GonePro Part 2: Krazy Kraken Cannon

In the meantime I could gain some first experience using the Canon VIXIA/LEGRIA HF G30 in open water under real life conditions. So, in this second and follow-up post I'm going to analyze the footage taken with both the HF G30 and GoPro HD Hero 3 Black Edition. This post follows in the steps of GonePro Part 1: Krazy Kraken Cannon.

Protune Under Water: Contrast Crunch

Some time ago, I published an introductory blog post about Protune. In it, I explained that GoPro uses an S-shaped tonal curve for encoding the image the camera sensor sees into the three primary color channels RGB. The idea here is to extend the range at the far ends at the expense of the intermediate tonal range, in a way that Protune stays within the allowed tonal value range of 8 bits per channel H.264 video data. A good idea, it seems ... but unfortunately not always under water...

Cannoning a Hero Fly on the Wheel

Cannoning the Hero Fly on the Wheel.

After having lost video footage three times on different occasions, in each one of my three GoPro HD Hero 3 Black Edition cams, and each time on a different memory card, I finally contacted what, erm, GoPro boasts as its, cough, «customer service». This «service» is absolutely sure that either (1) I am at fault or (2) my memory cards. With clear signs of having lost any sense of reason at GoPro I took finally their trademark advice seriously and have «go(ne) pro». So I got myself a shiny new FullHD video cannon, so to speak...

Fallen Heroes: SD Card Err

When you are seeing this with
a memory card inserted...

Unfortunately, and based on my own in-field experience, I'm slowly coming to conclusions that GoPro's firmware in the HD Hero 3 is clearly unreliable. And this even as I carefully handle the cam, never running the battery flat, shutting down the cam correctly before swapping memory cards, and so on. In return, GoPro's famous firmware just has bricked the file system on a memory card for the third time. Unfortunately, you can't repair such a disk in cam or with the basic tools that come with all the operating systems – but fortunately, I found a way to salvage my video footage despite this mayhem, so please read on...

Three Heroes ... and mad as a Hatter

I've just returned from a weekend of ice diving ... well, it actually was more the next-to-the-ice diving, to be precise. I had the chance to test my new Backscatter Flip 3.1 equipment consisting of a +10 macro lens and a green water filter. The winterly Lake Plansee was an unforgiving test environment: really green waters and not much light...

GoPro's Protune Hero 3+ Down-Grade: C+ at Best

Apparently, GoPro changed the Protune tonal curves the HD Hero 3+ uses when white balance is switched off from what they previously used for the HD Hero 3. It seems as if they now use separate tonal curves for the red, green, and blue channel, while for the HD Hero 3 the channels all used the same tonal curve. The unpleasant outcome of this is that raw HD Hero 3+ footage gets a massive tint. To this time, no satisfying set of effects and their parameters is know to deal with such footage in Kdenlive or other open video editing and grading tools. All experiments so far were unsatisfactory.

Albeit this tint problem is only seen when white balance is switched off, this is exactly the mode you want to shot in your underwater footage. Thus, GoPro without any real need mucked around with Protune, making it useless. GoPro's Studio software is nothing more than a bad joke: since when is grading done on raw footage before the footage has been cut and arranged? Whatever GoPro is, it needs to go pro as soon as possible, as breaking Protune is ridiculous.

Over here were I live, we have grades that go from «1» (best, «A» in some other countries) down to «6» (worst, «F» grade). It may be a sign that the HD Hero 3+ thus translates to a C+ grade. At best.

Unfortunately, GoPro still don't gives any useful information about how to deal with Protune. They simply point you to their pointless Windows and OS-X software. Seeing this openly customer-hostile I'm not the only one getting HD Hero 3 Black Edition cams while their prices dives, as the 3+ seems to rot in shop shelves.

Dry Heroes

Proven in practice at 4°C water temperature.

In the past months, for me GoPro's anti fogging strips performed totally miserable. Today, I could put my new method for defogging to a real-world test under water...

Mass Heroes Charger

When travelling with a bunch of GoPro HD Hero cameras, then getting all the batteries charged for the next day of happy shooting becomes of concern. Of course, charing one battery per HD Hero camera is easy ... but throughout the day these little suckers basically eat batteries.

While I'm on site, recharging batteries is often not possible. So evenings get packed with constantly petting the charging station; something I don't like. Luckily, GoPro finally managed to deliver its (long promised) new and smart add-on...

Food for Heroes: SanDisk Extreme Plus 32GB in the Red

First Ultra, then Extreme ...
and now for the, well,
ultimate climax:
The Extreme Plus. Woo-hoo!

It caught us in total surprise. Yet another product name rehashing the «plus» meme in its name. This time, SanDisk marketing had this great idea in order to create another microSD card wonder.

So, SanDisk's product management managed to pimp up its product names from Ultra to Extreme, and now even to Extreme Plus. How im-press-ive. It seems that the Extreme Plus series is going to replace the previoius Extreme series of microSD memory carads. However, I don't really see any real differences, at least not in terms of packaging and the labelling on the microSD card itself...

Fogging-Free Heroes

«Dry Suit» for my HD Heroes.

