TG-7 Video Quality

[justinthedeeps]

If you can only get one, the TG is better all around for underwater.

The custom white balance function (including underwater 'one touch' calibration on a grey tank, white fin etc) will address white balance concerns.

Turn down the exposure compensation to -1.0 or thereabouts

 

[rosasintheocean]

I shoot macro photos exclusively with a TG-6. Video quality is very good, but video runs the battery down pretty quickly and needs a good light or a red filter. My wife has a GoPro 12, with a ridiculously expensive AOI GoPro housing and wide angle lens and a super strong Sola video light (900-16,000 lumens) and a red filter. That GoPro setup takes ridiculously good video, that I attribute to the AOI lens and wide angle attachment. All in, with AOI handles, the wide angle, Sola video light and floats is about $2400, but the housing has a magnificent 5 inch LCD screen and the battery lasts about 2 60 min dives. The Sola will go all day at 900 lumens. Yes, it’s an expensive rig for a GoPro, but for video, it is truly excellent. So if you are doing 80% video, maybe you should spring for a killer GoPro rig and pull stills from the video. You can get a macro lens for it from Backscatter and take killer macro video. Everything is a compromise, I suppose. Superb macro photos (TG-7) but short battery life for video, or superb video, but not in the same league for photos. (GoPro 12).

Super helpful info, thank you

 

[justinthedeeps]

With equal lighting and appropriate settings, the TG series should outperform a GoPro in terms of image fidelity, zoom and focus ranges, etc. GoPros are toys compared to the TG, which is almost a fully proper camera

You definitely don't need color filters on a TG, and you definitely do need to be aware of how to use the built-in white balance calibration function if you are recording scenes with ambient lighting. It's in the manual!

TL;DR: go to target depth(s), engage the white balance capture on anything white or gray (even your buddy's SCUBA tank often works) to assign near perfect white balance color correction for your scene in up to four different slots.

I have gotten quite usable ambient video down to ~40 metres deep with a TG in Hawaii filming a humpback whale and dolphin swim-bys, and very nice shallow ambient stuff too.

When light is limited, the GoPro footage is going to be grainy and subpar as well, just like any camera trying to resolve too many pixels on a very compact sensor.

The main (and perhaps only?) real advantage of the GoPros is the collection of gyro data for onboard and/or post-stabilization (GyroFlow). But that can be pretty important when most of your clips are on the fly and swimming around etc

 

[BoltSnap]

With equal lighting and appropriate settings, the TG series should outperform a GoPro in terms of image fidelity, zoom and focus ranges, etc. GoPros are toys compared to the TG, which is almost a fully proper camera

You definitely don't need color filters on a TG, and you definitely do need to be aware of how to use the built-in white balance calibration function if you are recording scenes with ambient lighting. It's in the manual!

TL;DR: go to target depth(s), engage the white balance capture on anything white or gray (even your buddy's SCUBA tank often works) to assign near perfect white balance color correction for your scene in up to four different slots.

I have gotten quite usable ambient video down to ~40 metres deep with a TG in Hawaii filming a humpback whale and dolphin swim-bys, and very nice shallow ambient stuff too.

When light is limited, the GoPro footage is going to be grainy and subpar as well, just like any camera trying to resolve too many pixels on a very compact sensor.

The main (and perhaps only?) real advantage of the GoPros is the collection of gyro data for onboard and/or post-stabilization (GyroFlow). But that can be pretty important when most of your clips are on the fly and swimming around etc

You are saying that TG is at the same level, or better, than the latest version of GoPro in videography?

 

[bvanant]

The current crop of action cameras are way way way more better for natural light video than the TG series. The TG series is way way way more better for shooting small things and super macro. But you will need a strobe to get good shots with the TG, the action cameras are unbelievable wide angle shooters and even better with a cheap add on wide lens. The GoPro guys have built an amazing computational videography system. We were in Komodo with a bunch of friends. Canon R5 with 8-15, D850 with Nikon 8-15, my OM-1 with 8mm fisheye and a friend with a go pro 13 and the Backscatter water contact lens. His Manta shots were much better than anyone else's. Dyamic range was more limited of course but GoPro has gotten blue water behind large animals down pat.

So it (as always) depends. If the OP really wants to do 20% stills then get a real camera, screen grabs from the action cameras are not as nice. I would go for a bit better camera (RX100 etc) than the TG but for both video and stills you will still need lights and strobes.

Bill

 

[justinthedeeps]

You are saying that TG is at the same level, or better, than the latest version of GoPro in videography?

I have compared GoPro and a TG6 in challenging conditions, for example low visibility, lower light, quite deep depths (40+ metres), using various 'advanced' level settings.

Here is casual handheld mid-water TG6 ambient footage from 60 metres deep, with a 'one touch white balance' captured on something white from a bit shallower (40m?), and some basic denoising in post.

https://justinthedeeps.com/video/taman.mp4

(note to admins: markup like [video=link] for mp4 embedding is not working because of auto-URL tags)

I don't think a GoPro is on a better or different level, at least it hasn't been in my experience--except for stabilization.

GoPro is definitely optimized to give better results for casual users, largely thru heavy stabilization and onboard gain and denoising etc.

So yeah I would say to anyone who is a casual fun-diver, please get the GoPro if you are not that into camera stability, settings, and post-processing. We definitely do not want to see super shaky noisy TG videos with bad settings and no (or poor) post-processing etc (and yes I have gotten plenty of that myself on TG.)

But I am still not *that* impressed with the GoPros. After all, just like a TG, it is a near-toy camera trying to cram a lot of pixels into a tiny sensor. New offerings with slightly larger sensors seem to be going in a good direction, but the improvements are incremental, and still heavily reliant on onboard processing that may or may not be what was actually best for the scene.

Under ideal conditions, such as reasonably wide and well-lit typical scenes, and with large main subjects against mostly uniform backdrops (e.g. manta and fishball videos, as mentioned above), then yes the GoPro can give very smooth pleasing results, more easily than a casually used TG.

But TGs can also perform quite well in such easy conditions, if the filmer is stable and the settings are right. This involves white balance correction (never use 'water' mode lol) and other careful settings selections. Post-processing (e.g. denoising etc) also helps. GoPros already do that onboard, you don't get choice about how it is done. (And yes you can also use wide angle lenses on TGs)

The GoPro has quite a bit more onboard digital processing that attempts to boost gain and smooth out noise etc, which for most users is very convenient and satisfying, and will beat a TG user who isn't careful about camera settings or doesn't know how to apply similar post-processing tricks to TG footage.

For challenging conditions, video quality between the two is a toss-up in the hands of experienced users who can stabilize the camera. Take the TG if you want photographic capabilities, and/or if there might be any small or close-up subjects. Take the GoPro if you just want *stable* handheld video while swimming around and are just going to BT/wifi the footy onto your phone for Instagram etc.

 

[justinthedeeps]

Another funny thing about the GoPro onboard processing is that it seem to do heavy lens correction as well, converting what is apparently native fisheye perspective into a rectilinear projection.

I found this out while using GyroFlow on a GoPro 11--you can turn off a few of the onboard 'features,' and then use GyroFlow (incl. the DaVinci Resolve plugin) to un-do the auto-lens correction to get 8x7 aspect fisheye video that is actually less distorted than the default rectilinear projection.

Ironically, in my hands at least, doing this alleviates the need to buy another special add-on 'wide angle wet lens' for underwater video.

If I am right about that, it means that people using wet wide lenses are partly doing so just to un-do the default hidden digital lens correction, which is not only an added expense and more bulky, but probably costs some light transmittance and could unnecessarily introduce digital artifacts/warping/aberration etc.