My GoPro 3D setup

[3D diver]

Hi,

I recently returned to diving and hoped to revive my interest in underwater 3D photography. Unfortunately, while I was away, Nikon stopped supporting their Nikonos V cameras and I haven't been able to get my cameras serviced. So I took the plunge and bought a pair of GoPro Hero2's and an Eye-of-Mine modified 3D housing. The purpose of this thread is to document, and get feedback on, my setup.

I'm starting with the aluminum bar used in my Nikonos rig:

The GoPro 3D housing has 3 attach points & they recommend using 2. Not wanting to depend on the adhesive of their flat mounts I purchased a pair of tripod mounts. To attache the tripod mounts to the aluminum bar I drilled, countersunk, and tapped two new holes 2 13/16" appart:

Here's the housing mounted on the bar. The tripod mounts I bought have the tightening screw on the same side. Used directly, one of these screws will interfere with the central attach point as indicated below. I'm going to contact GoPro to see if they have a tripod mount oriented the opposite direction. In the meantime, I scrounged some extensions from the assortment that came with the cameras and housing.

Here's the result with a Nikonos strobe arm attached. I broke my other strobe arm and just bought a replacement on EBAY. I'm hoping to attach some lights to the strobe arms & that will be the subject of future posts.

I have a 1000 lumin DRIS light on order and will tinker with beam spreaders and/or reflectors to expand it's beam angle & order another if successful.

I'm hoping to get the camera underwater Sunday with, or without, a light.

 

[300winmag]

Is that an 1/2 by 3" aluminum flatbar? How is the buoyancy for your rig? I will be making mine out of aluminum as well and I'm curious to know how much weight I can get away with.

 

[3D diver]

The bar is 1 3/4" by 1/2" by 16". Aluminum is easy to work with and holds up well to salt water.

I haven't had it in the water with the GoPro housing yet, so can't comment on its buoyancy. It was fairly well ballanced with the Nikonos' and SB103 strobes.

The GoPro seems so fragile compared to the Nikonos'.

 

[Marty Cerven]

Your other 2 cameras look pretty small in the first pic but then once you see the GoPro 3D setup on the bottom pic it makes that tray look massive lol.

 

[3D diver]

Ok, here's what I'm going to take diving tomorrow. The second strobe arm has arrived and will be used as a handle. An old Q-light will stand-in for the DRIS light in transit. The light is attached crudely to the strobe arm using a TV antenna-to-mast fitting I found in a tool box, cable ties, and some non-slip material. It is secure but you cannot adjust the light angle at all.

I have improvised a beam spreader from a bit flourescent light disperser I had laying around press fit into the end of the light. It softens & spreads the beam without much apparent loss of intensity. I made a test video in my darkened house and the results are not impressive, but it should provide some forground lighting.


Here's the rig:

Here's a view of the light and beam spreader:

and another view of the light mount:

I'll run a cable tie from the bottom of the GoPro housing to the tray, just in case.

---------- Post Merged on July 8th, 2012 at 04:30 PM ---------- Previous Post was on July 7th, 2012 at 09:29 PM ----------

Completed first dive with the new 3D housing and consider it a complete success...i.e. it didn't flood.

The visibility was (optimistically) 15' to 20' feet, overcast, with a thick canopy of kelp & the Q-light did nothing beyond a foot or two.

So put on your 3D glasses and lower your expectations:

 

[3D diver]

So the Q-light flooded and was discarded.

I just received the DRIS 1000 lumin light and a Fenix Bike Mount. The Nikonos strobe arm diameter is a bit too small so I added a rubber sleeve I found in my tool chest:

Note the diffusion material on the right side of the picture. It eliminates the central hot spot & spreads the beam nicely.

Here are two views of the light mounted to the strobe arm:

I'm going to go ahead and order another light and mount & try to figure out a way to attach the diffuser---double sided tape maybe?

The overall weight could be an issue. I may have to add a float of some sort to compensate.

 

[Suzuki416]

Why not start with chopping the alloy camera mount to fit the GOPro housing..

The main benefits of a GoPro are size & weight. Using kit designed for holding 2 x SLR cameras is ultimatly in the wrong direction. Think lighter & smaller.

 

[3D diver]

Well...I'm lazy, for one thing, and already comfortable using this configuration.

That said, this setup allows a fairly wide light seperation which should help with backscatter in typical CA viz.

The main weight issue is that the lights don't have the bouyancy of the strobes they're replacing. This should be easy to compensate for.

 

[Suzuki416]

If you shortened the frame to fit the Gopro & then fitted a 'block' on each side, you could mount the arms horizontal to give you a wide seperation. This would still make it easy to hold & you achieve all your aims.

 

[3D diver]

Thank you for your suggestion.