SRP Tray / Dive Lights

[AquaProHd]

Attention green water magenta filters are not designed to work with camera without custom white balance so be aware

I'm sorry, I misunderstood you comment. I did not understand you were referring to using lights with filters. Thought you were referring to the GoPro's inability to do a manual White Balance.

The video looks great but i fail to see where the filter did much? the video looks great, but very blue. even the part where he filmed the sting ray was all blue.

@Photopab - You'll notice that there isn't much other colors than Blue. Without the URPro Filter the Blue would have appeared to be Greyish Blue and washed out. Take a look at the video below and pay close attention to the Ocean color when the filter is removed and replaced. You'll notice that your Blues look deep and rich. Hope this helps?

[video=youtube_share;XsR0a4vyX6Q]http://youtu.be/XsR0a4vyX6Q[/video]

Note: This video was not taken using the GoPro, but is used to show the effect of color correction. Also notice that the filter is used with lights. But the lights do not effect the colors of objects at greater distances from the camera. Such as the ocean water color.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Regarding the shallow water filter I really like mine but thats because we have quite a few nice little shallow pier dives at around the 5m max depth mark. This is the sort of thing these filters are great at but not really for regular diving where your only doing safety stops at that depth so its pointless for such dive. So for things like this or even snorkelling you can get much better results with the swcy then just a clear lens but this filter is not for everyone thats for sure.

Here is a video where I was testing HD1 and HD2 Gopro camera at one of our most popular local shallow dives at Flinders pier. Max depth at high tide will only get to about 5m at the end of the pier and low tide can be 2m shallower.

The first part of this video was shot at low tide (max depth only 2.5m) with no filters and second part was at high tide (max depth 4.5m) showing with and without filters.



Also regarding lights and filters its not recommended but you can still get some good results here is me breaking all the rules. Diving shallow with a filter and lights but here I needed to do some software WB correction to adjust some auto wb issues caused by breaking these rules.



General rules as the others have stated though are good to stick with for normal depth diving and depending on water and light conditions you can get decent results down to about 25m with the URPro cyan filter.

 

[Interceptor121]

Another serious contender is the new Inon Inon LE700-W Dive Light [ino.456212143712] - $219.00 : Reef Photo & Video!, The Underwater Photo Pros

At $219 for 700 lumens this is a real bargain and takes regular AA batteries. This is 3 lumens per dollar which is the best value for money. Lights are light so suitable for a locline arm. However run time is a bit shorter at 60 minutes. Also takes non rechargeable lithium batteries

 

[hellhole]

Hi.
I was also about to start a similar thread on this. I guess I will piggy bag on this. Hopen the TS won't mind.

I am not going to go into the whole filter discussing. Man.. I''ve seen quite a few already!

I want to ask about twin silage 600 with the srp tray. I wonder how much of the 170 can it cover at a night dive? Simple? ;-)

Cheers

 

[studiokpg]

I haven't used these, but they look nice: http://www.laluzoptics.com/products.html
$199 for 800 lumens, 80 degree beam, three light levels. Here's a review I saw: ScubaSG's - Non Scientist Divelight Review (in progress)

 

[Interceptor121]

Hi.
I was also about to start a similar thread on this. I guess I will piggy bag on this. Hopen the TS won't mind.

I am not going to go into the whole filter discussing. Man.. I''ve seen quite a few already!

I want to ask about twin silage 600 with the srp tray. I wonder how much of the 170 can it cover at a night dive? Simple? ;-)

Cheers

Am not sure how familiar you are with trigonometry however the answer depends on the distance of the handles and also the minimum focus distance of the camera as even if you have light this is not good if the camera can't actually focus
With a tray 1 foot wide and minimum focus at 1 foot as well you are talking about a max of 90 degrees at 1 foot going down to 75 at two feet and progressively smaller in the distance
The SRP tray if you leave the lights behind will have less light compared to a normal tray as the camera is already further away so once you add the focus distance the water will have absorbed more light.
So although the field of view is not changing the light intensity is because the lights are further away from the camera

 

[hellhole]

Am not sure how familiar you are with trigonometry however the answer depends on the distance of the handles and also the minimum focus distance of the camera as even if you have light this is not good if the camera can't actually focus
With a tray 1 foot wide and minimum focus at 1 foot as well you are talking about a max of 90 degrees at 1 foot going down to 75 at two feet and progressively smaller in the distance
The SRP tray if you leave the lights behind will have less light compared to a normal tray as the camera is already further away so once you add the focus distance the water will have absorbed more light.
So although the field of view is not changing the light intensity is because the lights are further away from the camera

okay.. i mean to write sola600..

thanks for the reply... i will try to understand... sorry.. let me read it again

 

[Marty Cerven]

The gopro min focus distance is about 6 inches, you cant do macro but you still get best results the closer you get as long as you stay more then that min distance from your subject. In the night time my Sola 500's can easily fill the 170 fov which is more like 127 when you account for the water effect on the FOV.

