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How to get GoPro HD wide to focus under water?

Thread Status: Hello , There was no answer in this thread for more than 60 days.
It can take a long time to get an up-to-date response or contact with relevant users.
Hi,

yes, the orange filter will make the image look to be more in focus. But thats related to the higher contrast of the image, not to the "real" focus.

Please be carefull that I´m talking about to different things. The one is a flat lens to make the Hero be in focus underwater. The other is colour filter to increase picture colours and contrast.

The flat lens can be used outside the water as well. This will not affect the image at all.
The orange filter cannot be used outside the water.
Please don´t get me wrong, but as I do not know how good your knowledge on underwater light is, let me give you some information...
Water will absorb colour related to the way of the light. From 3 meters on there is no red light in the water anymore. So if you are shooting an image 1,5 below the surface with 1,5 meters distance to your lens, there will be no more red in your image. Thats why most of the underwater footage looks blue or green. You will get this typical blurry blue green backgrounds. To avoid this you can either take additional lights. But this will only help in the first 3 meters from the lens. Everything further away will loose red again. So for this you take a orange or red filter just in front of you lens. This will add more red to your picture and it will have a natural balance. You can also do manual white balance on photo cameras in the water, but this needs to be done very often, regarding to the depth you are in. So most photographers and videographer do use filter to have a nice colour balance.

If you use this filter outside the water, everything will look red and not natural anymore. So you need to be able to remove that filter easily.
I´m looking to build something to have like a clip on filter for the hero.

best regards

Patrick
 
ok, i know of the light works in water (that's part of the AA courses, so i'm teaching what you stated), i was just wondering if your filter came to a slight optical correction or not (which is not the case, but it might have been for a poor quality filter)

thanks for your answer

WB correction: it's not always that easy, you can't recover much detail in the red field, but i shoot realy few pics and in jpeg format and have little experience
i'd like to see what happens with a raw file, but my sx120 with chdk has no tank at this time and neither does my 40D...
 
mattbigblue said:
Here is ready solution:

GoPro Hero camera-underwater focus fix

looks awesome!!

I will seriously think about buying one for myself.
Click to expand...
I really like these mods but I think it is hard to decide wither to go for the fixed camera housing or the bag. It says that the lenses on the two options is the same, so the video quality will be the same.

- The bag option is very safe for your camera since you position the camera in the bag while still having the original GoPro housing as a camera water protection if the bag would to leak.
- The bag option lets you very easily and safely turn your "land" GoPro into an "underwater" GoPro, and same the other way around, without having to remove the camera from it`s original and warranted housing.
- But the bag option may fog up if your hands are moist while positioning the camera and it`s original housing in the bag.
- The negative with the fixed housing option is that I will have to trust that this relatively amateur looking mod keeps the water out so not to damage the camera.
- You also have to change housing for the camera risking the situation of one time not making the housing completely tight.
- On the other hand you don`t need to worry about lens fogging...

What do you guys think?
 
Last edited:
Apparently GoPro themselves are working on an official fix or accessory, according to this link. I would not be surprised if it took them a year to get it on the market, they have a 6 month delay on their announced firmware and some delay on the LCD backpack as well.

I'll wait for the official fix and do quality shots with my other camera.
GoPro is fun using it as a helmet cam or tied to your wrist.
 
true, only problem now is shipping cost: $75 for a $100 article is a bit much...
 
Ptoot,

Eye of mine charged me US$46 for shipping via USPS ( US Post Office ) and SARTEK charged US$50 also by USPS, both priority mail. Will take typical 10-14 days for my case. Both sellers I buy more than 1 housing from them, so if you are in Belgium and USPS surely can do, maybe US$40 tops for 1 unit from either sellers for 1 housing. I think it will be less.

UPS and Fed-Ex is the killer price but usually at least a week faster.

IYA
 
Hi,

here is a very nice and professional solution for a really good price. Take a look at goprofocus.com.

best regards

Patrick
 
Good bit of self promotion Patrick I've mailed you it looks like a good product.

I ordered my HD recently and was dismayed to find how bad the underwater blur was. All the test videos I watched were low res which made the blurring less noticeable. Gopro were remarkably unhelpful as well. Your solution looks pretty damn good as does the price.
 
certainly alot cheaper than the sartex option but I just couldn't wait still it looks a great fix, well made Patrick
 
So now we have 3 official 3rd party fix.

Eye of Mine , USA
Sartek , USA
goprofocus fix , Germany

I love to see more...yummmmyyy !!
Good to see people are getting creative.

Like Sony camcorder, their OEM housing is Jurassic Park.
Amphibico, Gates, Lights and Motion and many more others make great housing.
I love 3rd party solutions.


SP
 
Hi All, I ordered the goprofocus lense.

Very prompt reply , easy to install and works great! The only niggle was the the lense arrived pre scratched, Patrick was going to replace it but on viewing uderwater footage I could see no artifacts so Im going to keep it.

Fast, reasonable service and crystal clear underwater footage. Ill post a link here when I've uploaded some.
 

scratches on glass or plastic do not appear underwater.
 
Evidently, heres the footage I took, reduced from 1020 to 720dpi. (watch in full screen on youtube if you want to check the quality). All in all i'm very pleased with the lens.

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GdSj-iNOY3E]YouTube - seal_mullet.wmv[/ame]
 
Plastic will always have minor scratch but unless it is deep and big, the image will not be effected. The only way to be more scratch resistant is going for glass. The add on lens is so close to the cmos sensor, the sensor can't see it.

Nice video Padaxes.

How things change. Nearly US$4,000 for Sony TRV900 ( standard definition ) with Amphibico housing and now for maximum of US$400 we can do HD 1080p. Thanks to GoPro for making such an excellent product at such price and it is wearable. Being wearable will change the way "i-hate-to-carry-uw-camcorder" crowd to "must-mount-a-GoPro-on-headstrap" for every dive.

I think soon GoPro will launch their own underwater corrected housing that has no distortion at any resolution....dang that will be so sweet and that 60 meter rating is so important when one wants to abuse an UW camera. I have a friend with cracked Sony 40M still camera housing taken to 40 meters, must be bad batch I think. The logic is, the smaller the housing, the less pressure stress it experience in the deep. The GoPro white seal on the back cover is simply an awesome design. It is better than traditional round 0-ring where the total contact/sealing area is less than a GoPro white seal which is not rounded....this is my assumption.

I do not want to double post long review here, I have tested all three focus fixes ( Eye of Mine + Sartek + German Lens ) and post them at Spearboard :
GoPro Focus Solution - Page 7 - Spearboard Spearfishing Community
.....and to page 8

Have fun video guys....
 
Sorry little confused after reading your posts...

excellent that you tested all lenses. so by the looks of it the German lens is the best option? i noticed that you didnt pick the Sartek lens at all for best images. is this correct the Sartek is not as good as say eyeofmine or German lens?

DD
 
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