gobiodon

Awesome

Very nice. It's time to invest into a VR headset. Which camera(s) have you used?

I’ve recently bought a 360 degree camera (Insta360 One X2) for underwater videography. I do lots of work with small camera traps (action cameras on tripod) but the footage is always static and the direction is not always perfect, so some cropping is required. The idea was to freely choose the view point and have the opportunity to apply smooth camera movements (pan, tilt, zoom). I have ambivalent feeling but I would say it’s mainly positive. I uploaded some real 360 degree videos to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/SX0EJRt70T8 https://youtu.be/Tuvz5qiEtt8 I haven’t tried to watch them with VR headset and I mainly use the camera for standard videos. I’m not sure that with a standard action camera I could have recorded these: https://youtu.be/_RKtSIUnbFQ https://youtu.be/3IZ2kq-epGs I haven’t tried it in a coral sea but so far I’m happy. There are many limitations. The underwater housing is not the best, and the stich line is visible. Also the camera cannot look down. Maybe a bigger sphere housing would be better. It’s a 5.7 K camera but the normal view is just FHD (barely). Few years ago 3D video was a big thing but today it’s completely gone. Maybe 360 degree video will have the same fate. What do you think?

In strong current I would just fix a gopro head to a lead block

I've just created a mini tripod (tetrapod) for my action cameras. I used some scrap metal pieces (aluminium) I found in my tinkering cabinet (probably pieces not used for furniture assembly). Assembly was quick. I sprayed it with black paint and next day it was ready. Light and easy to transport.

Very nice. Lots of details, I think this lens is really good. Unfortunately the sony version has no electronic aperture control.

It seems to be a great lens regarding optical quality. The main problem I see is that even in case of a properly working focus gear, there is no way to change the aperture of the lens.

Very nice descriptions in the recommended file. Actually, I would try position a single lamp as shown in the first picture of the pdf (and would fine tune from there)

"shooting general scenes of reefs etc from around 2-5m distance" is the first problem. You have to go closer to have effects from your lamp. Imagine the cone of light. It should illuminate the subject but not the water between your camera and the subject (as much as possible) to avoid backscatter. A single light I would position on the top af the camera on an arm (but far from it) and try to tilt upwards and check the effect.

Good advice, thanks!

I have recently purchased a very cheap but well-made aluminium tripod base from BGNing (on Aliexpress). I haven't tried yet underwater but it's quite sturdy on land. It was 40 Euro including shipping.

Thanks, I know this from another forum post. I`ve checked before. I may also give a try to the 16-50 but the 16mm pancake with the wide angle adatpter seems to be a better choice.

Thanks Andy, an excellent source of knowledge! I may give a try to experiment with those filters

This post is somehow linked to my previous post about “Low-budget underwater videography”. I’ve been using a Sony A6000 for a long while and it’s one of the most affordable cameras, not that perfect on video department, but still a good buy. SeaFrogs (or Salted Line) has a relatively affordable housing for this Sony camera line, so I also bought one and I have been using the standard port with the 30mm macro lens with good success. For wide angle videos I’m happy with the quality of action cameras, but I thought why not to try also my A6000. I wanted something small, and the 4 inch port was, on paper, compatible with many of my lenses. I haven’t tested thoroughly yet, but so far I’m not that happy with the results with Samyang (Walimex) 8mm f2.8 fisheye or the Sony E 16mm F2.8 + Fisheye Converter VCL-ECF1. The corners were quite mushy. However, recently I tested the 16mm F2.8 with ultra wide (weitwinkel) Converter VLC-ECU1 converter and the results are not that bad. I’ve checked only 2 f numbers (F13 and F16) but later I will test it with other set ups. Two examples below: (F13) (F16, slightly cropped I know the problem is that in case of this cheaper option, the ports are not perfectly optimized for a given lens. It’s not that big problem in case of flat ports but the quality can be really bad if the position of the lens was not optimal with dome ports. Actually, there is a long list of supported lenses but not all of them are optimized for the best quality. Share your experiences with this dome (or other domes from SeaFrogs) and other Sony lenses.

Fredi Schaschl has some nice macro videos with RX100V (more you can find on his YT channel: