I need to buy 4 x GoPro2—-and maybe 10 more later
I read the wifi remote will work underwater, but only up to about 12-15 inches.
check the comments attached to this vid: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omTfxtEx2Os
I would’ve liked to see that same guy do the deeper test like he said he was?????
Having a quick read around the ‘net, it seems RF signal propagation (eg. wifi) is limited underwater, significantly worse in sea water, and worse again for high frequencies (wifi operates in the GHz band). I’d like to see some tests in sea water, but I really wouldn’t expect it to work over longer distances.
Basically -Its for a marine science study (maybe Ill sneak them out into the surf as well haha)
I drop them into pretty deep water….up to 100m so I suspect WiFi wouldn’t work. The reason WiFi would be so good is we put the cameras on the sea floor and occasionally they land facing upwards or into the sediment or into a rockwall etc and then we don’t find out until we retrieve them and look on the SD cards.
I would be perfect if we could send back a picture (even just one frame) to the boat and use it to make sure the camera is filming correctly before we go and put out all the other cameras.
The GoPros aren’t really that good for what I do because I need two cameras filming at once to measure fish size and it can’t be fish eye or the program I use to analyse it flips out. I just need the Gopros in a few specific circumstances. I might post some footage of some sharks etc if I get around to it.
This footage is the same sort of thing that I do, although it is in West OZ. A couple of the guys I work with are from Uni of West oz and work on this particular project. No idea why they didn’t put sound on it, a background track of your own choice instead perhaps? haha
I have seen footage from the GoPro 3, and the fisheye effect is way less prominent in it’s new version!!!!!
Why not drop a secondary (or even a third) with a LCD BacPac on it/them, to ensure the camera is in a correct position????? Then just drop these cams last!!!!!
Or even better would be to make a platform that the GoPro sits on, like a large plate?????
Or even better would be to make a platform that the GoPro sits on, like a large plate?????
Thats what i would do, just get steel plate and either stick the flat adheasive mounts on it, or, if u wanted ito be able to mount other cameras on there aswell, weld some quarter inch thread on it
I think the black spotted whip tail and the spider crabs were my favourite!
can’t believe how deep they went!
That was really cool. The ocean is such a big scary place. A real abyss.
Amazing that creatures can live at such depths with all that water pressure on top of them. and 500m is just the start of it really
I think the black spotted whip tail and the spider crabs were my favourite!
Both of those were freaky!!!
Personally the Champagne Crab was my fav the way it went up to the bait and basically hugged it as if to say “mine all mine” was funny!
Very fascinating stuff!
I can’t see any really good options for remote control of the gopro underwater. I guess you could have a wifi repeater in a waterproof housing and have that located 1cm from the camera or something. You’d have to run a cat6 cable down of course, which would add to the complexity and weight. I think the other suggestions here are much more practical.
And the cost of the cat6 cable would be pretty far out!
Best using enough cameras so enough footage is captured. Allowing for ones that land bad.
Or.
Send someone down in scuba gear.
I have seen footage from the GoPro 3, and the fisheye effect is way less prominent in it’s new version!!!!!
Why not drop a secondary (or even a third) with a LCD BacPac on it/them, to ensure the camera is in a correct position????? Then just drop these cams last!!!!!
Or even better would be to make a platform that the GoPro sits on, like a large plate?????
The problem with the fisheye (any amount) is it distorts part of the picture and the program I use to triangulate lengths then doesn’t produce accurate results. It doesn’t matter though, we have about 20 video cameras+ housings+ frames etc for taking the footage.
The Gopros are for attaching to the frame with a really small cable tie and a separate rope when we drop the other video cameras to the bottom and then we rip them off the gopro and bring it back up to check we are filming the right substrate and that the cam is facing the right way ( pretty much what you suggested, which is funny because it took a while to think of this idea and you did it straight away). Its a bit of a pain thats why ideally we would use wifi if it worked underwater (there is often 100m from bottom to boat though. I am sure there is another way as well so any ideas are always helpful. We also use the Gopros on recon drops when we just want to get an idea of whats around before a study.
Or even better would be to make a platform that the GoPro sits on, like a large plate?????
Thats what i would do, just get steel plate and either stick the flat adheasive mounts on it, or, if u wanted ito be able to mount other cameras on there aswell, weld some quarter inch thread on it
Not a bad idea….
The problem with plates though is they tend to flip upside down on the way down and then land on the camera and you film mud/sand/rock for an hour, also when they do land the right way up, a bloody big shark or ray comes along and swims into the camera and snaps it off the plate (although you can put a frame around it to protect it, which is basically what we do).
I can’t see any really good options for remote control of the gopro underwater. I guess you could have a wifi repeater in a waterproof housing and have that located 1cm from the camera or something. You’d have to run a cat6 cable down of course, which would add to the complexity and weight. I think the other suggestions here are much more practical.
what is the rough coast of that cat6 cable? remembering it needs to be approx 100m long?. is there another type of cable you could connect straight to the camera (youd have to add a port or connector through the housing that works in salt water as well) run it up the rope to the boat, check the footage and then move off. We drop up to 8 camera setups in a row so that means 8 cables. The advantage with the gopro attached is you just need one. attach it to the other cameras, drop them, rip the gopro off bring it to the top and then when you move 500m to drop another camrea setup, you can just reattach the same gopro.
Drilling holes in the plate will help to prevent it flipping!!!!!
And the cost of the cat6 cable would be pretty far out!
Best using enough cameras so enough footage is captured. Allowing for ones that land bad.
Or.
Send someone down in scuba gear.
It doesn’t work like that, you have to stick to an fairly strict experimental design other wise your statistical analyses are compromised.
If you mean just send more frames with cameras down at each site…....
Say I need to sample 32 sites in a day (half hour video samples), it depends what size boat i am in but usually i have four stereo frames (each has two HD video cams attached to a metal frame). I need to drop one frame then move 500m and drop another and so on, deploy all four camera frames and by that time I can go back and start retrieving the first setup. I can’t drop two camera frames in the one spot or it would double the time taken to get the 32 samples ie two days instead of one….(that would cost $250 petrol, $600 wages etc per day extra). Maybe it would be possible to drop two frames if I could fit more of the camera frames on the boat but four stereo frames take up too much room as it is (they are pretty big and weigh 50k plus when fully set up), besides retrieving the frames in 50m of water in big seas is pretty much the hardest work I have ever done in my life, doubling it for every site would kill me haha.
Say two of the sites don’t work and 30 do, then I need to redo the 2 at some stage which is a pain in the arse and increases costs. so being able to check out at sea is super handy. hence the attaching gopros…...I suspect there is a better way though sitting out there in some tech guys head or someone who lives working on these types of ideas. It is usually someone completely outside of the project that thinks of a nifty little idea that seems obvious in hindsight.
As for the scuba idea….good in theory but you can’t send a diver down 100m and even when I am doing all 20m sites, you can’t send a diver down 32 times in a day.