GoPro HD Underwater Blurry Fix

Don Paul - No, this housing of LunkerBuster's is all I have to look at.

Quote from Tin Man

Don Paul - No, this housing of LunkerBuster's is all I have to look at.

I take some images tonight after work if someone doesn't beat me to it.
Don

http://imaging.nikon.com/produ…history-nikonos/index.htm

this is the Unit, back after work....
Don

not to worry jeff, i can use it as an on land housing when your testing is done and will just put the original lens back on for fisheye land filming.

Tinman, it was suggested on another forum to use bonding bead instead of O rings. A silicon type sealer or mastic but don't compress all the surfaces too close together, leave a gap with the bead. This will eliminate the fixings (screws) and still be removable with knife or wire.

Rambo

As an update:

I bought the camera from eyeofmine with the underwater modification. The camera came with the original underwater housing plus the modified flat lense housing.

I tried it in a 25m pool this weekend and was impressed. It was exactley what I was looking for. I played it back on my Widescreen Samsung HD TV and I have no complaints.

I purchased a 16GB card to go with it - at the suggested setting of 1080P, my 15min video was 1 Gig.

I am going to take Dan's suggestion of purchasing the Pinnacle Studion 14 HD Ultimate to edit the video and burns dvds.

Once I edit it down to a realistic length I will post it for comparison purposes.

Jason, can you please post a pic of your housing with the fix. Is the attached lens glass or plastic?

Dan, will post pics tonight. I dont know - I would be guessing right now. I will check later.

Here's a pic of the housing from their website, but it doesn't give me a good idea of what was done.

Jason, they gave you two of the complete polycarbonate housings? if you dont mind me asking, how much did that cost you?

With shipping and the headstrap it was $372. IMO it still is a very fair deal. Also add another $95 for a 16GB card at Best Buy.

Yes, I was pleasantly suprised when I received both cases. Because of the flat lense on the modified underwater housing they suggest not to use it on land because water/dust particles tend to stick to the flat lense. So, I can use the original housing on land.

Maybe it was because I was in fresh water, but I found the flat lense did not collect water once it was removed from the water.

if I may ask, what acc. were included?

I will use the housing that Jeff 'modded' with the open panel rear for dry land shooting with as good as audio as I can hope for.

the housings un-modified are $40-60 depending on where you find them

Hi People,
I am new to the forum, and relatively new to freediving as well. I ordered a GoPro HD Hero from Gopro's website with the intent of modding it for underwater use. It arrived a few days ago and i just got back from the shop, machining the front face to be perfectly flat. Basically what i did was machine down that O-ring retainer lip. I am just waiting for two parts from the laser cutter: a spacer, and the actual flat port. Both are made from acrylic, same with the housing, so i am going to just acrylic weld them to the housing and have this me a permanent fix. this should be all done tomorrow, and i will port some pics and video of the result. I also got the roll cage mount for mounting it to my speargun, and will hopefully have a video of that this weekend.

Cheers,

Willem

Uploaded with ImageShack.us

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mcxxWfB_k4

Here is a link to the first test with the housing. I am going spearfishing with it tomorrow, and will get more video

Hello Willem. Do you have any pics of the modified housing?

nice Willem, what is the transparent ring that is visible in the shot, it that part of the fix?
the clarity is excellent and it seems the removal of the second convex lens really reduced the fisheye effect to give the video better depth realism

those shrimp on the pilings are cool

That's probably vignetting from the flat lens not being wide enough, you need at least 45mm diameter 2mm from the camera lens for it not to do so. Plus, I've found the entire area of the case enclosed by the new lens needs painting matte black to stop reflections.

Thanks for the comments!

I am attaching a photo of the modified housing.

You are right, there s some vignetting, esp with 720p, but its not annoying me just yet. Wish i would have gone with a wider lens, but now that i know how easy it is to modify the lens, i can just do it again when the vignetting bothers me. I am assuming i could just machine off the new lens like i did for that o-ring retainer ring, and affix a wider diameter spacer between housing and lens.

I took it spearfishing last weekend to about 30feet, no leaks :thumbsup2: ! The visibility was awful tho, not worth it to post video. i could not see much further than my speartip, and needless to say, i returned empty handed.

Larger pic please!