underwater video camera

[Yooper78]

I noticed my gps chart plotter has an input for a video camera which got me dreaming.

Has anyone mounted an underwater video camera so they can see straight down or slightly ahead of their boat?

Are such cameras available without a ton of money?

This seems like it could be really cool in shallow water, harbors, or over wrecks, but maybe it doesn't work in practice due to available light and underwater visibility

(also considered more mundane uses such as an engine room video camera, but my boat doesn't have an engine "room" large enough to see anything And I don't think there's such a thing as a night vision video camera that a normal man can afford yet, is there?)

[gonzo]

I am not sure if UP is upper peninsula. They sell underwater cameras everywhere for reasonable prices. They start at about $140.00 for a B&W

[StianM]

I was working with quotations a few years ago.
We where building a fire fighter for Kuwait that where suposed to have cameras with night vision.
I found a company located in england called sensonite vision or something like that.
They delivered some cameras for us with safhire lence to stand the sand blast from the desert.

I will try to look trough my e-mail to see if I can find it.

[yipster]

had a frend that was into holograms, lasers, nightvision etc
i sort of liked rest light amplifiers better than infra red vision
he got some of his goggles from the dump and not expensive
to hook it to a chart plotter may be the costly part

[TollyWally]

My girlfriend gave me an underwater camera for hristmas a few years back. It has an infrared light source that works in the dark. You can't see it but the camera can. I can't see very far with mine in the cloudy dark waters of Puget Sound, you may have better luck.

[DaveJ]

All cameras can see infra red, all you need to do is take the ir filter out. But thats the trick, on some cameras, its not so easy.

Just google removing IR filters.

[capt vimes]

jup... every cheap webcam can be used as an IR cam by removing the filter...

it will not help yooper though because if the engine is not running there will be almost no IR 'light'/radiation at all... probably he might see a darker plob where the engine is because they metall is usually a bit colder than the surroundings... but it will show up brilliantly when heated up...
...unless you mount an IR source with the cam...

btw:
don't try to use IR cams for underwater... everthing has the same temp there so there will nothing to be seen...