Homemade Light Filters for Gopro - Diving and Underwater Exploration

This is an Instructable for underwater exploration! There were very big plans for this instructable, but time has passed and I need to share it, even in its current state!

I am new to diving, and when I returned from a dive to look at video and images I shot it was super GREEN!!!

I saw in the shop that there were expensive filters that I could buy to attach to my gopro. I also saw that there is a recent kickstarter that raised close to 10k making plastic filters.

During some research into flow instrumentation I ordered a swatch panel of Roscoe Light Filters, these are the kind of filters used in theater and industrial lighting.

As it turns out there is just enough material in each sample to make a filter that fits in my gopro housing!

I will show filter selection, filter testing and filter shapes.

After this instructable you should be able to make a low cost filter to take stellar underwater pictures with your gopro!

There are many more colors than red that could be interesting to experiment with. This exploration is using red filters to balance green.

I have selected some of the red filters from the sample pack. These are all Roscolux filters

I have chosen:

#2001 - Storaro Red - Trans. = 12%

#342 - Rose Pink - Trans = 16%

#4690 - CalColor 90 Red - Trans = 30%

#41 - Salmon - Trans = 24%

#42 - Deep Salmon - Trans = 8%

The filter used in the underwater image is CalColor 90 Red

I think exploration of our oceans and our earth are both important. This is a sidetrack from underwater exploration.
With lots of groups throwing around words like hyperspectral. I wanted to make a 10x lower cost camera that could accomplish similar things. Off the shelf you can get one with software for 8-50k. I built this for less than $700. I'm not the first, but I needed a camera to use for Free Flight Research Lab projects.

I realized with my pack of filters that this could be a much larger project.

I want to share two links.

https://infragram.org/

https://spectralworkbench.org/

Both inspired me to pursue building scientific instruments by myself.

I bought a lens kit for the GoPro Hero3+

Took it apart!!! yikes it was nerve racking, but really fun. I imagined I was working on space hardware.

Rebuilt it.

Now I had a camera capable of swapping out filters.

I used a die from the metal shop that was perfect for the filter holder.

I modeled some filter holders and printed them on the objet printer.

I made a multispectral camera!

I flew with this near kings canyon and was able to image the rough fire line. The rough fire burned approx 150,000 Acres in 2015. You can see the stark contrast between the dead and the living trees.