More Hero Juice...

The GoPro HD Hero 3 series cams are performing excellent in many aspects, except battery lifetime. At least for surface use I've come across something that helps in those cases where you drained all your spare Hero batteries and still want to shot more footage: a comparably small USB battery tank with quite some capacity. It is perfect to give your GoPro HD Heros some more juice, as well as to your mobile phone.

Impressions: TheDiveO 50+ FFM Dives

New pictures of me diving the Dräger Panorama Nova Dive full face mask ... I've now dived the Dräger in 50+ dives in open water, without even the slightest problem. I'm glad, I've purchased this full face mask, as it is a professional and rock-solid mask.

A Crabby Motel: Sundhäuser See and Möwensee

The plashy weather left room for improvement, yet our dive trip to the southern foothills of Harz was worth it. The two lakes Sundhäuser See and Möwensee are pleasant to dive, it's easy going in comparably clean waters. This year we had an incredible amount of tiny young crabs floating in the waters, looking like «snow» in the video footage. The perches were rather bored these days, hang around everywhere and sometimes even remotely glad for some fun they had with us divers ... but then it became booooring again fast.

Fly & Dive: Echinger Weiher

A Phantom in the air.
Mysterious bubble circles.
Psychodelic lights.
The Holledau below the water surface.
The Bavarian Cenotes.

And all this in a single small waterhole: Echinger Weiher. As always: enjoy the film!

Transporting a Phantom

Albeit the DJI Phantom quadcopter is light and small in size, you always need to carry additional things you'll need, such as the transmitter, battery packs, et cetera. In order to have all things ready that one may need on a trip I went for a transport case. Luckily, Globe Flight sells a suitable one, albeit it needs some DIY work.

It Only Happens to Me: Computer Communication Problems

Every electronic nowadays seem to come with USB connectivity. So the DJI Phantom quadcopter doesn't want to be the only exception. Using a USB cable you can update the quadcopter's firmware and tune several parameters of it's flight control unit. Easy, just install the driver software as well as the Naza-M assistent software (grrrr, Windows only). According to the manual, I powered up the Phantom, then connected the USB cable that came with the Phantom to my computer. Beep, beep, Windows recognizes the new USB device ... so I'm starting the assistent software ... and then nothing happens...

Above the Waters ... Done Right: Fly & Dive

Roughly two years ago I rather accidentally stumbled into filming and filming under water in particular. I have to admit that I've been hit hard again ... after seeing the Ready-to-Fly Quadcopter Phantom by DJI Innovations. I immediately knew: my GoPro HD Hero 3 has to go into thin air! I want to film diving spots not only from below but also from above! And those reports were just fueling my idea as they painted a realistic, yet highly addictive image of the Phantom system by DJI Innovations.