Lately, my GoPro HD Heroes have been massively plagued by fogging when filming under water. And this after years of fog-free operation – despite (or because) of the anti-fogging strips that GoPro sells.

While I could salvage most of my footage by declaring it to be a work of true art, I yet had to find a working solution. It seems that I was successful in keeping my Heros free of fogging...

Hero Under Water Basic Equipment

So what equipment does it need in addition to a GoPro HD Hero 3/3+ to shoot good videos below the water line? Apart from that it takes a different camera, that is? Of course, it depends: on your demands and standards. However, if you want more than just shooting some short and shaky fun clips à la smart phone quality: please read on for my highly subjective suggestions. From my own experience, these suggestions proved to be practical so far to improve my standards.

But of course, equipment is just one part of the overall equation. Without any skill, competence, and pain even the best equipment never cuts the mustard. But one step after the other...

Hero Protection

In some situations it is impossible use its protective case when shooting footage with your GoPro HD Hero 3. For instance, when I'm filming aerial videos using my DJI Phantom Quadcopter I need to directly mount the cam into the Zenmuse H3-2D gimbal for weight reasons. Unfortunately, dirt and dust stirred up by the propellers' air blast may some day cause scratches on the lens.

Fortunately, GoPro finally took notice of this problem and now offers remedy...

Hero Lights: Light and Motion Sola Video 2000F LED Lamps

Neufelder See (LA/Ö).

When filming under water a well-proven rule of thumb applies in many situations: you need a lot of light to get good footage. Without light you quickly hit unpleasant limits and all you get are grainy shots in dull colors.

However, the wide field of view a GoPro HD Hero 3 cam has to offer isn't exactly easy to illuminate: your lights should feature evenly distributed light cones and yet still cover a significant area, and all this without bright spots. Otherwise you will get the desired bright colors only in a small spot and everything else drowns in darkness and flat colors.

After my previous LED dive and video light had bugged me long enough, I finally made up my mind and invested in decent video LED light: I allowed myself two Sola Video 2000F's by Light and Motion which give real good light. Luckily, they arrived in time to give them a first try in Neufelder See, just at the gates of Vienna...

Evening Gold & Hero Red: Protune Grading

Burg Thann, Nuremberg county. (BY/D)

This time in my series «one video lies more than a thousand words» I'm showing how to carefully emphasize an evening mood in Protune footage. This gives, for instance, castle Burg Thann more atmosphere.

Without further manual grading, Protune footage may appear rather very neutral and even appear to be slightly cold. But adding some nice touch to your footage is really easy. Just take Kdenlive, no need for any professionals' tools or similar marketing balderdash...

Kdenlive Video: Color Grading Protune Footage

Following my motto «a picture lies more than a thousand words» I produced a short video tutorial: color grading Protune footage. I'm demonstrating my technique on a short but vivid autumn scene. My goal is to achieve almost the same result as if filmed without Protune and thus with the camera-integrated automatic image processing.

While working on the specific video effect set to reproduce the genuine GoPro video look I noticed something interesting going on color-wise inside these cams...

Kdenlive Effect: Protune

In my article Grading of Hero 3 (Above Waterline) Footage I've shown how to create a new effect template in Kdenlive for uncompressing the tonal curve of Protune raw footage. This effect is really useful for working with Hero 3 video footage.

You can also directly create the effect outside of Kdenlive without fiddling around with the curve handles...

Grading of Hero 3 (Below Waterline) Footage

In a previous article I've shown how to post process GoPro HD Hero 3 Protune footage in Kdenlive. On purpose, this previous article covered only footage shot above the waterline. In this second article I'm now focusing on the specifics of underwater footage.

Grading of Hero 3 (Above Waterline) Footage

In this article I'll show how to post-process video footage that was shot with a GoPro HD Hero 3 Black Edition (or Silver Edition) in Protune mode. In order to better understand the details of what really is going on in post processing, I'll show the necessary steps using the non-linear video editor Kdenlive.

On purpose, I'm not using proprietary software packages for demonstration, but instead open source software. However, with the knowledge gained here you should be able to easily transfer my description to any decent other video editor software ... as long as your software gives you the required basic tools.

Effectively Working with 2.7K (Protune) Footage in Kdenlive

Working with high-bit rate footage that was shot with a GoPro HD Hero 3 Black Edition easily eats up all your available computational resources in post production. Especially for footage shot in the 2700×1520 dimension and with Protune switched on your video editor needs to process around 45MBits per second for real-time playback, applying all the required effects such as color grading, sharpening, et cetera at the same time. However, unless you happen to possess a really highest-end system, these image bit rates are still too much for effectively working in your video editor software. You will quickly grow tired of heavy delays when editing. Luckily, Kdenlive has something to speed up your work again...

Helpful Hero 3 Practice Above + Below the Waterline

GoPro's HD Hero 3 action cams are very popular for sure. Especially GoPro's top of the line HD Hero 3 Black Edition delivers stunning pictures above and below the waterline. And this despite its small size.

But right out of the box, video footage shot with the HD Hero 3 below the water surface still sometimes really sucks heavily, so how do we properly configure a Hero 3 Black Edition and then post-process (color-grade) the resulting footage to avoid such mishaps?