Hero3 Black testing underwater

[thefeve]

FYI - got to dive this last week, and sure enough it did the trick. Even had the cam lock up on me before the dive messing with it. Then reset and powered on while flashing with the primary light and had no issues on the dive (other than the batter dying in the first 10 minutes because i'd left the camera on during the drive to the sight... doh!)

anyway, i suggest everyone try it. Would be interesting to see if it fixes anyone else's issues.

Hey All - So i'm another user that had serious lockup issues with low light. Just got my camera back this week so looking forward to trying it out. But thought I'd share a tip I heard from another dive buddy here that's done A LOT more diving with his camera. He started having the lockup problems, and out of desperation tried holding the camera lens (sensor) in front of his primary light during start up. He said he's had 100% success rate on over 80 dives with the camera not locking up when he's done that. So, something to take note of and try!

I haven't had a chance to try it yet, but will report back when I get in the water again.

 

[RedStang]

So basically just point it at something bright while powering on? Seems easy enough.

FYI - got to dive this last week, and sure enough it did the trick. Even had the cam lock up on me before the dive messing with it. Then reset and powered on while flashing with the primary light and had no issues on the dive (other than the batter dying in the first 10 minutes because i'd left the camera on during the drive to the sight... doh!)

anyway, i suggest everyone try it. Would be interesting to see if it fixes anyone else's issues.

 

[yarik83]

Hey guys. A while back we were all doing all kinds of benchmarks on gopros. I consistently push boundaries of my own videography (shameless plug for my youtube channel linked below). As such I have been doing more and more time lapse. Granted about 70% of everything that I video tape never makes it to youtube under my strict scrutiny, I still like to find out what I can and can not do with the cameras.


I have recently tweaked my setup so I am now full of batteries. As such I needed to know exactly how long would they stand up under time lapse situations. To this point I usually just left the camera in place and let it run out of juice. I figured that is not the best way of handling things because sunrises, sunsets and things of that sort are short lived so timelapse settings have to be different.


Below are some benchmarks using my 32gb class 10 sdhc micro cards by sandisk. I have a total of 4 cards.




0.5 sec interval test


Camera 1 GoPro + Backpack
7359 photos 61 mins run time when card was full


Camera 2 (Wasabi + backpack)
7449 photos 62 mins run time when card was full
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1 sec interval test


Camera 1 GoPro + Backpack
8384 photos 140 mins run time when card was full


Camera 2 (Wasabi + backpack)
8569 photos 143 mins run time when card was full


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2 sec interval test


Camera 1 GoPro + Backpack (has developed an issue taking too many photos so 2 sec interval did not really occur. I checked time stamp of multiple photos and it took photos every 2 seconds while also taking photos every 1 second at irregular intervals). If there is one thing to take away is that in this example camera did not honor time lapse setting.
7290 photos 192 mins run time. Battery died before card filled up.


Camera 2 (Wasabi + backpack)
6349 photos 213 mins run time. Battery died before card filled up.


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5 sec interval test


Camera 1 GoPro + Backpack
2399 photos 202 mins run time. Battery died before barely 1/5th of card filled up.


Camera 2 (Wasabi + backpack) 2775 photos 232 mins run time. Battery died before barely 1/5th of card filled up.


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10 sec interval test


Camera 1 GoPro + Backpack


1130 photos. 183 mins run time. Battery died before barely 1/8th of card filled up.


Camera 2 (Wasabi + backpack) 1259 photos 202 mins run time. Battery died before barely 1/8th of card filled up.


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30 sec interval test


Camera 1 GoPro + Backpack 396 photos 196 mins run time. Battery died before barely 1/30th of card filled up.


Camera 2 (Wasabi + backpack) 419 photos 208 mins run time. Battery died before barely 1/30th of card filled up.


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60 sec interval test


Camera 1 GoPro + Backpack 190 photos 189 mins run time. Battery died before barely 1/60th of card filled up.


Camera 2 (Wasabi + backpack) 202 photos 199 mins run time. Battery died before barely 1/60th of card filled up.




If there is one thing that I have learned in this experiment is that you can not rely on simple formulas for time lapse with the gopros. What good is it to hope to shoot long term shots if battery runs out?! You need to know the limits of the camera.


There are other options. From what I understand you can connect an external battery to the gopro to make it film a long long time. HOWEVER. Gopro overheats like a predictable overheating thing that it is (something even gopro acknowledged).


My goal with time lapses is to limit them to attention span of youtube so in my videos I never make my time lapses last longer than 10-15 seconds at a time.


Hope this wall of text helps those who are interested.

 

[RockyHeap]

I've never used my AC power adapter for time lapse, but that was the intent to be able to power even 2 gopros off an AC outlet while plugged in.

GoPro USB Wall Charger AWALC-001 - Best Buy

 

[Frank Jig]

Thanks for that breakdown Yarik!

 

[thefeve]

you got it - tried it again monday night, been out of the water for the last 3 months, but the trick still seemed to keep it from freezing up. There was a software update inbetween though, and i haven't tried it without the light flash since...

So basically just point it at something bright while powering on? Seems easy enough.