GoPro panning time-lapse kitchen timer

GoPro cameras have an excellent built-in time lapse mode.

Ordning kitchen timers ($14.99) from Ikea have a flat top which is perfect for sitting a GoPro camera on.

Put the two together and you have a very cheap and simple panning time-lapse rig.

For a sturdier platform I stuck one of the supplied GoPro sticky clip mounts on the top of the timer and moulded some PVC plastic into a cup shaped tripod mount for the bottom of the timer.

The timer gives me 360º rotation in 60min (obviously) and an alarm to tell me when it's cooked....I mean finished rotating.

These clips were taken at 1 frame every 2 seconds for 15min (pan of 45º) producing 450 frames. The video was encoded using Timelapse Compiler (Donation ware Mac only) at 25fps resulting in 18sec clips

DIY macro lens mount and strobe arm

Just for fun I thought I'd make a macro lens mount for my Lumix LX3 in Coolpix housing rig.

Here's what I came up with to hold the Inon UCL-165 M67 onto the dome port.

The 90x75 PVC pipe connector was close to a perfect fit. I stuck some neoprene tabs in the 90mm end to make it a tight fit over the dome port.

I slipped a ring of PVC in the 75mm end to stop the lens pushing all the way through and bolted on small brackets to hold it in place.

For higher magnification it would be better to use a flat port but this macro lens mount means I can do macro and wide on the same dive. A stronger or stacked macro lens would be better because the closest focus on long zoom only came down to 20cm.

I also wanted to reduce the overall size of the setup so replaced the double Ikelite handles with this simple aluminium tray/arm made from 50mm aluminium flat.

GoPro HD Hero 2

These tiny wearable HD video/still cameras are brilliant and reasonable cheap. Mine was $358  with free delivery from WetRez in Cairns.

It can record 1080 170º video, 11Mpx stills and time-lapse at a selection of frame rates with a fixed focus fisheye lens. It comes supplied with various mounts and a waterproof housing.

As is the GoPro can't focus underwater but a variety of add on lenses and tweaked housing are available for around $120.

Being tiny and light the GoPro can be attached to helmets, wrist and chest straps, kites, RC models...just about anywhere you can imagine.

Here are a couple of my early videos.

The sealed housing seems to fog up in the sun quite easily. Dessicant tissue pads are available to prevent this.

Melbourne Downunder Book

Over the last 18 months I have occasionally been hired by Sheree Marris to shoot for her book Melbourne Downunder.

Its a wonderful square format coffee-table book focusing on marine life in and around Port Phillip. Available for $40ish at Melbourne Downunder.

She also bought quite a few shots from my collection for the project, including this one of schooling mullet at St Leonards.
Also the seadragon and seal shots featured on her websites.

D7000 camera in D80 housing

OK I was wrong about the D7000 not fitting in the D80 housing. It actually does fit. Must have not cleared one of the controls at my first attempt.

Front and rear control dials, +/- EV, On/Off and focus lock work but there is no access to video switch. Some of the buttons to the left of the screen would be useable with a small reshaping of the rubber push button ends.

It's a tight fit with the camera pushing hard against something at the front so I would strongly advise a test in fresh water before jumping into the sea.

Ozone Paddle Steamer split level

Just 50m offshore from the Indented Head caravan park and in 3m, lies the paddle steamer Ozone.

It's a great spot for a snorkel or shallow dive and a great spot for split level photos. Some days the vis is even better than this.

The Ozone was sunk in 1925 as a breakwater for the little beach nearby.

Triggerfish remote strobe sensor

Continuing on with remote strobe testing.

Triggerfish is a wonderful little slave trigger made by Hedwig Dieraert. Here's a review on Wetpixel

To test how sensitive it is underwater I toddled off to St Leonards for a dip.

Vis was maybe 6m and Triggerfish worked perfectly 10m away where I couldn't even see the strobe anymore.

Just need to design some method of positioning the sensor like a spike, clamp or mini tripod.

Gregarious Giant cuttles

Winter in southern Aus is giant cuttle mating season. These normally secretive relatives of squid and octopus become all outgoing and inquisitive.

They will often follow divers around and even occasionally come in for a hand shake, like in this video.

I was shooting stills at the time then quickly switched to video when the cuttle showed interest. With a bit more time i would have done a manual white balance and used -1.0 ev in Aperture priority for better colour and exposure.

