Posted by Rob Farrow on November 03, 19100 at 19:21:55:
In Reply to: Underwater fishing video system posted by Eric Mozer on November 03, 19100 at 16:36:51:
Eric,
I have the "Seaview" model version of the infared black and white video camera. It has 200' of cable and works realy well in good clarity water. If the visibility is 10' to 15' and up it gives a pretty good image. For visibility under 10' you either have to be real close to the object(for the infared to work) or get below the object and aim the camera upwards to get some light. I've been on wrecks with 3' of vis and thought that I wouldn't get any picture and come up and reviewed the tape, only to find out that on the tape it looked like we had around 15' of vis.
Overall I've been happy with it. The big downfall is dragging the dam thing around. The cable snags on every little piece of wreckage(I tried putting floats on the line and it helped a bit) and you end up wasting time unsnaging it. I've had it down to 150' on the "Chisholm Engine" at Isle Royale and it took some good footage.
I have a VCR hooked up on the boat and hit record just before going down.
It's real handy to have when you boat over something that comes up on your depthfinder. You just drop it down to see what it is and you don't have to suit up and dive on a tree! Like I said though, in bad vis or night, the camera has to be real close to the object and not moving, in order for the infared to work(and that's pretty hard to do in a boat that's bouncing around in the waves.
Hope that helps!
Rob.
: I have seen these infared black and white video cameras on sale at sporting good shops for fishing and was wondering if they would be useful in finding ship wrecks and/or documenting dives. Has anybody purchased one of these units for the above uses?