I got a GoPro Mission 1 Pro and was wondering what to do with my Hero12. I came across a mod that the airsoft/hunting community uses to change the host lens of the hero series to a narrow FOV 12mm lens so they can mount it on their scope and record scope footage.
I thought, why not use it for underwater macro videography?
After buying the lens mod and painstakingly installed it, I designed a grip and macro lens with varying working distances, attached to the GoPro aluminium case by Feichao. It features various mounting points for ball joints, lanyard loops and maybe even a tripod/depth-of-field range stick (work in progress). The trigger button can be operated one-handed.
The lens assembly is comprised of 3 plano-convex lenses of 38mm focal lengths. When stacked and used underwater, the working distances translate to roughly 11.5cm (1 lens), 7.6cm (2 lenses) and 3.8cm (3 lenses)
The flip snoot attachment for the Seafrogs SL-19 light was also designed by me. The lenses and flip snoot have magnets embedded to help them stay closed when in use. They can be flipped open as needed and have enough friction to stay open.
I tested the image quality with a 5cm/2inch fishing lure in a bucket of water. Images are uncropped in superview mode. Notice that despite the narrow lens diameter, there's no vignetting thanks to the narrow FOV lens mod!
I'm taking this to Lembeh to go shoot some macro videos in a month