Octomask Review Go Pro Camera
The Octomask is a new gizmo on the diving scene.
With the new rage about gopro’s and other ‘palmheld’ camera’s, Octomask cleverly jumped in and introduced the diving mask-mounted camera.
The idea seems simple enough; mount a small camera on a mask. This has been done a few times in the past where manufacturers have gone to the extend of building miniscule camera’s into rather large masks, with alternating success;
Downside; you still needed to take a simple mask and a second camera for those dives where you want to simply hold your camera in your hand.
Holding a camera in your hand whilst diving is a heavily discussed safety issue by the industry’s training agencies. Lately, diving instructors have been discouraged to film their students whilst doing training, as the instructor was unable to respond in an appropriate and timely manner because of the camera in one hand.
The Octomask offers a solution here, in a way that the instructor can film his/her students whilst having the hands free to assist.
Blue Label Diving decided to test the mask and see how the functionality was under water.
The mask is quite large, is black, with black skirt It eyes slightly technical at first sight. The skirt is soft silicone with an allround comfortable fit. I personally have a narrow long (read difficult) face and most common masks will leak instantly on my head.
I carry a gopro Hero3 with an LCD screen. The original gopro underwater housing was mounted and off we went. The mask performs well and I didn’t feel any hindrance having the camera there. You can feel that it’s there, but there’s no obvious weight or drag. When I wanted to aim the camera straight ahead , the backdoor of the gopro would touch my forehead, which was less comfortable. The LCD screen is not really needed when the camera is head mounted, so when I exchanged for the low profile housing(low profile backdoor) it sat just fine. With the beeps activated, you can hear when the gopro is recording.
You need to tighten the maskstrap a little more then a normal one because of the added weight. We found the strap quite hard to adjust, so we replaced it with a neoprene /nylon webbing strap. These come with plastic buckles, making adjusting flawless ( you can print your logo on the back)
We tried to introduce a variation; the gopole; a plastic curved arm of about 250mm long that attaches to the gopro, the other end to the mask. The gopro can be filming forward so the diver can see the lcd screen, or backward to have the divers’ face and surroundings being filmed.
One downside is the inability to adjust the screw tension under water; here an Allen key is needed and the exact tension should be set on the surface. If too tight, you can’t adjust it, if too loose, the gopro will move constantly.
We would suggest an underwater diver adjustable knob. Similar to the gorpo’s longest ones, but maybe with a flat end to get more grip
The image is ok, but rapid movements of the diver ask for a stabilising video editing software to avoid the public getting seasick of the moving image.
Overall a nice feature and I see a real opening for dive professionals filming their students , research or work.
It fitted all faces I have had the mask try on
Ben Reymenants,
Training Advisory Board
International Training Inc.
