ReadyTo Dive
Contributor
Hello (and TYIA for all help),
I want to buy THE RIGHT tray and light setup for my GoPro 4 Silver (with dive housing). Budget is not $5k but is not $150 either. With Black Friday being tomorrow I thought I'd give it a shot.
Buddy and I are mostly blue water Caribbean divers with most dives being between 80'-130'. We enjoy wreck and lake diving also occasionally. We want a setup that will not be a huge ordeal to work with/handle on each dive. We do video mostly but also some stills (80/20). Small and powerful and extremely manageable and low maintenance is what I'd say our goals are.
First, the tray. IMO the price of this tray is outrageous but is almost exactly what I think we want:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/381609588694
For lights I thought about 2x SOLA 800's or 1200's since they are on sale but from what I understand the beam degree/angle is not wide enough (we use "medium" mode fyi) plus if we want more usable distance we will likely need more lumens. Our backup lights (2x DGX 600 push button) now use 18650's so if we bought lights with the same battery type that would be nice too/probably even preferred.
I also know we need cell foam/whatever to make it neutral. We currently use a snap-on GP red filter now so most likely we will need to buy a backscatter (switchblade?) with macro lens I'm guessing. So the questions are:
1) Is there a better/cheaper boomerang tray with a trigger on the handle? Seems like shifting back and forth to the middle of the tray to start/stop video would be a PITA that we'd like to avoid if at all possible.
2) Which lights? We'd like no shadows and at least a 45+ minute burntime (of useable/good enough for video output). The ability to use them as primary's would be nice also.
3) Which foam and how much of it?
4) Snappy coil or retractor?
5) Which Backscatter or filter setup?
Thank you again and Happy Thanksgiving!
I want to buy THE RIGHT tray and light setup for my GoPro 4 Silver (with dive housing). Budget is not $5k but is not $150 either. With Black Friday being tomorrow I thought I'd give it a shot.
Buddy and I are mostly blue water Caribbean divers with most dives being between 80'-130'. We enjoy wreck and lake diving also occasionally. We want a setup that will not be a huge ordeal to work with/handle on each dive. We do video mostly but also some stills (80/20). Small and powerful and extremely manageable and low maintenance is what I'd say our goals are.
First, the tray. IMO the price of this tray is outrageous but is almost exactly what I think we want:
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.com/ulk/itm/381609588694
For lights I thought about 2x SOLA 800's or 1200's since they are on sale but from what I understand the beam degree/angle is not wide enough (we use "medium" mode fyi) plus if we want more usable distance we will likely need more lumens. Our backup lights (2x DGX 600 push button) now use 18650's so if we bought lights with the same battery type that would be nice too/probably even preferred.
I also know we need cell foam/whatever to make it neutral. We currently use a snap-on GP red filter now so most likely we will need to buy a backscatter (switchblade?) with macro lens I'm guessing. So the questions are:
1) Is there a better/cheaper boomerang tray with a trigger on the handle? Seems like shifting back and forth to the middle of the tray to start/stop video would be a PITA that we'd like to avoid if at all possible.
2) Which lights? We'd like no shadows and at least a 45+ minute burntime (of useable/good enough for video output). The ability to use them as primary's would be nice also.
3) Which foam and how much of it?
4) Snappy coil or retractor?
5) Which Backscatter or filter setup?
Thank you again and Happy Thanksgiving!