TheDiveO?

So much for battery life...

There really isn't much to say about TheDiveO. I'm just a SCUBA diver. At least I try to convince myself telling it to me all the time. I'm a certified AOWD (pronounces as «ouch-whoa-dimwit») according to PAYDI. In addition, I'm a certified full face mask diver and thus are allowed to own the Dive Vader Card.

TheDiveO makes The videO.
(In Lake Sundhäuser, TH/D)

Some time after I started diving I finally got a sweet small GoPro HD Hero cam. And then desaster started.

Unfortunately, this figure of speech turned out to creep into reality: after having lost my video footage three times, each time in another of my three GoPro HD Hero 3's and with another memory card, I finally took GoPro serious. I turned to camera equipment that works reliably and which does not destroy my file systems. In the end, I just followed this advice: Go Pro ... at least ProSumer.

I've now switched over to Canon VIXIA/LEGRIA HF G30. It comes with a real lens system and also stores its high bitrate H.264 video without any file loss on memory cards. On the very same SanDisk microSD cards that I used before and which GoPro declared either fake goods, unreliable, or worn out after twenty shots. Suuuure, GoPro, suuure. Oh, while we're at comparing apples to oranges: the Canon HF G30 runs on its battery for four GoPros.

Some marketing droids should carefully
consider their brand message...

Whenever I end up with somehow useable raw underwater footage I run this through the video editor Kdenlive (Open Source) on my Linux editing machine to produce terrifying video reports of contemporary history.

In consequence, my nickname TheDiveO is an anagram of The Video: it combines my pet hobbies diving and filming. And no, contrary to rumor, cutting and post-processing video footage is just a pet hobby where I basically have no clue what I'm doing.

In order to not attract attention I'm now diving a full face mask. Hey, no one is going to recognize me any longer! What do I like best when it comes to diving with my Dräger full face mask? It's not pink!

And since I'm no expert in diving, I like to take on the fool's role and amuse my readers with illustrations and satire about specialities and dive tricking organizations. The tools I use are the vector illustration tool Inkscape and the image editor The Gimp.

Take on new perspectives.

Lately, I started to not only shoot footage below the water surface, but also from above the air. A cute DJI Phantom quadcopter carries on of my GoPro HD Hero 3 Blackies and allows me to film from places and angles that were previously out of my reach. This little propeller thingie has so far survived several modifications I tried on it. First, it got a new and much better receiver than the original one. Next, it got two motors with left-handed threads for increased safety. And lately, I added a camera gimbal and replaced its main board. Luckily, my Phantom still is not pink.

Enjoy reading and browsing my blog,
TheDiveO

PS: Many thanks to «die Ratz» as well as Martin Stern for the shot for this blog article. They did the shooting in Lake Sundhäuser (TH/D) during one of my first open water dives with my brand-new Dräger Panorama Nova Dive mask. Looks like I was really excited about the panorama.