Kona, Hawaii dive - the BGH1 4k Camera Integration edition

[emiller (Elisa)]

Hello humans and bots!

We recently took our blue baby out to visit our friend @tony-white and legendary blackwater photographer Jeff Milisen to test out our new BGH1 Camera integration.

Check out the stunning footage for yourself… in 4k!

Panasonic Lumix BGH1 Integration with the BlueROV2!

[FairweatherIT (Ian)]

Greetings, great job on the Panasonic LUMIX integration guide. Just for curiosity, what lens did you use in your integration?

[EliotBR (Eliot)]

Hi @FairweatherIT,

I’m told it was the Lumix 7-14mm lens (we’ll add that to the guide - thanks!). In terms of reasoning apparently the housing manufacturer provided some recommendations for lens/port combinations:

The 7-14mm is a good combination of economical and high quality optics. You can also get other lens but please note that the glass dome is a optical element and it needs to match the lens. A lens that focuses closer will require a smaller radius dome and smaller aperture. The 7-14 is a good candidate for underwater wide angle lens. 8mm is a fisheye so it can focus very close and has very good optics.

[FairweatherIT (Ian)]

Thanks Eliot!

[tony-white]

This focal range was useful - we would put it at tightest frame when doing close-ups on reef or fish, and when diving with a larger subject like the bait ball, set to widest. I’d guess most applications with an ROV would prefer wide view!

[sbwrx]

Great guide, really useful. What sort of resolution, FPS and lag are you getting on the live preview? Suitable for plotting instead of the BlueROV2 USB camera?

[DanielG_BR (DanielG)]

Hi @sbwrx,

The live view can only be set to “low”, “medium” and “fine”. The resolution and video settings cannot be configured. This is because the live view feature is mainly intended as a preview of what is being recorded to the camera’s SD card and not a full resolution stream. You can however set up an RTSP stream on the camera at whatever video quality settings you like and view the stream directly in QGC. The latency was about the same as the regular USB camera stream.

[XYZEng]

Hi @EliotBR,

In the UK at the moment, the Lumix BS1H (full frame sensor version) is currently the same price as the BGH1 (micro 4/3s sensor version).

Apparently the Anglerfish housing is designed to also hold the BS1H, but a different lens would be needed, hence a different anglerfish lens extension tube and potentially a different dome.

Did you guys also explore the BS1H? Is there a reason you went with the BGH1?
Such as depth of field or focus distance to the imaginary image created by the dome?

Regards,
Kieron

[XYZEng]

After writing this question, I see the Anglerfish housing technically fits a BS1H, but it has an N85 connection system, which I don’t think would fit any of the full frame lenses available for that camera.

It seems that it would require a much larger opening and wider diameter Extension tube to fit any of the full frame lenses available with an L-mount.

I’ve just spoken to anglerfish, and the extension tubes unobstructed opening diameter is 76mm.