will be as great as what you have posted.
 
I just bought my gopro stuff. I won't get a real chance to use it until July.

Thanks for posting and I hope my attempts will be as great as what you have posted.

Hi dmoore19, I've learned a lot reading through this forum back to 2012 postings. One thing I'd advise is to walk around your house or yard with your GoPro on whatever mount you're using and practice holding it still and level. While the water is certainly a different environment, it's practice that will pay off! Cheers!
 

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