Hero3 Black testing underwater

[Marty Cerven]

We had our H3B out on about 20 dives last week, mostly right at to just below that 20m mark with no issues (water temps ~85ºF, for whatever that's worth) using the LCD bacpac & door. Vids etc. to be posted once post is done.

My first 6 dives with the black were all between 20 and 32m without issues so whatever is causing issues for those few people is not likely to be related to depth. Main thing to do is make sure you have the latest firmware and have a good c10 card that's clean and formatted prior to use.

I never transfer files from my camera via USB transfer I always just use a card reader and then put the card back in the camera and do a format ready for the next use. Avoid sharing your card between devices and especially don't stick it in a mobile phone as when I did this my cards format became corrupted and I lost my firs days dive footage. Connecting the camera to a computer or tablet via USB transfer mode may cause issues if the connection adds files to the card, also some people deleting files off the card while connected this way sometimes only puts the files in trash recycle on the card and doesn't empty it.

There is no need to delete off the card and always use copy when transferring in case there is an issue because if you cut and paste you may lose the fileniftransfer is interrupted. Once copied do an in camera format and you should be fine, if your having lockup issues and you have been sharing your SD card between devices or connected via USB transfer mode. Put the card into a card reader and do a full format using sdformatter app from here https://www.sdcard.org/downloads/formatter_3/ then down in camera format.

 

[toozler]

My filter for bonica is what could be considered a wet filter. Usually what I do is I just in the water, get situated, my group goes down and while dropping I equalize and check my gear, computer etc etc. Once on the bottom I untwist my wet filter, let the air bubbles out...snap the filter back on. Very first time i had to do it I thought it was a huge chore but years ago when hours of my footage were ruined due to bubble being captured in hours of footage. That straightened me out right really quick. Now I feel deprived if I don't check my filter. And at the end of the day it turned from a chore to regular equipment check.

Here is one of cheaper filters I was talking about. Now I know I know... you get what you pay for... but footage does not look that bad... (even though they digitally mastered it to make it look better than SRP stuff).

GoPro Accessories - GoPro Lenses & Filters, GoPro Microphone

I find their videos very misleading and biased. I am still to see a user uploaded video with their stuff, everything online so far is their own videos.

They also sell some polarizing filters in which they clearly compare its results with biased videos. The polarized videos may be unedited but the non-polarized video played side by side is foggy (no inserts used) and probably edited to look overexposed.

It's very unlikely that the SRP filter, using the URPro's "patented, copyrighted, secret" plastic resin could perform just that bad. Someone from PolarPro posted here offering a freebie "snap on filter" and I pointed out that the plastic they are using is probably not "optical quality" as advertised - got a bologna answer back. The little I know from years and years at the university is that injection molding is not the method to ensure you have crystal clear plastic, and their filter is probably manufactured that way.

They might not digitally enhance the quality of the videos with their products but certainly make it look good by comparing it with intentional crap.

 

[ronscuba]

Please forgive the shaky video.

GoPro 1 with a cheap drop in filter. Internal drop in filters work pretty well if you don't need the flexibility of removing the filter UW. Unedited footage, straight from the GoPro 1. Bonaire, depth 65 ft, vis about 50 ft. Sunny day.

Can't wait to see what the GoPro 3 Black can do.

[vimeo]22812197[/vimeo]

 

[yarik83]

You see... I am VERY skeptical of anyone claiming that their product is this super duper whatchamacall it. But I will tell you this... Bonica makes filters which cost $30. That little sucker can be taken apart, can be screwed into housing on the outside, can be used to screw something inside of it, can also slide into their new quick release mechanism... and it costs just $30. It comes with a glass (or really hard acrylic... can't tell) and metal band... 5 years of use and its running like a champ... still.

So when I hear about SRP or ERP or PPC or QQQ or whatever other brand my bench mark for price is $30. I am having a really really really tough time understanding why SRP charges $70... even if their product is that good.

At the core... a filter is just a "thing" that can be applied wet or dry and has no mechanical parts... so why... can polarpro charge $15 and SRP charge $78? Granted polar pro's "snap on" costs $30... but still...

You are absolutely right. polar pro is doing a huge injustice by misrepresenting their product vs competition. They need to compare apples to apples... not apples to oranges.