Bounce flash underwater

I don't hesitate to use bounced flash when photographing above water but it had never considered it underwater.

On a recent dive on the ex HMAS Canberra frigate, in less than perfect vis, I tried a few shots with the strobe pointing up at the ceiling of the wheelhouse. The results were a great improvement over direct flash which produced bad backscatter.

Top image is direct flash, single strobe.
Lower image is the bounced flash version.

D7000 split levels

One thing I was busting to try was split levels or under/over shots with the D7000. I had big hopes for the low noise and fast AF.

With my D80 noise is quite obvious in the underwater half at 400iso after some exposure increase adjustment.

The AF on the D7000 is brilliant. In these river splits I was blindly locking focus on something underwater and shooting a few shots while lifting the camera up with great results.

During overcast periods I bumped up to 800iso and although noise is visible in the smooth underwater subjects it can only be seen at 100%.

Here's a shot of Pt Lonsdale on a magic calm sunny day, converted to B&W from a Raw file.

D7000 underwater

First underwater test today so naturally the conditions were poor with silty 3m vis at St Leonards.

First issue was fitting the camera into the housing. The right side triangular neck strap ring tends to flip up and sit on top of the camera and won't fit under the AE lock shaft in the housing. It must be flipped down to fit the mounted camera into the housing. It also flipped up during the dive which meant I couldn't pull the camera out of the housing until it was jiggled down. I may cut it off or stick it down somehow.

Underwater impressions.....the bigger 3" screen is excellent and live view is definitely usable but AF slows down and is more fussy. In normal use the AF is much faster and more accurate than the D80, a delight.

Setting PRE or custom white balance is easy and works well. It's not something I have ever used before but it gave nice results for the timelapse photos using my glove palm as a grey card.

The intervalometer will be a feature I use a lot being addicted to timelapse now, apologies to any future dive buddies. Will have to sort out DOF and AF better next time.

Video worked well, but I don't know which AF mode to use yet. I was using AF-S but will try a continuous mode next time.

Maybe tried too much this dive, actually this will be an issue, this camera can do too much. I can see myself looking for still, video and timelapse subjects on all dives in the future.

D7000 Ikelite housing

I marvel at the ability of housing maunufacturers to make all those tiny camera buttons, levers and and control wheels available in the housing.

The D7000 Ikelite housing gives access to everything except the DOF preview button and dioptre adjustment. There's even a button for popping up and adjusting the internal flash, which doesn't make a lot of sense because the flash can't pop up enough to work.

The movie record button/lever has been moved all the way out to the right side of the housing and is easily operated by thumb without letting go of the handle. This makes movie recording smoother than with the camera itself.

There is enough space around the camera, especially on the right side, to fit my leak alarms.

You do need to retract some controls when inserting the mounted camera to make sure it sits in place.
The view through the viewfinder seems to include more of the frame than my D80 housing, but I'll have to check that underwater, hopefully tomorrow.

D7000 hands on

I ordered the camera from Digital Camera Warehouse for a gold coin under $1300, delivered.

When it arrived the first test was to see what worked in my D80 Ikelite housing. Nothing was the answer, couldn't even close the housing with the D7000 inside. The camera body is just too thick, front to back, to fit at all. I was always going to buy a new housing but in the pursuit of knowledge I had to try. I have since ordered an Ikelite housing from Digital Diver for $1672 delivered. It arrives in a few days.

Why Ikelite? Well, I have all the ports, like the see-through acrylic and extra space for tweaking and I can afford them. Other housings like Nauticam, Subal and Aquatica may be smaller and sleeker but they are also thousands more expensive and wouldn't improve my photos.

One drawback with an Ike housing is that you can't pop the camera flash up and use fibre optic flash sync, but there are stirrings in my little grey cells that may overcome this. A future project.

Initial impressions of the camera.

The larger 3" screen is wonderful. The INFO button which fills the review screen with all the camera settings will be nice underwater for ageing eyes. I'm starting to find the top LCD screen difficult to read.

AF during video will be an issue. SLR lenses make lots of noise while autofocusing and that is all perfectly recorded by the mic, so you either have to ditch the audio track or prevent continuous AF for video. AF-S will be the way to go for me. You start and stop recording with the dedicated video button but you can tap the shutter button at any time to refocus.

