Going beyond the GoPro - compacts / portable rigs for video only.

[afieldofblue]

The LX100 Mk 1 records in 8-bit H.264 and does not have VLOG or Cinelike profiles. You can adjust sharpness, contrast, NR and saturation in picture profiles to flatten for grading. I do not use a red filter since I can get a good white balance down to 40-50 feet depending on ambient light. I am not aware of any compacts that record in 10-bit RAW. I think you need to move up to a GH5 if this is important to you.

Thanks for the info EvilOtter - I'll post a thread asking for feedback from users of the recent models and the other 2 cameras.
cheers
b

 

[Pearlman]

The LX100 Mk 1 records in 8-bit H.264 and does not have VLOG or Cinelike profiles. You can adjust sharpness, contrast, NR and saturation in picture profiles to flatten for grading. I do not use a red filter since I can get a good white balance down to 40-50 feet depending on ambient light. I am not aware of any compacts that record in 10-bit RAW. I think you need to move up to a GH5 if this is important to you.

Yes thanks for the reminder. As a matter of fact I had zeroed in on the LX10 at the turn of 2018-19 but it was not available either in my country or my upcoming vacation destination Bali when I contacted the camera shops by email. One shop offered to find it on preorder a month in advance if I paid an advance but then I decided I absolutely wanted raw so I purchased the H7B instead last X'mas taking advantage of the year-end sales. Yet to shoot with it. Also one the detailed nit-picking reviews I read observed and demonstrated that the LX10/100 records crushed blacks - which is often going to be the case with ambient lighting at greater depths.


I shoot with a H3B currently and yes the distortion on the sides is terrible. With the H3+B since I dont use a viewfinder I am compelled to shoot wide and point in the general direction I want with the hope that the subject will be captured somewhere in the frame. During stabilization in post, the corners get cropped anyways but still visible. I plan to shoot linear with the H7B now since it has a lcd viewfinder embedded and I can frame the shot.

Does the H7B show significant distortion even in linear mode?

Ps: I agree about the URPRO red filters - I use SRP red which are originally URPRO and it appears to correct other colors in the spectrum from Yellows to Orange at varying depths which I doubt that the other red filters do. The only issue I have with these are a golden glow at shallower depths - I have a hard time getting rid of those without throwing the other colors off - with my basic novice level color grading skills. Does the switchblade 7 with macro dome use URPRO? I am tempted to shoot macro as well but I dont want one of those blood red filters that just impose a uniform red tint on the colors...

 

[afieldofblue]

Yes thanks for the reminder. As a matter of fact I had zeroed in on the LX10 at the turn of 2018-19 but it was not available either in my country or my upcoming vacation destination Bali when I contacted the camera shops by email. One shop offered to find it on preorder a month in advance if I paid an advance but then I decided I absolutely wanted raw so I purchased the H7B instead last X'mas taking advantage of the year-end sales. Yet to shoot with it. Also one the detailed nit-picking reviews I read observed and demonstrated that the LX10/100 records crushed blacks - which is often going to be the case with ambient lighting at greater depths.


I shoot with a H3B currently and yes the distortion on the sides is terrible. With the H3+B since I dont use a viewfinder I am compelled to shoot wide and point in the general direction I want with the hope that the subject will be captured somewhere in the frame. During stabilization in post, the corners get cropped anyways but still visible. I plan to shoot linear with the H7B now since it has a lcd viewfinder embedded and I can frame the shot.

Does the H7B show significant distortion even in linear mode?

Ps: I agree about the URPRO red filters - I use SRP red which are originally URPRO and it appears to correct other colors in the spectrum from Yellows to Orange at varying depths which I doubt that the other red filters do. The only issue I have with these are a golden glow at shallower depths - I have a hard time getting rid of those without throwing the other colors off - with my basic novice level color grading skills. Does the switchblade 7 with macro dome use URPRO? I am tempted to shoot macro as well but I dont want one of those blood red filters that just impose a uniform red tint on the colors...

I'm a bit torn on the GoPros -
I've been using them in flat/native/ raw profiles with protune manual functions and a filter, and yes, the UR PRO work very well for me.
The SRP CY just works great (I just take it off above 5 m), and I also have a non SRP UR-PRO 52 mm standard filter with a 55 mm conversion lens, that I've also used on the TG5.

I was also using UR-Pro filters on my old Lumix compact camera, also great results. It's all subjective, but I find that the color balance is more "natural", whereas I find some filters give strong day-glo like colours that I really do not like.

I don't know about the Switchblade - I have a Macro-mate mini for macro, which I use with lights no filter or with the UR PRO in the shallows -
alas, be warned, for macro, ideally you'd need to access the zoom on the GPH7B, which you unfortunately can't do underwater (touch screen only, so not possible UW...), and the zoom resets after the camera turns off, so in this regard the 4 was much better.

