GoPro needs better lighting

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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby BrianFrank » Oct 6, 2014 10:38 am

Thank you Ryan, I'm traveling and watched the video on my mobile phone and the resolution wasn't great. That makes sense. I assume when they were searching the jungle they were then looking for the source of light.
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby Despelunking » Oct 7, 2014 9:11 am

Hello. Yes, that's a skylight we found @7:42. We were very surprised because this is one of Costa Rica's first discovered caves and where speleological work has been most intense. In fact, part of it is open to tourists and the cave is located on an inhabited property. So even though we were exploring a new passage we surely did not expect to find a new cave mouth.

Later when we were looking through the jungle we were trying to find the mouth above ground. We had initially planned to leave somebody inside at night with a powerful light and do a surface check by looking for light coming out of the ground, but in the end we had to do it in the daytime and we still managed to find it.

Sorry, I'll subtitle my next video.
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby Caver Keith » Oct 13, 2014 7:04 am

I too have a GoPro 3 Black Edition which I use for caving video along with a Panasonic WA-10 waterproof camcorder.
I find that the GoPro works exceptionally well underground - the colour rendition is good and the exposure is evened out between well-lit and less well-lit areas.
Lighting does need to be good - the cavers in this video all have 1300 lumen Scurion helmet lights and the opening scene (which was filmed on the GoPro) is also lit with three 650 lumen LED panels strategically placed.
Most of the surface scenes were filmed with the Panasonic and most of the cave shots with the GoPro, but for the the close-up bits I used the Panasonic.
I'm impressed with the results and feel that more subtle lighting creates a more atmospheric shot.

http://youtu.be/yOcdkfHpJ0k
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby trogman » Oct 13, 2014 9:20 am

Early on in this discussion I mentioned a cheap bike light that I had purchased which claimed to put out 7K lumens. Well, as they say, you get what you pay for. The light has died- I am not sure why. I may dig into it someday to see if it is fixable, but I am wondering if it is worth the trouble.

Trogman :helmet:
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby Despelunking » Oct 13, 2014 9:41 am

Keith, absolutely gorgeous video! What are your most common settings for the GoPro when filming in-cave?

It may indeed just be a whimpy light issue I'm having. I just got the 2.500 lumen wide angle Italian light in the mail, so I'll find out as soon as I get a chance to try it. Will keep this thread updated.

Trogman. Don't be too bummed out, I bought a definitely not so cheap bike light from a reputable American brand and it died after one use. It was waterproof but I didn't even get it wet.
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby Caver Keith » Oct 13, 2014 10:44 am

Hi Despelunking, pleased you like the video. I usually use 1080p at 30 fps and the wide field of view. If the shot looks too distorted I then use fisheye correct in the editing. I also balance the colour between the two cameras in the edit. I'm not a fan of helmet mounted cameras, I prefer to have the cameras on tripods or gorillapods whenever possible. In this way I can light a scene before the action. I'm still learning but underground video is great fun and quite challenging.
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby Despelunking » Oct 14, 2014 3:36 pm

Thank you Keith.
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby ohiocaver » Jan 8, 2015 9:39 am

Has anyone experience with the Lume Cube underground? It is made to be used with units like the GoPro or other video cameras. It is USB controlled and is rechargeable. Supposed to retail around $60 which sounds pretty cheap if it does, indeed, provide enough light to illuminate a GoPro video clip or action scene. Can you use it more than 8-10 feet from the subject (ie, say to shoot a rappel sequence where the camera may be 20-30 feet from the subject)? What's it's useful life on a charge? How do you rig it with your GoPro?
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby Dangerjudy » Jan 8, 2015 7:36 pm

Caver Keith, I love your video! I can't help but be amazed at how y'all lug those pelican boxes (or UK equivalent) thru the cave. Are Swaygo packs for sale over there?
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby Caver Keith » Jan 9, 2015 9:37 am

I love your video!

Thanks Judy, pleased you liked it. I'd never heard of Swaygo packs and it doesn't look like there's a UK supplier so I guess we'll have to keep lugging the Peli cases. What we do for our art! :sad:
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby Dangerjudy » Jan 9, 2015 10:36 am

Come visit TAG and test a Swaygo out. :waving:
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby lightandmotion » Sep 16, 2015 2:18 pm

Maybe a bit late, but we designed a pretty awesome indestructible little GoPro light that will enhance all your GoPro footage. It's called the Sidekick - and we launched it on Kickstarter earlier this year. http://www.lightandmotion.com/landing/sidekick/
We support Francois - Xavier De Ruydts for many of his projects and he conveyed a similar interest in helping out with media acquisition for caving.
http://globalnews.ca/ice-caves/how-we-did-it
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby ohiocaver » Oct 13, 2015 10:46 am

Another GoPro question...this on sound.
Sometimes, it seems my GoPro will pick up sound or voices at conversation level from a reasonable distance (say 7-15 feet away). Other times, it will not pick up the sound from even a couple of feet away. Any ideas why? I'm using the same setup (camera inside the plexiglass housing mounted on my helmet ) so i don't think the mic area is being covered up or exposed.
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby Footleg » Feb 6, 2016 11:59 am

lightandmotion wrote:Maybe a bit late, but we designed a pretty awesome indestructible little GoPro light that will enhance all your GoPro footage. It's called the Sidekick - and we launched it on Kickstarter earlier this year. http://www.lightandmotion.com/landing/sidekick/
We support Francois - Xavier De Ruydts for many of his projects and he conveyed a similar interest in helping out with media acquisition for caving.
http://globalnews.ca/ice-caves/how-we-did-it


An interesting concept, but in my experience not nearly enough light for anything but close up work. I film with GoPro3 Hero+ Black cameras in caves, using my own home built 2800 Lumen LED lights. Lumens are not the most useful measure as they amount of light going onto the scene is what counts. The quoted Lumen figures are just how much light the LED emits in any direction. So good reflectors make a lot of difference. For the very wide field of view of GoPro cameras, you need a wide spread and very even light source. I used frosted wide angle lenses/reflectors. Even with my very bright lights (I have 2 of them) I generally find that over 20 feet things start to get a bit dark for the GoPro. You end up with a lot of noise in the shadows. You can compensate for this to some extent by using the ISO limiting feature (I limit it to 1600) as above that the quality of the images is too grainy. Then post process if it is too dark to improve the footage. If you are shooting with a pair of cameras in 3D then it is even more important to have a lot of light, as the noise in darker areas is random, so it really spoils the 3D footage as there is no correspondence between the noise in the left and right images.

Most cheap LED bike lights are bright, but the beam is usually way too narrow so you just get a bright circle of light in the middle of the video frame. Using frosted glass in front of the reflectors can compensate for this to some extent.

I'm not saying that these sidekick lights wouldn't be useful. In fact a helmet mounted light which is compact would be great for point of view shots in smaller spaces, and perfect for close ups of any subject. Just don't expect to be able to film in large passages and chambers with this level of light.
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Re: GoPro needs better lighting

Postby bennettbike » Jul 22, 2016 10:06 am

Trog, In a cave like Anderson Spring where its tight I have had great success but go to ellisons and film a pit, that's just a joke unless u bring a movie studio
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