Northwest Dive Club

My bad, perhaps the definition of "inexpensive" in the title is subjective?

Carry on

Cabezon wrote:However, you will still have the severe fish-eye effect associated inherent to the GoPro optics. The wide angle of the Contour1080p camera is not near as wide, and therefore produces much less distortion.

To be fair the "distortion" of the GoPro lens is billed as a feature. Some people want the extreme wide angle. It's good to have options.

However I was NOT a happy GoPro customer when I got my HD Hero and found the UW focus issue. The company obviously knew about it when I wrote tech support but it isn't mentioned on the product page. I decided to stick with the camera and wait for a 3rd party solution.

There were also a lot of firmware bugs and card compatibility issues, and new firmware has only just come out many months later. The camera is still kind of quirky. For example, if you run it and drain the battery, you need to charge it for a while before the camera will come back to life... even if it is on USB power. Or sometimes it won't turn on unless you remove the battery for a minute.

Hmmmmm, $600 versus $250 for virtually the same features??? I wouldn't call that a direct competitor unless money isn't a part of the formula.

$600 bucks is not what most novice photogs would consider inexpensive. For that kind of money you are much closer to the full camera/housing video outfit.

It's obvious just by looking at the two that the contour is a much higher quality rig but I'm much more likely to drop $250 on a toy than $600+

But that's just my take on the subject

Like I said, the H2OV is not for everyone - nor was it intended to be. It was designed to be a serious piece of scuba gear from a durability and quality perspective. Like much in the scuba world, you tend to get what you pay for. It all just depends what you want out of your video system and how you plan on using it.

Cheers!

-Cabezon

Hey Cabezon welcome to the board. I think I talked to your engineering partner this afternoon.

We ordered a H2OV housing for my buddy's ContourHD today. Hopefully we should have some nice footage when I get back from the Channel Islands at the start of October. I'll post a link if we can put together anything interesting.

Wow! I wish I has headed down there to dive with you guys. You should get some great vis!

i think you have to remember our vis here, and that most of the videos useing the Go pro have been in nice clear Blue tropical water .. california, and Hawaii..

Cabezon,

The case is delivered and we are leaving for the Channel Islands today . Should be out on the water by tomorrow night. Quick question, do you happen to have any information on good Contrast, Exposure, Sharpness, and Metering settings for underwater video with the ContourHD? I noticed that we have the option to modify them thought the Easy Edit software. It would be nice to get it adjusted optimally for the trip. The visibility should be good and we will be using my buddy and I's 21 Watt HID canister lights for lighting. Any information you have would really be appreciated.

mancub wrote:Makes more sense now. All good, I read it the other way around. I was gonna say, the mods on this board seem to be great

no, YOU shut up - oh wait, that was an actual compliment... uh, thanks!

sheahanmcculla wrote:The free diver guy on the board uses the GoPro Camera with the eye of mine flat lens and it looks pretty good to me.

$220 including lens seems crazy good for HD!

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/14188947[/vimeo]

[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/13426349[/vimeo]

Thank you for posting my videos. I'm glad someone else is watching them besides me


Anyways, I love the Gopro and eyeofmine set up. The owner of Eyeofmine, Russell is a super helpful guy. I needed to call him up a couple times to ask questions about his products, and always got a fast reliable answer.

The gopro unit itself is super small. So it can be carried all the time. Put it on a stick and you can film yourself diving with that GPO.

With its size and relative cheap price the gopro does not give much excuses to divers who can only tell stories about their dives instead of showing off their incredible dive.

So I am new to diving (this year). I already spent a boat load on gear (I think) but mostly 1/2 off stuff from former divers and deals like an $1100 Bare dry suit with Ct200 undergarment thrown in the deal (as an example). Still is a bit spendy for me and folks I have talked to.

With that said, I think $270 or so with tax plus the flat lens addition is a great way to start taking video and snaps to bring back to the family. It is also a good gateway from someone to eventually pick up the more expensive models later. So price is everything in this market.

Both are great on paper and the videos posted here do show the differences. I just want the cheapest way to show my wife and friends what they are missing, perhaps gopro brings more divers to the ocean.