I'll be leaving the "sticky buttons" or "Release button to use dial" option (f7 in the control menu) permanently on. That means you tap and release a button, like ISO or WB, and then make changes with the control dial. Much easier in a housing than trying to use both hands.

f6 in the control menu is another must for me. That's the "Menus and Playback OFF" setting, which means you can make A and S changes with the dials while image review is still on. With my D80 I was always trying to make quick exposure changes after a shot but would actually be flipping to the next image, very frustrating.

There are 2 user settings available on the mode dial which are used to save sets of commonly required settings. I have set U1 for intervalometer recording where I want the image size small, and U2 for RAW underwater with WB 5260K. Then I can leave the camera on jpeg fine and Auto WB for normal use.

The intervalometer is a blast. You can choose the shooting interval, say 1 shot every 5 sec, and how many shots up to 999. Using Quicktime 7 Pro you can turn the image sequence into a timelapse movie at frame rates ranging from 10sec/frame to 60frames/sec. Here's one of me painting our front fence. 3hrs in 17sec.

A playback frame rate of 25fps would give a 40sec movie from 999 frames.

AF for stills seems very fast and the shutter action seems lightning fast too. I keep expecting the second clunk of the mirror returning but it has already happened.

That's what has exited me so far. I'll chat about image quality and functionality underwater in the next instalment.

Nikon D7000 SLR

I bought myself one of these recently released beauties as soon as the price dropped in Aus. The D7000 comes highly recommended by some serious underwater photographers and I felt it was a worthwhile upgrade from my D80.

Here are some of the features that attracted me.

Full 1080p video with continuous autofocus. Don't know how effective that AF will be, I suspect it will be far from perfect and I'll be using it as single AF rather than continuous.

Live view, looking forward to trying it underwater.

Very fast AF for still shots (not live view), I'm expecting this to be great underwater.

14bit RAW which apparently means much smoother sunburst rendition.

Startlingly low noise at higher ISOs, which will be good for my split levels at 400ISO.

Intervalometer for time-lapse recording. This will be fun underwater and above.

2 SD card slots, for backup or overflow or separating jpegs and RAWs

3" screen and 100% viewfinder, both bigger than the D80.

More on how it all works in real life in the next post.

Sync cord end clip

Here's a little refinement after the initial test dive.

This clip allows the raw end of the sync cord to be fitted and removed underwater. This will allow much easier rolling out of the long cord now that the little hooked clip is not permanently attached.

The clip is stuck to the strobe by double sided tape.

I have also made up a short optical sync cord for use with a slaved on-camera strobe. This means I can just use a single electrical sync cord for the main strobe instead of the annoying double electrical cord.

Remote strobe underwater

So here's my first attempt.

The sync cord worked flawlessly, but it's so awkward dealing with 10m of coiled cable attached to strobe and camera.
It gets hooked and tangled on everything, not as bad as a reel and line but still frustrating.

Conditions were not great with 5m vis green cruddy water and heaps of dive classes in the vicinity.

Fibre optic sync cord from audio cable

Fibre optic sync cords are a great option for underwater strobes but they are expensive and delicate. A 0.5m coiled sync cord costs around A$70. Digital audio cable, which is basically the same thing, costs maybe A$2.00 a meter.

Here's how I adapted a 10m toslink audio cable ($20 on ebay) to work with my Inon strobes. I'm intending to use the long sync cord to setup some remote strobe lighting in sites like wrecks, under ledges and behind pier piles.

First to make the slave strobe end I cut through one of the Toslink plugs leaving a lip which would sit inside an Inon sensor cover.

I carefully shaped the lip diameter and depth to hold the cable in the sensor cover and allow the sensor cover to be screwed over the sensor.

To make sure the cable didn't pull out of the lip I used plumber's PVC pipe glue.

That seemed to work very well but I also used heat shrink tube and cable ties to secure it even more.

The sensor cover can still rotate freely.








Finally to fit the master strobe end of the sync cord.
I cut the plug off leaving a raw end and made a PVC bracket to hold it in front of the master strobe.

The bracket fits around the sensor and the PVC material is thin enough, about 1mm, to allow the sensor cover to screw down securely, holding the bracket in place.






