For the initial trial run of my diving bell housing for my camera, my daughter and I went down to the Point Loma tidepools. The surf and the tide were up, so all we could do were run some tests of the housing, sans camera, in a sheltered part of the beach.
From the video of the experiment, I think you can see the design of the bell. It's a Mason jar glued to a 2 1/2# disc weight with two pieces of foam inside to cradle the camera. While the weight is sufficient to make the diving bell sink, the buouyancy and poor aerodynamics of the jar cause it to rock and roll when it gets hit by waves. The previous post about the Diving Bell showed that in calm conditions, it works well, so as long as I can find a calm tidepool deep enough to submerge the lens, this design should be fine.
The real solution, of course, is to ask for a Kodak Playsport for Christmas. :-)
2 comments:
One way to make your jar stay put:
1. Drive a stake in the sand (about a foot should be far enough)
2. Strap the jar to the stake with zip-ties or equivalent.
Good idea, Tim. I thought of that, too, but it won't do for my real goal - the tidepools. A stake would be hard to drive in to the rocks and even if it did, it would damage the pools.
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