Welcome to Michael’s Blog!

On Monday I will be going on my second "scooter" dive. My first one was a few weeks back, and holy cow, it was a really weird experience. The scooters we use require the diver to straddle, and it pushes them forward at a 2-4 times the rate a diver could swim at full speed, the result is that it really feels like you are just flying through the water with no effort at all. I also know that we are going to check out a ship wreck, and last time I didn't bring a camera to document it. This next time, you guys are coming along. Im really excited to show you how cool this is. Next to night diving, this is my favorite thing to do scuba diving wise.

One of the problems with bringing my usual Ikelite Water Housing is that it is just too dang big, and moving at those speeds it will create drag and be an overall pain. There are also times when I am shooting Macro with the big rig, and Ill see something bigger, but there is no way for me to switch lenses in the water, I wanted something much smaller, something with a wide angle lens, and something I could even attach to the Ikelite housing if needed.

Enter the Go Pro Hero 2. While the housing it comes with is water proof down to 200', there is a huge problem with it: the curved dome shaped port causes the video to be blurry underwater and there are a number of companies who have solved this by manufacturing a flat port for the Hero Series.

I chose the one they had in the shop, made by a company called "Backscatter" mainly because it accepts filters, which they also had there. This red filter helps bring back some of the natural color at shallower depths, but my hopes aren't too high for anything deeper than 20'.

Another issue I am reading about with the Go Pros is that sometimes it is hard to tell what you are recording as there is no monitor, but luckily, they now have attachable LCD monitors, also with water proof doors which will allow me to upgrade so I can both see what I am shooting as well as dive up to 130' with it.

When I go back to shooting with my regular rig, Ill just turn the Go Pro on for the whole dive, and still be able to shoot macro stuff.

Really looking forward to the dive on Monday. (Adam and I have been furiously busy on a number of projects, each which should be announced in the next upcoming weeks. We have several new non-instructional video products, coming among other things).