Here's the whole setup, now all I need is some decent vis!

Inon strobe on Gorillapod

Here's how I mounted the strobe onto the tripod.

A piece of aluminium flat was shaped to fit the gorillapod mount with a cutout slot to accommodate the locking lug.

The strobe and gorillapod combination is negatively buoyant but I added a 0.3kg ankle weight for a bit more stability.

Off-camera underwater strobe

I have started mucking around with a remotely triggered strobe underwater.

The aim of this is to create more interesting lighting. Using an off camera strobe to add rim lighting or even back lighting can add depth and drama to an image.

The tricky bit is actually getting the remote flash to fire. Water absorbs light much more than air so the in-built Inon slave sensor is only effective over about 1.5m. Any further back and the main strobe will not trigger the remote strobe, at least in our murky sub-temperate water. 

There are a couple of solutions.

1. Use a really long sync cord, either fibre optic or electrical.

2. Use a more sensitive electronic remote sensor. These are available for Ikelite strobes but not my Inons, although one should be available very soon. 

I have ordered 10m of fibre optic audio cable to try a long sync cord. One end will sit in front of my main strobe and the other will connect to the remote strobe. This means the cable will be visible in the shot of course.

Stay tuned for new developments.

AndrewNewtonPhotographer.com

Just purchased this new domain name with unlimited webspace from JustHost.

AndrewNewtonPhotographer.com

The aim is to showcase some of my better images and maybe promote some sales, who knows.

I'll keep you posted.

UPDATE 2013: I have let this site lapse due to a 300% increase in hosting charges. You're joking JustHost!

Above and Below with Tokina 10-17 FE

Aha! This is the lens to use for split level shots.

I'm now getting consistently better shots using this technique with the wider fisheye lens and 8" dome.

Results are better on a sunny day but this shot was taken under cloud.

Above and below shots

Also called half and half, under over, and split shots.

These are among the most challenging underwater images to capture.

On this snorkel I set out just to shoot under overs and this is the only decent one from 80 or so.

This is what I learned....

Need glassy calm, shallow, clear water

Must have a big dome port (8" Ike)

Use the widest lens you have (Sigma 15mm, but wider would have been better. I actually came home and ordered a Tokina 10-17mm soon after)

f/9 is not enough for sharp above and below, need more like f/16

Shoot manual exposure just making sure not to blow out above water highlights. RAW helps a great deal and the graduated filter in CS5 Camera Raw works wonders.

Focus on the underwater detail and lock focus it for the shot.

To reduce water drops in the image, spit on the dome and rub the saliva around the top half.
Start with the dome fully submerged then take the shot within seconds of lifting it up and framing.

Sigma 17-70 with 6" dome

One issue with this lens is that you need to use the 8" dome port for full zoom range.

I much prefer the smaller 6" domes which allow you to get closer to the subject and to the sand. They are also much more manageable on crowded dive boats.

So I tried it with the 6" dome (for the Nikon 18-55mm) and it works very well BUT you can't zoom longer than 50mm where the lens hits the inside of the dome.

Sigma 17-70 HSM macro

Now with the dome port polished and decent conditions and no more winter bugs I finally had a good go with this new lens.

Results were very nice, much more contrast and sharpness than the Nikon 18-55 kit lens.

More photos here

This lens is actually a little too fat to fit the Ikelite housing using the spring zoom ring supplied. An easy work around is to add sticky-back velcro to the inside of the gear ring. This  provides enough grip to operate the zoom.

Dome port scratch repair - Micro Mesh

My Ikelite 8" acrylic dome port was quite scratched up, bad enough to show in the photos.

I bought it second hand and it was in worse condition than I expected.

Micro Mesh NC-78-1 is a surface restoring kit used for aircraft windows, among other things.
I ordered mine from www.thesandpaperman.com.au $59 including freight.

It's quite daunting to attack your dome port with sandpaper but the end result is well worth it.

Here's a video of the process.

St Leonards octopus

So what happened in July?

This little pale octopus has taken up residence in a metal pipe under the pier.

Here's a video of this engaging cephalopod.

Trying to test a new Sigma 17-70mm macro zoom lens, but conditions have been awful for a few weeks now. Patience.

