Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Fun doesn't have to be HD

I've been out a while I know...I've been on vacation. My family and I vacation near Munising, Michigan where we camp on the Southern shore of Lake Superior. One fringe benefit of the area are the numerous shipwrecks that are in the area, many of them are in shallow enough water to simply view over the side of the boat.

This year, I thought it might be fun to take my GoPro POV cameras and see what they can do underwater. I have two units with 170 degree view lenses, and these little cameras come with an underwater housing included. Since I'm not a scuba diver, I decided to simply mount the cameras on an ordinary paint roller handle extension, one shooting video and the other shooting stills.

While the video is relatively low resolution by today's standards (512x384), the still images are far larger (2592x1944).





These little cameras are a lot of fun and were a great way for all of us to get a better view of some of the more interesting sites that we could have only shown the family through a dive or a snorkel in some extremely cold water...


At 200.00 USD, these devices are the least expensive fun that I know of...







These cameras record to a standard SD card and run on two AAA batteries (lithium works best as you might guess). An underwater housing is included and depending on which package you buy, many mounting methods are available.

GoPro website