Northwest Dive Club

For Fathers Day my wife and daughter got me a GoPro Hero 3+ that I'll be using for an upcoming dive trip to Egypt as well as for shooting video in our northwest waters. For lighting I was initially thinking of rigging up a mount for my can light (which has a 12 degree beam) and building a diffuser, but I'm starting to think that this set-up wouldn't be enough.

So I was wondering,what are folks using for video lighting with their GoPro's? Here's what I was thinking that my requirements would be:
- Works in our Northwest waters
- Doesn't break the bank
- Provides at least an hour of burn time
- Rechargeable batteries
- Relatively compact

I'm completely new to shooting video underwater so If I'm missing anything feel free to clue me in.

I just picked up a Light and Motion Sola 800 and am very pleased with it.
I tried my can light also with good success, but the Sola works better.
Its small, you never have to open it to charge it.it has 3power settings.
The beam angle also seams better suited than my can light with the diffuser.
I'm sure you will get lots of opinions on this. My advise is try it out first with what you have.
If you don't like the results see if you can try/borrow or even check out someone rig before you buy.

I use a Hog Morph light with the wide lens, $140, small, rechargeable, 3 light settings, has lasted a 85 minute dive on high the whole time.
Heres a vidio I made with my gopro and 1 Hog light, plus a magenta filter from PolorPro.

The go pro is a great camera for me. I love it and make some pretty good videos. As long as its on a mount ( I made a few mounts from PVC pipe and mounted lights on them) and not a head mounted thing that makes people dizzy watching the videos. Down to about 30 feet or so, depending on the viz, I don't need a ton of light but deeper than that things turn green pretty fast. The SOLA is a great light with a nice wide beam. If the beam is too narrow the hot spot is real noticable when you're deeper. But from my experience, you need as much light as you can get for deep stuff. If you want, I can send you some videos to see the different results with different lights.

Linedog wrote:I use a Hog Morph light with the wide lens, $140, small, rechargeable, 3 light settings, has lasted a 85 minute dive on high the whole time.
Heres a vidio I made with my gopro and 1 Hog light, plus a magenta filter from PolorPro.

The video looks great! Are you using one light head or two?

Are you using the Morph with the flashlight body or as part of the core system?

Don-B wrote:I just picked up a Light and Motion Sola 800 and am very pleased with it.
I tried my can light also with good success, but the Sola works better.
Its small, you never have to open it to charge it.it has 3power settings.
The beam angle also seams better suited than my can light with the diffuser.
I'm sure you will get lots of opinions on this. My advise is try it out first with what you have.
If you don't like the results see if you can try/borrow or even check out someone rig before you buy.

Thanks for the advise Don.

The L&M Sola lights are nice (I have friends that use them as a primary dive light) but a bit more $$$ than I want to spend right now.

ratfishlvr wrote:If you want, I can send you some videos to see the different results with different lights.

That would be great!

This might be an option-no personal experience with them.
Archon W17v/d11v Diving Flashlight Cree Xm-l LED 860 -

Thread on scubaboard: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underw ... eview.html

1 light they call it their backup light with the wide beam. I'll post a photo of it when I get home.

fmerkel wrote:This might be an option-no personal experience with them.
Archon W17v/d11v Diving Flashlight Cree Xm-l LED 860 -

Thread on scubaboard: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underw ... eview.html

These lights definitely fit the "not breaking the bank" requirement and from what I read on SB they seem to be halfway decent.

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fmerkel wrote:This might be an option-no personal experience with them.
Archon W17v/d11v Diving Flashlight Cree Xm-l LED 860 -

Thread on scubaboard: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underw ... eview.html

I have this light and I've been very happy with it. I also own a few of their other lights. Good quality at a very decent price. I use it for video with the midland XTC300 video camera and the Intova video with good results. ..... well as good as a video bonehead like myself can get.

Linedog wrote:[img]

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That's a nice little DIY rig. Did you make the base from a cutting board?

Waynne Fowler wrote:

fmerkel wrote:This might be an option-no personal experience with them.
Archon W17v/d11v Diving Flashlight Cree Xm-l LED 860 -

Thread on scubaboard: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underw ... eview.html

I have this light and I've been very happy with it. I also own a few of their other lights. Good quality at a very decent price. I use it for video with the midland XTC300 video camera and the Intova video with good results. ..... well as good as a video bonehead like myself can get.

Thanks Wayne - What brand/model of battery and charger are you using with the lights? Reading the SB thread there have been issues with cheaper batteries.

[/quote]

That's a nice little DIY rig. Did you make the base from a cutting board?[/quote]
Ya my wife keeps looking for it

With 18650 Li-ion batteries the most important thing is to stay away from the trustfire, ultrafire, etc. cheap Chinese knockoffs. Tenergy may be Ok if you're lucky. I've had very good performance from Orbtronic brand and others using the Panasonic cell. Nitecore and Xstar make good chargers.

Any battery that is named *fire should be avoided like the plague, that mostly includes *fire chargers. If it's got incredible specs and a cheap price....it's mostly likely (unsafe) garbage. Good brands for batteries and chargers are readily available but sometimes not easy to find in the proliferation of cheap Chinese stuff. If you get to that point there are decent sites you can be directed to.