Drysuit dryer

Here's an idea I've been thinking about for a while.
My drysuit doesn't leak often but when it does it's always through the ankle valves.
All our shore dives are quite sandy and it doesn't take many grains of sand to prevent the seal working properly, usually on the next dive.

This rig suspends the drysuit upside down and blows warm air into the boots.

Constructed using 3m of 50mm polypipe, 2 elbow joints, 2 T-junctions and an $18 blow heater. All up cost under $50.
The heater hood is made from old poly tarp material.

Also means I can give it a good wash inside and out and have it dry for the next weeks diving.

More photos here

Merimbula Divers Lodge - Eden Tugs

After Jervis Bay we headed down to Merimbula (4hrs) to stay at the Diver's Lodge and dive the Eden Tugs. The Tasman Hauler and Henry Bolte tugs were sunk as artificial reefs back in the mid 1980's in 25 to 30m. The Tasman Hauler is intact while the Henry Bolte has collapsed but boasts more fish life. They're only a 5min boat ride from Eden wharf and about 150m apart.

The diver's lodge has 3 large two bedroom apartments for $29/person, 4 bunks per room. Absolute luxury as dive lodges go, and walking distance to great restaurants and the main shopping drag. We've stayed there twice and always had an apartment to ourselves. Excellent washing and gear storage facilities are provided.

Dive time was 8.30 at the Eden wharf, 20min drive, where we geared up with a Pro Dive mob from Sydney. They were also staying at the diver's lodge and doing a wreck course. The dive boat is a Niiad RIB with just enough space for 12 divers and 2 crew. It's a fast narrow boat that has no storage space for cameras, have to be very vigilant to protect cameras in the pre dive melee.

The vis was 15 to 20m allowing for great wide angle shots. A big school of 60cm kingfish provided thrills on the Henry Bolte. Much better than the 5m green snot we had last visit.

First dive was on the Tasman Hauler then back to Eden for the surface interval, then back out to the Henry Bolte.

$120 for the double dive with your own gear.

Tug dive photos here

For this trip I really wanted to concentrate on wide angle and video. I used my Nikon D80 in Ikelite with 2 Inon Z220 strobes all on manual and Sigma 15mm fisheye, and Virg's Panasonic Lumix LX3 in my old Coolpix 5000 Ikelite housing with a UK Light Cannon HID torch for video.

I took Virg's Macbook and edited video as the trip progressed. This gave me something to do during down time and show off to the non photographers each night.

Rich and I used drysuits, highly recommended, and although the water temp was 20c in JB and 18c on the Tugs, it made the between dive times warm and comfortable. Wetsuit divers shivered.

Next time I'll take my ali backplate rather than heavier SS just for easier handling out of the water, and use an occy neck sling or velcro retainer rather than the useless mouthpece plug.

Jervis Bay - Ocean Trek 5 day trip

Spent the last 10 days on a diving road trip to Jervis Bay and Merimbula.

Buddy Rich Misquitta and I drove from Geelong to Goulburn (8hrs) on the first day, staying at the Alpine Heritage Motel, $85 budget twin room, right next door to the down market Carlton Hotel. The $10 steaks were excellent but the 3 vomiting Canberra teenagers (also our motel neighbours) were not.

Next morning we drove (2 hrs) down the steep windy road to Huskisson staying at the peaceful Jervis Bay Caravan Park (Bushmans Cabin $80, no ensuite). It's a few ks outside Husky on the river and very pleasant. We could leave our car there for the 5 days of the Ocean Trek live-aboard dive trip. The only alternative is to leave your car in the council car park next to the bottle shop. Apparently it's quite safe but Rich wasn't too keen with his new Sportiva. Dinner was at the local RSL. Large meals served extremely fast, kitchen closes at 8pm.

8.30 Monday morning saw us waiting with all our luggage on the Husky wharf. The other Ocean Trek passengers slowly assembled. First Joy from Eden arrived then a minivan with the mob from Whyalla SA pulled up, making 10 divers and 1 non diver.

Eventually a wild haired seafarer in a small dinghy tied up to the wharf and introduced himself as Mick. 3 trips in his precariously overloaded tender saw us all on Ocean Trek, our home for the next 5 days.

Ocean Trek is a big old 18m catamaran with beds for 23. Many years ago Lee Marvin was a guest on Marlin fishing expeditions. Now it's perfectly setup as a diving liveaboard.

