Here is a scuba diving video I filmed with a GoPro Hero2 and of course edited with Kdenlive:



Underwater, colors fades to blue/green, so I tried to fixed them with some filters directly in Kdenlive. Details of the color correction process can be found here.

Nice video and looking forward to your open waters shots!

I'm considering buying a GoPro camera for recording my divings, too. How is your overall experience with it? Could you say something about the your workflow with kdenlive in terms of video quality and output? Did you render to Full HD?

For those interested in working with the GoPro HD Hero(2) and kdenlive for diving videos, you may take a peek here: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDiveO ... I solely use Kdenlive for editing.

My experience with the newer Hero2 is mixed: white balance is not okay when filming under water in cold water and mixed light conditions. Even under good lighting conditions, the Hero2 still has white balance problems so you need to turn down the green channel a bit and boost the red channel carefully. Sometimes you also need to tune up the blue channel. But this changes from scene to scene, so it's a lot of manual work. For an indoor comparism, please see: http://thediveo.blogspot.de/2012/11/zwei-helden-im-vergleich-hd-hero2-und.html (english version coming soon).

I'm filming in full HD 1280p/25fps, albeit mostly in medium angle setting. I've come to always have a 90° LED lamp with me in coldwater; for tropical water you should have a lamp for better colors below 7-10m also.

If you want to see what cut, albeit uncorrected footage looks like, take a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBGro0HU9x0

Nice start into diving and video. Good luck with the certification and have fun diving. I like especially that you are also describing your particular color correction. I assume that you are using a GoPro Hero2, right?

Unfortunately, your screenshot of the correction stack settings cannot be clearly read, as it gets scaled down even in the magnified view. At least on my 1280x800 notebook screen I cannot decipher the settings, which is a little bit unfortunate.

PS: I started with wearing my GoPro on my head in order to get it out of my way and only after more than 70 open water dives and serveral hours of hovering drill in the pool. Please stay safe and ensure that you never loose buoyancy, this is really important. As long as this does not work 100%, never get distracted by anything else, especially not filming. It may otherwise kill you. Seriously.

Danke DiveO.

You are right, the arm is not the safest place for an underwater camera. I didn't know the Murner See, I put in my list for future divings.

I would rather suggest other lakes to see first before diving in Murner See, really... :) This is a cold, sour lake, believe me. No fish yet except the few I filmed. There's a reason I'm diving in a dry suit and with a full face mask...

As for a cam on one's arm: don't get me wrong ... it's okay to do this. However I would strongly suggest to do so only after having gained enough diving experience. For the moment, you'll need your left hand, where your cam seems to be, for operating the inflator. It typically takes thirty or fourty open water dives to get to the point where all safety-relevant handling will start to become automatic drill and where one can carefully try to add distractions, such as filming. Be safe.

@drnn1076: Yes, everything was captured and rendered in Full HD. You'll find all these details on my blog post. As for the workflow, there's no special voodoo involved: just dump your footage in Kdenlive's timeline and edit ! :)



@DiveO: Yes, it's a GoPro HD Hero2. Here is the direct link to the color correction stack screenshot in full resolution.

And thanks DiveO for your warnings. I appreciate your concerns. This is something I find fantastic in the diving community: everyone is looking forward to make the activity safe and secure.

I'm aware of task overloading issues when underwater. And I found out that a GoPro mitigate these risks: with its big battery life and a huge SD-card, I just start it before the dive and forget it. The lack of LCD screen on that camera, if making framing nearly impossible, doesn't distract you from your environment and its dangers.

Of course, before bringing my camera, I asked the permission to my instructor. I only took the GoPro for my last pool dive, so he already knew about my behavior and calmness underwater. He would not have let me use my toy if he wasn't confident of my ability to manage it.

As for the location of my camera, the rationale was that having something on my head was a bad idea: it could prevent me from accessing and purging my mask. I can't risk (yet) to be blind.

I choose the arm for its accessibility: if something goes wrong or the GoPro get into my way, I can easily get rid of it. It's just a toy, less valuable than my life. I don't care if I have to buy a new one. I choose the left arm for the camera, to keep the right side free of distractions (this is vital to handling the regulators in case of emergency).

Kevin, your posting finally made me trying to do some color corrections to one of my dive videos. While some footage is beyond color correction, other profited quite a lot from taking the time to adjust colors. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pCYOnaqpwo