GoPro HD underwater blur fix

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Messages
3
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Location
Alaska
# of dives
50 - 99
I've been reading about the GoPro the Flip and other low cost underwater video options. There is a lot going for the GoPro, but one big negative in the blur factor. It's early days but it looks like eyeofmine may have an after market fix:

(It's on Youtube, but I can't post it here due to my low post count. Just search for "GoPro Hero Underwater Focus FIXED")
 
Wow, those are some great results! I love how they have direct side-by-side comparisons. My uneducated guess is that you simply need an airtight flat port in front of the curved housing--either as an add-on or with a new housing. That would allow the view to focus, though with a slight diminishing of the field of view (as you can see in the comparison shots).
 
I bought the gopro hero hd and i emailed them after discovering the focus problem underwater. This was their response:
Due to the curved lens of the waterproof housing for the HD HERO camera and standard def Wide HERO cameras, you do get a slight loss of sharpness/focus to underwater images. In video mode with the standard def camera this hasn't been very noticeable due to the lower resolution. With the HD HERO camera this becomes more evident at the higher resolution. Our developers are looking into whether we can possibly offer a different housing or housing lens in the future to correct this issue.

I should add that besides this, the camera is incredibly cool. Tiny, can shoot for long periods of time with 8 GB SD card, and above water you can do things with it that you just can't do with any other hd camera out there. So with any kind of fix to the blur issue, everyone is going to want one. The only other issue is the files are HD Mp4s that can choke up the average computer so I have been encoding the files all to friendlier hd formats such as DVCPRo HD (i'm a mac guy without one of the new intels) which is a format that looks awesome but can still play on an older laptop.
 
eyeofmine.com came out with a housing to correct the underwater blurring issue. It was just as Gombessa said, "an airtight flat port in front of the curved housing". I ordered one for a trip to Maui in June.

eyeofmine.com/gopro/underwater/index.html
 
Hi,

there is another solution from germany goprofocus.com

It is actually a replacement lens and so it is a cheaper solution and it looks much better than the eyeofmine version.
 
Hi,

there is another solution from germany goprofocus.com

It is actually a replacement lens and so it is a cheaper solution and it looks much better than the eyeofmine version.

This looks like a flat port diopter (close up lense). I would like to see them use the dome port instead because with a flat port, you will lose 25% of your picture angle, which is a lot in U/W videos/photos. One would have to pull the camera away from the subject in order to get the image in the frame. The greater the distance the worst the picture because you are shooting through more backscatter. Is there any room to put the diopter on the inside of the dome port of the GoPro?
 
Hi,

it is actually a Flat Port without any diopter. So it does not change the pictures size. It only reffers to the optical light breaking point from water to air. So optically it will do the same picture distortion as the dome lens, but with a sharp image. All underwater images will be distroted in that way. This is related to the physics of water.

If you would put the flat lens into the dome lens the focus will drop again. The main issue on the blurred image in the hero hd is the fact that the light coming from the water is hitting the dome port first.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/swift/

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