The Sola 600's will be pretty much the same as my sola 500 photo lights, these are about the minimum you'd be looking at and they will be pretty good for night stuff but in daytime you will need to get pretty very close for any effective use. If your wanting lights mostly for daytime use you may want more like the 1200s or more but for shooting in the complete dark you will do fine with these as I have. More lumens are always going to be better but the price starts to go up pretty quickly and even the best lights will only be effective to a meter and half in daylight so its hard to justify those costs especially if your only using a camera that costs less then one Sola 600.

With the locline arms and SRP tray I dont have the lights behind the camera I keep them in line with the lens, this really is a non issue as you only need to bend the arms forward a few inches, its not like the arms are that far behind. The arms bend and you can easily have them well ahead inline or behind what ever you like with just the standard length arms. If you were to fix the lights directly to the handles you have no option but even in a traditional tray you'd be using arms so I cant see how anyone would be seeing that as a problem.

 

[Interceptor121]

okay.. i mean to write sola600..

thanks for the reply... i will try to understand... sorry.. let me read it again

He he. Can you tell I am an engineer?

Basically the lights have a certain beam width in this case 60 degrees. The best situation for the lights is that they are on the same plane of the camera port (that happens with a straight tray or as Marty says putting the lights forward on the SRP) and point forward not at an angle.
The lights beams will meet at a distance depending on their reciprocal distance. To make it easy if the tray is one foot they will actually meet 1 foot from the midpoint of the tray. At this point you have coverage from the midpoint where the beams cross until width of the beams on each side.
If you draw a line you see that the midpoint which is the camera port forms an angle of 45 degrees in this example. So 45+45=90 degrees of the camera field of view will be covered by the lights at one foot distance. If you go further the coverage gets actually narrower

Conventionally underwater video systems have a flat port with a field of view of 80-90 degrees max. So a 60 degrees set of two lights is good for close up work and you don't really need anything more than 80 degrees for larger things that are close

The GoPro has field of view in water of more than 90 degrees and therefore does not fall in the same category however you can either select a narrower field of view or crop during the editing

What Martin says about power is true you need at least 2x800=1600 lumens for daylight situation better 2x1200 the issue is now you are going to spend twice the cost of your tray+camera+filter for a set of lights. I would not do that and consider a twin set of Inon 700 lumens 75 degrees at $219 they are a good option and you get circa 100 degrees coverage

 

[Marty Cerven]

You may want to check out this older thread where one of my friends has a few other lights he has tested, I remember another thread after that with more lights as he has tried out most of the affordable underwater video lights, I just cant find it atm lol.

GoProUser.freeforums.org • View topic - Underwater lighting for hero 2

For daytime use just dont expect miracles unless unless your willing to buy them That is why I prefer a good filter rather then spend $1000's on lights that will give me maybe an extra 50cm of daylight range for very big dollars.

I cant see GoPro users going for the high end lights as if you went that way you'd likely look for a better underwater camera first up, but also if you do go the better lights now you could always use them down the track but the GoPro wont do those expensive lights much justice. But at the price point of a good GoPro setup to get a significant jump in quality you really need to multiply the price a few times, so if your not willing to spend that sort of money just enjoy the gopro and filters, maybe some nice low powered video lights for night dives and penetrations.

The beauty of the newer lower priced cameras is that you can get started with some pretty cool underwater video setup at much below the cost of just a housing for a bigger camera. These mostly sell between $1500-$3000 just for the housing, then add a camera, lenses and after that money has been spent you'd be silly to cheap out on the lights.

A pretty big difference there for sure, final video quality will be much better on the proper underwater camera setup but you can get some pretty decent video at a much lower cost going with a GoPro or other cameras in that range these days.