If you read the article about the GoPro or own one, you should know about all the advantages and disadvantages of having one of these little heroes. As a hobby diver and passionate photographer, I always wanted to use my DSLR or any other camera underwater.
For DSLRs, underwater housings are simply too expensive, so much so that I never considered buying one. The other alternative was to buy a smaller system for underwater photography, which was always a consideration. But since the appearance of the GoPro and being the proud owner of one, it was clear that it could be used as an underwater photography or video camera during a dive. The basic pack includes everything you need to go underwater with, BUT unfortunately, you will face different problems.
The first one is addressed in the other article – the autofocus – which is now solved with the new housing; the second problem is also solved with the new version – ‘The Hero2’. But there is still one more problem remaining – where or how to mount the GoPro whilst diving to get good and steady recordings.
Until now, I couldn’t find a mount in the long list of accessories available for the GoPro which would work well underwater.
1. The first thing I tried was the most obvious solution; to strap the camera to the head with the straps coming with the camera – generally I don’t think mounting the camera to your head is a good solution because the head movements are too extreme. As soon as you review your first recordings, you will recognize how much you move your head, this is so bad that you might get dizzy watching your recordings. The other problem for scuba diving is that you will always have the bubbles of air from your regulator passing through your image. This might be nice in some cases but if they are there all the time, it’s very disturbing.
2. Secondly, you can try holding the camera in one hand. I saw many ‘GoProers’ using a rod with the GoPro attached to the end of it. This is actually a nice solution because you can change the perspective and even take recordings of yourself from some distance (depending of the length of the rod). But in my opinion, the recordings are still not steady enough.
The solution: I was looking for a light rig which I could hold with both hands in order to make steady and stable recordings whilst keeping the point of interest in focus and at a central point. As mentioned in the introduction, you will find hundreds of accessories for the GoPro but I didn’t find any mount which would work for me and what I needed, until now….
The mount is simple and seeing all the self-made rods for the GoPro, I decided it’s time for some German engineering. It took only a few minutes in a hardware store to find some parts which would become the base for my mount.
What you need:
2 x paint rollers (about 15 AED each)
1 x metal brace (usually used to connect piece of wood, ideally rust free, zinc, or stainless steel 10 AED)
2 x stainless steel bolts and nuts (10 AED)
The whole building process is very easy and done within 10 minutes.
First of all, you need to remove the metal arm, which is holding the roller from the handle. This is the most challenging and time consuming part; you will need to twist and turn the arm until it gets loose so you can turn it 360°. Then you need to pull and continue turning the arm until it comes free. Depending on the rollers you buy, this can take some time and effort.
After you have separated both handles, check if the bolts you bought fit through the hole, and if they are long enough to be fixed with the nut inside the handle.
Now, take the metal rail and put the bolts through the already existing holes and bolt them to the handles. I was very lucky with my choice since the parts fit together perfectly (Harris roller from Speedex + 10” mending brace zinc from ACE).
The only thing left to do now is glue one of the GoPro mounts to your rail and you are ready to go. Of course you can improve the rig with additional accessories like a karabiner to clip to your BCD or you can mount some underwater torches to the rail with some rubber straps.
You can find a short video of these instructions as well as a testing of the mount and GoPro underwater housing on the OutdoorUAE YouTube channel www.youtube.com/outdooruae
Published in August 2012
