Northwest Dive Club

Hey guys! Just got a go pro hero 3 black, I've been studying for a couple of days now and the goal is to be proficient before Belize in April. I'm kind of over whelmed with all the intricacies of settings and such. Any advice or tips from the local community?

Dive with it, play with it, if its like my Hero2 ya can't really screw it up. I have learned the most by just trying different settings and recording the fish in my tank or my dogs water bowl.

Turn off the default sleep mode.

D

Linedog wrote:Dive with it, play with it,

This.

I know what it is like to have a new piece of equipment before a major trip. Said awesome equipment ends up becoming almost useless because of not knowing how to use it. You have a month. Dive it. Clear your calendar and dive! Record every dive. Play with the editing features. Play with the settings. See how they turn out and how you like them. If you can, arrange to go diving with someone who owns one. You will get in person advice that won't happen much on an internet thread (although Defied's advice is good!).

(BTW, I don't own one, but have several friends who do. I am still trying to get my Olympus E-PL1 figured out before Bonaire in June!)

Def get it out as much as possible. I have one as well that is currently en route back to GoPro as it froze up on 3 out of the 3 dives i took it on. Hard to mess with it much because you could only reset it via removing the battery and replacing it....hard to do underwater.

Make sure you have updated the firmware to the most current one from gopro's support site as well. I did it twice on the phone with a tech as I was still having problems. Make sure you don't have an LCD pack or any other accessory plugged in when you do it. Also, the tech highly suggested not using the automatic download via Java, but rather the manual instructions they outline on the site.

Do a few searches as well for GoPro Hero 3 Black and diving - there's quite a few forum posts/threads on setting adjustment. I can't find it off hand, but one guy had a great chart for settings based on desired capture output.

good luck! hopefully you have better luck than I did so far. They determined I just had a bad unit so I'm hoping the warranty cam is better and comes soon!

Thanks for the replies, lots of water time planned between now and then so advice followed.... I am still researching Internet and this wonderful forum came up in my ideas for doing that. A you tuber from Australia makes excellent diving videos explaining filters and settings. Gonna try some of his tips and probably get some filters

Get the LCD backpack. It helped immensely during my grand cayman trip. Also, fab up/buy a mount with handles so that you can hold it steadier.

Hope it works out well for you. I would definitely advise getting it in the water quickly and using it a bunch before your trip. I am hearing loads of horror stories about problems with the GP 3 black edition locking up and such. they have asked several people to send them back because of defects so what ever you do put it thru a very through work out before your trip.

+1 on the LCD backpack, I have one and use it about half the time!

-LCD backpack
-Red filter (at least for in our murky water)
-Sola or similar compact video light can be a nice addition
-minimalist handle/tray (like Backscatter's) can be nice as well even without a light, but plenty of folks just bolt it onto one of the taller mounts it comes with and hold onto that.

Run it through the wringer ASAP so you can get an exchange or warranty service if you need it.

I have the HD Hero 1 and the new Black... my Black doesn't crash in normal use (yet) but it does have irritating quirks. For example, when you plug it in to external power, most of the time it will lock up and neither charge nor operate, until you pull out the battery. Simply plugging it in is usually a 5 minute ordeal. If I needed to use it heavily I would try to find an external battery charger for sure.

My #1 was exactly the same way.

Yeah it's had a ton of issues, I exchanged it today for same model hoping it was a lemon... It froze up alot, battery drained in 10 minutes, then it showed overheating and shut down. Got it back on but it said "full" on an empty SD card. Lots of bugs to work out. Maybe a redundant go pro in pocket is required?