This is pretty typical, and can be worse:
UltraFire TR18650 5000mAh (Blue) - http://budgetlightforum.com/node/30745

If you go to the end of the review he has a link to his review site: http://lygte-info.dk/
Highly recommended.

Basically any panasonic based 18650 is nice, so long as it's protected. Don't trust anything with fire in the name. Those are either death traps or severely over-rated.

Here, this one.

fmerkel wrote:This might be an option-no personal experience with them.
Archon W17v/d11v Diving Flashlight Cree Xm-l LED 860 -

Thread on scubaboard: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underw ... eview.html

Those lights, but this mounts
http://www.snakeriverprototyping.com/tr ... ccessories

KneeDeep wrote:

fmerkel wrote:This might be an option-no personal experience with them.
Archon W17v/d11v Diving Flashlight Cree Xm-l LED 860 -

Thread on scubaboard: http://www.scubaboard.com/forums/underw ... eview.html

Those lights, but this mounts
http://www.snakeriverprototyping.com/tr ... ccessories

Funny, I was just looking at the SRP trays this morning. Their set-up is really nice!

Hi
I'll share my experiences a couple of weeks ago with a new GoPro while in Cozumel and a light setup I bought from someone here on this forum. Advice from a new diver and new camera user.

1. A filter is better to get than a light. Suggest you tie the filter to secure it rather than just letting it click on.
2. A platform to carry it on so you can use both hands is better than just having the camera.
3. I would suggest buying a 2nd battery as well as a 2nd SD card. Make sure you use the cards that GoPro suggests.
4. Have the contact information for GoPro support with you. I'd also suggest printing off a few pages of troubleshooting tips so you have them with you. My Gopro died during my 3rd dive. I had to spend an hour on the phone with them. The agent I talked to said that they are sensitive enough, that he always carries 2 backups.
5. Many of the normal light issues you run into can be solved in the editing software afterwards. Don't worry if it doesn't start out perfect, you can edit.
6. The width of the beam of the light is super important. The GoPro shoots at such a wide angle, it is very easy to get a light that shows the middle, but leaves the sides unlit.
7. 2 lights are better than 1 light.
8. I would suggest having a double harness system. I had 3 instances where I almost dropped my camera in a bad spot. Also, I found a GoPro and now have a really good backup. Someone did not secure theirs and it slipped off either their arm or the boat.
9. Make sure you mentally practice having one arm to hug your camera to your chest while the other arm holds your reg and mask in place. I was not ready for this and had to back roll on my first dive in. After that, it became my favorite way to enter when both arms are busy like this. Jumping off the back IMHO is a bit harder with a camera.
10. I wish I had taken a pole with me. There are times when you would like to get a camera into a hole, or right down on the bottom looking at something. Imagine the shot taken literally 1 inch from the bottom looking up.
11. An idea I came up with on my last dive was to be about 2 feet off the bottom, but holding my arm with the camera down and letting it go between the coral, plants, etc.. The end result was really cool. It gives the impression that you were swimming through really large stuff and dodging plants with ease. I wish I'd done more of that.

Overall, my favorite pics that I came home with were the ones that did not use the light. Down to about 70' is pretty good with normal light. Caves and things in the shadows I used the light, but wish I had a 2nd.

What's considered breaking the bank?

$500 http://www.leisurepro.com/p-itovp6/i-to ... -led-light

I have one of these and love it. Small, compact, cheap additional batteries ($25/ea). White, Red, UV modes.

Only drawback is it's too bright and too wide to use as a good regular dive light. Unless I get very close, the width of the beam tends to light up everything which impacts my ability to find macro life. A corollary is that the width of the beam makes it difficult to effectively shine light directly into a hole or crevice, but it will light up a whole wall (same general rule applies for any wide-beam light).

UPDATE:
Thanks again everybody for the help and suggestions!


So I ended up getting two Archon D11V lights with the batteries and that Dashrynn recommended as well as the Light & Motion Action Tray ( I found the lights on Amazon for $54 ea, ordered them two weeks ago and they arrived today.




The first thing I noticed when I unwrapped them was that they are really tiny! (not a bad thing). Somehow I was expecting that they would be about the size of a regular flashlight. They also seem solid and well built.

If you end up getting these lights, here's a DIY solution for attaching them to Lock-line arms:

http://www.homedepot.com/p/Orbit-1-in-x ... /100136430

You'll also need a Loc-Line 1/2 inch Ball Socket x MPT Connector and a Lock-Line male-to-malecoupler.

Home Depot stocks the saddle tee locally in the lawn sprinkler section of the plumbing department and it works perfectly for the Archon lights. It has a rubber gasket that keeps the light snug in the saddle to the point where you can unscrew the battery cover without the light moving. I replaced the screws with stainless steel ones, added lock washers and, for under $2, I have a perfect light mount.

I'm waiting on the male-to-male Lock-line connector to arrive but I'll post a picture of the complete set-up, some video and a review once I get everything together and test it out.

Keep it coming Billz, I need a solution for my wife GoPro. Once completed can you post a parts list?

Hey Bill, how does the spot look on those lights? I did my own DIY setup for a tray with lockline and some cheapo chinese lights (one which flooded) but i had to do some messing around to get the light to flood correctly and not just wash out the gopro. They seem to be prone/sensitive to that. Anxious to see how these work for yah as i'm trying to decide which lights to go with next and also trying to do it on a budget.