Captain Mick is also the director of entertainment, Lyn runs the diving and Bob is the chef. They make a great team and obviously enjoy it. Dive videos enthusiastically narrated by Mick, stories of their many dive adventures and a game of "Million Dollar Riff" using Mick's iPod kept us entertained during the evening meals.

Speaking of meals, Bob did a magnificent job. I have done a Taka trip on the GBR and the food didn't come close to Bob's efforts. Home cooked, fresh ingredients, amazing variety and nutritionally perfect for a strenuous dive trip. Lasagne, fettucini marinara, roast beef and veggies, Tom Yum soup, 3 course every night with creative desserts, with no course ever repeated. Hot breakfasts, post dive snacks and fruit always available. Just superb.

Lyn's dive operation was thorough, well run and safety conscious. Any diving incidents were dealt with strictly and professionally. Some of the problems experienced were unplanned and missed deco (no diving for 24hrs), possible saltwater aspiration on 2 consecutive dives, headaches, , dehydration (me), earaches, nose bleeds and some sea sickness. All survived and left the boat smiling.

Each day 4 dives were planned with 2 on the last day making 18 in all. Breakfast at 8.00am was followed by the first dive around 9.30, another at 11.30, lunch then 2hrs snoozy time, arvo dive around 3.30 and night dive at 6.00.

Only 1 diver managed to do the full 18 dives, but he had a pit crew non diving partner, who just happened to be a part time masseuse, lucky bugger!

Weather was not kind to us for the first 2 days with rain, wind and swell, but inside the bay behind Bowen Island there are excellent sheltered sites.
Eventually the weather improved allowing us to move outside the south head. Better vis, big schools of fish and a sea cave made these sites memorable. I have no interest in fresh water cave diving but these sea caves and splits are my favourite dive sites.

Each night we moved inside to anchor off Murray's beach. We also did a brilliant night dive here filming a baby PJ shark mauling a scallop, 3 species of seapen and a walking gurnard in full display.

We also dived around the Docks, Split cave (another fave) and Point Perpendicular. The marine life of Jervis Bay is really spectacular. Swirling bait balls, squadrons of squid, bow riding dolphins, wobbegong and Port Jackson sharks, sea eagles, Navy ships, planes and parachute drops kept the photographers busy. Also saw a very long water spout (mini tornado) reaching up hundreds of meters to the clouds.

Most sites were dominated by big boulders and urchins barrens with big clusters of stalked ascidians and striking sponges remaining. But the amazing abundance of fish and spectacular walls, splits and caves make Jervis Bay the brilliant dive destination it is.

For all this we paid a little over $150/day. You could barely sleep and eat for that without diving at all. Amazing diving, amazing value and I will return.

Can't think of any negatives really, unless it's Mick's very daggy sense of humour and music tastes, but they can easily be forgiven.

10 min trip video here
Dive photos here

Panasonic Lumix LX3 underwater

I have an old Ikelite Coolpix 5000 housing (circa 2003) which doesn't get much use these days, so I thought I'd try to fit my wife's wonderful Panasonic Lumix LX3.

It's a great still camera but also does 16:9 HD video and has a really nice 24mm wide lens.

With a minimal amount of tweaking, the camera now fits and I can start and stop the recording.
I tried the flat port first but that gave too much fringing and pincusion distortion so changed to the dome port with excellent results.

After 2 dives, one video and one stills, I'm thinking this is a brilliant compact underwater.
With this bodged together housing setup I don't have any controls other than shutter release (and manual flash output on my Inon Z220 optically triggered) so I used Aperture priority (f/8) with -2/3 EV (to reduce ambient exposure) and Forced Flash (which limits shutter speed to no longer than 1/30th)

Results are sharp all the way out to the corners thanks to the dome port.

Getting the camera into the correct position involved moving the tripod mount hole (and the base plate) to the left and further forward. The the camera had to be as far forward as possible without clashing with the long shaft of the knob on the left of the housing and the lens had to be concentric with the dome port.
This took a little bit of gouging and fiddling of the hole. Once I got the position right I flipped the base plate over and drilled one accurate hole.
Then added some thin plastic strips and tape to to the base plate lift the camera up a little.
I then carved a shutter release knob extension from an old nylon chopping board.

More photos and video here