TuckNTruck
Getting the hang of it
Okay, the thread title is misleading. It's just an IPC-HDW2431T in a homemade underwater housing, not a specialty underwater camera from Dahua. With ideas from this forum and a few other websites, I made an underwater housing using 4" PVC pipe, a 1/2" thick plexiglass disc, and a brass fitting for the cable to pass thru. I put a 150W equivalent LED spotlight in the first housing and after a couple weeks 6' under water with no leaks, I built another one for a spare camera I had laying around.
To mount the light and camera under my boat dock, I installed a 6' long galvanized pipe under the flooring of my dock going straight down into the water. You can see in the pictures that by using set screws, I can adjust the camera to any angle up/down and also twist it on the galvanized pipe to point any direction. Not including the camera, I've got about $15-20 in each housing. Forgive the sloppiness - other than cutting the PVC pipes, my 12 year-old niece did all the work with my guidance. It was her first time doing anything like this.
The camera still has its default settings - everything auto, and I have no idea where to even attempt to start to get the image dialed in. Right now the light is mounted about 3' deep pointed horizontal and the camera is about 10" deep pointed about 5 -10 degrees up from horizontal.
A few observations from the first day having the camera in the water - this is definitely not the best camera for this application mainly due to the limited FOV and close focus issues. Carp love my spotlight but the camera misses 90% of the action because it's mounted too high above the light. Water clarity looks way worse than it is - maybe a camera issue or maybe just how it is when looking into water with no objects for depth perception. The water clarity is usually around 10' but it's less than that in these videos because the holiday boat traffic has stuff stirred up.
I think I'm going to move the camera down to the 6' depth and angle it up around a 60 degree angle, and I'll have the spotlight somewhere around 1-2' deep pointed horizontal. With the camera below the light and farther away from where the fish hang out, I should see more and also should get some of my dock in the frame to help with depth perception. In the attachments, there is video from a 5442 I have mounted above the water and from the underwater camera of the carp swimming away from the camera and then coming back. The time stamps are different, but they're the exact same time, so you can get a better idea of what the underwater cam is showing.
Just a fun project with no useful purpose other than entertainment. So far with my 5442 that looks down towards the underwater light, I've recorded bass, gar, crappie, carp, bluegill, shad, turtles, and a crane that feasts on minnows and bluegill every night. Any suggestions on placement, camera settings, whatever are always welcome! I'm planning to build a few more of these to add more light under the rest of my dock and maybe another camera or two. Oh, I also turned off the spotlight to see how the IR looked underwater - totally useless. Maybe reflections from the plexiglass, maybe it illuminates too much silt in the water, I don't know. Daytime with no spotlight is great, night time with spotlight is great. No need for IR at all, it's just a blurry mess and the IR doesn't penetrate through the water more than a few inches from what I can tell.
To mount the light and camera under my boat dock, I installed a 6' long galvanized pipe under the flooring of my dock going straight down into the water. You can see in the pictures that by using set screws, I can adjust the camera to any angle up/down and also twist it on the galvanized pipe to point any direction. Not including the camera, I've got about $15-20 in each housing. Forgive the sloppiness - other than cutting the PVC pipes, my 12 year-old niece did all the work with my guidance. It was her first time doing anything like this.
The camera still has its default settings - everything auto, and I have no idea where to even attempt to start to get the image dialed in. Right now the light is mounted about 3' deep pointed horizontal and the camera is about 10" deep pointed about 5 -10 degrees up from horizontal.
A few observations from the first day having the camera in the water - this is definitely not the best camera for this application mainly due to the limited FOV and close focus issues. Carp love my spotlight but the camera misses 90% of the action because it's mounted too high above the light. Water clarity looks way worse than it is - maybe a camera issue or maybe just how it is when looking into water with no objects for depth perception. The water clarity is usually around 10' but it's less than that in these videos because the holiday boat traffic has stuff stirred up.
I think I'm going to move the camera down to the 6' depth and angle it up around a 60 degree angle, and I'll have the spotlight somewhere around 1-2' deep pointed horizontal. With the camera below the light and farther away from where the fish hang out, I should see more and also should get some of my dock in the frame to help with depth perception. In the attachments, there is video from a 5442 I have mounted above the water and from the underwater camera of the carp swimming away from the camera and then coming back. The time stamps are different, but they're the exact same time, so you can get a better idea of what the underwater cam is showing.
Just a fun project with no useful purpose other than entertainment. So far with my 5442 that looks down towards the underwater light, I've recorded bass, gar, crappie, carp, bluegill, shad, turtles, and a crane that feasts on minnows and bluegill every night. Any suggestions on placement, camera settings, whatever are always welcome! I'm planning to build a few more of these to add more light under the rest of my dock and maybe another camera or two. Oh, I also turned off the spotlight to see how the IR looked underwater - totally useless. Maybe reflections from the plexiglass, maybe it illuminates too much silt in the water, I don't know. Daytime with no spotlight is great, night time with spotlight is great. No need for IR at all, it's just a blurry mess and the IR doesn't penetrate through the water more than a few inches from what I can tell.