Green water=use cyan on both Blue water=use red on both... instead they mix and match and OF COURSE it looks like their product is better.

But even with all deception I am honestly more inclined to use their product than to buy SRP unless it goes waaaay down in price.

I mean common guys... camera itself costs $400... why is it that a filter costs almost 20% of camera's cost.

 

[toozler]

I do agree the price is high, enough that I can't justify myself buying the SRP filters.

Thinking about the business side of things, there are some extremely high costs in terms of materials to fabricate this stuff. Fabricating a custom color acrylic requires usually a minimum order of the resin, usually more than 6000 lbs of the stuff. There are few companies that will make a smaller order of raw material, and you would have to have the right contacts. URpro probaly has the market to produce this kind of stuff in large quantities, so they claim a "special" color - b.s. in my opinion, I can match their color.

This is a very specific market and they can only hope to sell them to a small audience that 1. have a gopro, 2. use it for diving, 3. have the need for a filter, 4. have the will to spend the money to buy a filter and 5. have not bought one somewhere else. Here they could either price it low and hope that volume will make up for it, or price it high to cover their costs right away.

I'm not a business expert but an engineer by trade. I work on the offshore market (deep water survey and inspections) so I know a thing or two about materials, optics and such - if I don't know myself, I know who to ask to. Whenever I see these dark red or purple filters (such as this snap on filter), I right away know that the color absorption curve is so aggressive that it will block much more light than you would like for. Those are sold for the "not very well informed" or "not very picky" people - those that use iPhone cameras for family pictures and on vacation and think its GREAT quality - no offense here if you do.

We are off to far from the topic

 

[Marty Cerven]

Ron your video link isn't working for me, Yarik the beauty is you have a choice and can buy whatever you want or even make your own. A URPro filter will never be in your price range by the sound of it and unless SRP made a generic filter like all the other cheap ones around its not going to drop that much in price. They choose to use those as they are the best uw filters giving consistent good results at what they are designed for and I am quite happy with the results URPro filters have given me. I do try all to see how they compare but in the end I have always ended up using the urpro filters as I know they will give me the results I want.

I don't really want this thread to be taken off topic debating price or others misleading advertising, even though PP did publicly ask me if I wanted to test their filter in their own thread and never responded to my second pm when I gave them my address. So it looks like they may not really want me to test their filter for some reason or other which is fine but maybe they shouldn't have posted publicly they wanted me to in the first place.

Some Great Feedback Marty! In the next few dives I think we will try using the same camera and switching between no filter/filter/SRP filter shooting the same scene.

If you are interesting in doing some shooting, I am sure you have all the other filters but if you would like to add another to your collection send me a PM, Thanks!

Jeff

The thread they had has gone completely dead and I haven't seen anyone else post there since they gave those filters away, none of those guys as far as I know posted a video with it yet. Their entire campaign is based on price against SRP and some questionable videos, Not showing a very level comparison from what I can see with deliberately bad footage selected on the other side.

I don't like to say bad things about any person or company but unless for some other reason it has taken 3 weeks to answer a pm, most of what they have done on this forum to date is a little questionable.

Sorry for dragging this a little too far OT too and I will stick to hero testing here from now on.

 

[ronscuba]

Not sure why the embed is not working for you. It shows on my browser.

Here is the web address.

https://vimeo.com/22812197

 

[sharksdelight]

Ron,
The video played for me just fine and you were successful in bringing back the colors.
Steve

 

[yarik83]

And that is exactly my point folks. If this was a cheap-o filter with results this good.... I honestly do not see a reason why one would need to get anything better. Maybe if you have a $12,000 camera capable of shooting 1000fps at 4K resolution or something (err what do they call those... red eye something?!)...

I think more research needs to be done on said subject.

 

[ronscuba]

And that is exactly my point folks. If this was a cheap-o filter with results this good.... I honestly do not see a reason why one would need to get anything better. Maybe if you have a $12,000 camera capable of shooting 1000fps at 4K resolution or something (err what do they call those... red eye something?!)...

I think more research needs to be done on said subject.

To be fair, an UW external remove-able filter should be more expensive than the drop in filter I used. Question people should be asking is if they need the ability to remove the filter underwater and if they do, what are they willing to spend to do it.