Imho waiting for the next video

Cheers

P (bubbles below) J

I wouldn't consider one for only trying to take some super awesome video in the mucky waters of the Puget Sound, only for something to get pretty decent shots to share with family and friends. I bought a Gopro Hero HD for whitewater kayaking, snowboarding and a bunch of other sports that I don't get to share with family. It just so happens that Eye Of Mine sells a really cheap and functionally modified gopro housing that takes fairly decent shots. The problem with both the ContourHD and the Gopro for diving or lowlight conditions is the little tiny camera needs a lot of light to get the really high quality shots. Here's 2 videos from local diving, I still need to take the camera out with my new 35 watt HID can light and a diffuser cover and see how that does for lighting at depth.

Alki Beach, with only a SL3 backup light. I-beams, across the logs, back up the buoy line and across to the Honey Bear, so a max depth of around 100' with a backup light...
http://vimeo.com/17722459
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/17722459[/vimeo]

Divemonkey videoing with his Princeton tech light at Edmonds around the pontoon.
http://vimeo.com/18612995
[vimeo]http://www.vimeo.com/18612995[/vimeo]

Contour HD and Contour GPS (in their brand new stock housing that goes to 100', in continuous photo mode) side by side with Halcyon 24w Video lights...

Very cool Laura , you are making me feel so primitive :P. I wasn't even aware they had come out with a new case. Nice to see more options out there for people.

I just picked up a Go Pro for a screaming deal, so I should be able to do some comparison footage between it and the Contour soon. Wish GoPro would hurry up and come out with a scuba specific case, having to do a lens swap to focus underwater is pretty annoying.

I've been looking at getting a GoPro too but not necessarily for diving. Although from the videos shown it does a pretty good job. I was going to use mine for snowboarding, wake boarding, mountain biking, kayaking and fishing. I know a lot of the big networks and professional shooters use them to get shots they normally couldn't get with a big rig. Are the batteries swappable like camera batteries or are they built in like an ipod? I've also seen them on Formula One cars as well as other race cars.

I was thinking about getting one for Helicoptering, Lion hunting, shot put, and Racoon wrangling, maybe if I have a way to get some footage I will actually do those things.

Come on Rick, you can tell us about your other hobbies.

renoun wrote:Come on Rick, you can tell us about your other hobbies.

I don't know, I can only take so many yak-shaving stories before I end up wanting to do it myself....

scottsax wrote:

renoun wrote:Come on Rick, you can tell us about your other hobbies.

I don't know, I can only take so many yak-shaving stories before I end up wanting to do it myself....

It's all in the shears Scott...I thought my 2.50 inexpensive shears were awesome and I tried to tell people about them, but then some people started endorsing 6.00 shears, and the weird thing is, at the end of the day my Yaks looked the same, regardless of shears....I'm going to keep my 2.50 ones and spend the money I saved on some new assless chaps.

I was going to use mine for snowboarding, wake boarding, mountain biking, kayaking and fishing.

The ContourHD captures great video with a very realistic field of view. For sports where you are trying to capture the feel of speed I'd definitely recommend a GoPro. The GoPro has a much more Fisheye lens which tends to make movement look much faster, but also adds a bit of distortion to the sides of the picture. My friend uses a ContourHD for track days on his race bike and even at 170 MPH the footage can feel "slow". You take the same footage on a GoPro and it feels like you are about to break the sound barrier :P.

I just picked up a GoPro Hero HD and tested it underwater and topside on my recent Monterey trip. The topside results are very clear and you can't beat $150 for camera, housing, and bunches of accessories. (Adorama)

Underwater is definitely not in sharp focus - so I'll be looking into the flat port option.

I put it on my head, using the elastic straps, and using small carabiners clipped it to my mask strap on either side of my head. It was not very noticeable. When I first tried it, I just clipped it to one side, and it came off as soon as I did my giant stride into the water. Clipping on both sides, and putting my hand above my mask kept it on for later entries, just fine.

It's a great way to document your dive and catch all the things that come up and swoosh away before you can get your other camera out.

Battery life was fine - I didn't have any problems with it shutting off due to low battery for two dives. Instead, my problem was that my 8GB card was not big enough so it shut down about halfway through the 2nd dive of the day. (this was filming on the highest resolution setting, r3)

I will likely get the flat port solution for this - it's a ton of fun!

One thing we did that was really hilarious, was strap it to the head of our 3 year old grandson, and told him to just go play. It was really funny to see where he went and what he did!

Thanks whatevah for helping me test out the new head cam for diving!

- Janna

im looking to get the contour+ more for snowsport than for underwater i need to know how well the stock housing for it will hold up its specs list it for 180ft