Sorrento night dive with a GoPro HD2 and a cool cuttlefish

[Marty Cerven]

Here is a cool little dive I did last night, filmed with a HD2 and Blurfix with clear lens on the SRP tray. Used 2x Sola 500s and 2x TUSA 300.

[video=youtube;P1895Nn_I5Q]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1895Nn_I5Q[/video]

 

[ronscuba]

Great video. Love the cuttle fish. Were you shooting full wide ? If so, you must of had your lights really spread out.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Full wide for the first half of the video and then medium with the cuttle and all the above water shots and maybe one or two others. The Ray was in wide probably about 50% of the video was in either mode.

Wide seems to work best with the lights in general but medium is still ok, using the full sensor size helps wide but medium gets a little noisier when not too close to the subject. In medium I can aim the lights more central so it kind of evens itself out in both modes. The Solas have a great wide beam and can pretty much fill the full wide frame, I had the TUSA lights aimed higher more to get some distant light as they aren't very wide in comparison.

The TUSA's on their own would only fill half the wide frame but also give a bit of a hotspot, Ive tried some basic diffusers which reduce the output a little but smooths the light out heaps. I didn't use a diffuser this dive though as I was trying some shots with just the TUSA lights and some with just the SOLA's to compare them.

With the Diffuser on the TUSA's I can use the SOLA's for the wide angle and aim the TUSA's in close to light anything very close to the cam, a lower output and softer light works well in this setup. Still trying to find the best method, I just used some opaque plastic from a plastic bag the other day which worked ok.

 

[LowVizWiz]

Nice video, I'm still looking for a nice set of lights for my set up. Which SOLA's are you using?

 

[Marty Cerven]

This is with the Sola 500's so if you can get decent results with these then any of the range will do ok. At night I dont think you'd be needing to use 1200 lumens but daytime is when you need all the lumens you can realistically afford. Seeing how bright these lights look and everyone that did this dive was impressed how well it lit everything Id love to see what a pair of 4000's would do lol.

For close objects which is where the GoPro works best anyway the 500's do a pretty good job from what Ive seen so far. Close objects at night even 2x Sola 500's are too bright at times so the more lumens would let you shoot things further away but you will be turning them down to shoot anything close.

The best thing about these lights though is how wide and even the beam is with very soft edges, I assume that all Sola lights in Flood mode would perform the same. For a Gopro you do really need a very wide beam spread as it does have a very wide angled lens.

 

[LowVizWiz]

This is with the Sola 500's so if you can get decent results with these then any of the range will do ok. At night I dont think you'd be needing to use 1200 lumens but daytime is when you need all the lumens you can realistically afford. Seeing how bright these lights look and everyone that did this dive was impressed how well it lit everything Id love to see what a pair of 4000's would do lol.

For close objects which is where the GoPro works best anyway the 500's do a pretty good job from what Ive seen so far. Close objects at night even 2x Sola 500's are too bright at times so the more lumens would let you shoot things further away but you will be turning them down to shoot anything close.

The best thing about these lights though is how wide and even the beam is with very soft edges, I assume that all Sola lights in Flood mode would perform the same. For a Gopro you do really need a very wide beam spread as it does have a very wide angled lens.

My main concern is hot spots, in my experience the GoPro does not handle them very well. I've had a few videos ruined when the camera "sees" a hot spot. I did like how "soft" the lighting look on your video. I played with a few different lights, but even the intova's wide beam had too much of a hot spot for the GoPro. I understand that the Hero 2 has a lot better response to the change in contrast from dark to light or light to dark, is that your experience? I'm shooting with the original Hero HD.

 

[Marty Cerven]

There are some hot spots in this video as I also used the TUSA lights which do have that issue unless you use a diffuser which I didn't on this video.

Using just the Sola 500 lights there is no noticeable hotspots from my land and water tests so far unless shooting a very reflective surface. Ive had a look at most other available torches at the dive shop and nothing comes close to the wide consistant beam of the Sola lights I have. The TUSA lights actually have a different colour temperature and the edge of the light is very sharp with a hint of red around the outside, one light is much warmer then the other.

The Sola lights though have a near perfectly matched colour temp (using my naked eye not a scientific test) and the edges have a very smooth drop off, overlapping the beams doesn't even cause any noticeable change on the beam where overlapping the beams on the TUSA lights shows an obvious light brightening effect at the point where both beams overlap.

The Sola 500 lights are the cheapest of the L&M range but by looking at the lighting output quality I see why they are the price they are. If the higher end lights in the range have the same smooth balanced and well matched light output just at higher lumens they must be some impressive video lights.

My Hero ones are currently on holidays in whistler so I havent had a chance to test them with the lights yet, I will do as soon as I get them back next week though. On my next night dive I will mount HD1 and HD2 side by side to see how they both deal with the lighting setup Im using.

 

[LowVizWiz]

On my next night dive I will mount HD1 and HD2 side by side to see how they both deal with the lighting setup Im using.

There are a couple of side by side reviews of the HERO cameras on youtube, but comparing both of them underwater with lights using the SRP Blurfix would be great.