Scuba-diving users of recent Go Pro models and macro-lens manufacturers would really thank GoPro for a zoom-lock fuction or zoom access through buttons, but I'm afraid the company's market is mainly point-of-view action cam users....

The Hero4 Silver I had worked great in medium fov + protune (and narrow for macro....sob)
- no distortion, but when I "upgraded" to the Hero6 Black, the new field of view was a major letdown, and I'm still looking for a way to correct this.

On the plus side you have stabilisation, and a better colors, dynamic range but the image seems less defined and lens distortion, much stronger in the cam's new linear mode than in the former medium fov.

Some examples:

This here was all shot on the Hero 4 silver (flat/native, 60 fps, max iso 400 medium fov, pro tune settings + UR Pro filter) :


This was shot on the Hero 6 black (flat/native, 60 fps, max iso 400, linear fov, pro tune settings + UR Pro filter) :


Whereas this was all shot on the Hero 7 black (flat/native, 60 fps, max iso 400, linear fov, pro tune settings + UR Pro filter) :


Same places, better visibilty in the first and second clips, second clip was shot under influence of this year's super strongly positive phase of the Indian Ocean diapole, which gave us very green and cold water all season.

In my opinion, you can see that there's a bit of a give and take.

The GoPro upgrade from 4 to 6/7 did improve the colours, but also lost something in image definition and in terms lens distortion (it's always there, but gets more distracting if you have movement or vertical lines in the corners).

Here are two clips more on the Go Pro 7 black, always in linear, same settings as above:


and


Hope this helps give you an idea of what to expect in linear fov

cheers
ben

 

[Pearlman]

Oh yes I forgot about the zoom for macro - I guess I will avoid and stick to SRP dome.

PS: Great videos! I recognized Batu Balong looking at the video before I actually read the title ... You got some great action everywhere that I never got see in my dives at some of the same locations... What DVE do you use?

 

[afieldofblue]

Oh yes I forgot about the zoom for macro - I guess I will avoid and stick to SRP dome.

PS: Great videos! I recognized Batu Balong looking at the video before I actually read the title ... You got some great action everywhere that I never got see in my dives at some of the same locations... What DVE do you use?

Thanks! I was working in those places so a little more chances to see cool stuff over the season - downside being that there's also less chances to have time to shoot, it's a bit of a give and take

Otherwise I use FCPX - it works great - good thing about the lockdown slowdown is that I've I finally had a bit of time to sit down and study, I'll be more in control for next bunch of stuff I work on.
I now know how to work with proxy files etc, so I'll probably be going for 4K when i'm back in the water - these clips were shot in 1080p, then 2.7k, which is a bit weird I'm wondering if this might not have increased the distortion somehow.
I also do have DaVinci Resolve as well, which is supposed to be fantastic for color grading, but I haven't looked into their editing system, so sticking to FCPX for now.

 

[DeepSeaPirate]

Have you tried checking out the Insta360 One R? It's a new modular action cam and you can change it to a 1" sensor that will fit in the underwater housing.
I personally am in the same boat as you Oppo, been shooting Gopro for years and even tried the TG5 with the exact same focusing issues as you.
I went GP3 > GP 4black > TG5 > GP7black.
Took the TG5 to the Galapagos (land based diving) and found most my footage to be completely useless once we got back because of all the autofocusing features. Contacted Olympus about the issues, sent them videos and they said they would look into it. 3 Weeks later I sold the TG5 and I'm yet to receive an email back from Olympus 2 years later lol.

I've decided that my next camera purchase at a minimum needs to have a manual white balance button. I was really hoping for a LX10 mark ii to be released later this year but haven't read anything about it in the pipeline, a refreshed version with 2020 specs and some solid stabilization would be so nice.

I'm going to be getting something probably around the end of the year, but my time with gopros has probably come to an end, I don't need 5000fps capabilities. That doesn't help me underwater at all, I need more light hitting the sensor not less.

If gopro was smart they would put an extra button on the camera that is a programmable button. You could bind it to do whatever action you wanted, like a manual white balance (if it even had that function) or zoom to a certain ratio etc.

 

[afieldofblue]

Have you tried checking out the Insta360 One R? It's a new modular action cam and you can change it to a 1" sensor that will fit in the underwater housing.
I personally am in the same boat as you Oppo, been shooting Gopro for years and even tried the TG5 with the exact same focusing issues as you.
I went GP3 > GP 4black > TG5 > GP7black.
Took the TG5 to the Galapagos (land based diving) and found most my footage to be completely useless once we got back because of all the autofocusing features. Contacted Olympus about the issues, sent them videos and they said they would look into it. 3 Weeks later I sold the TG5 and I'm yet to receive an email back from Olympus 2 years later lol.

I've decided that my next camera purchase at a minimum needs to have a manual white balance button. I was really hoping for a LX10 mark ii to be released later this year but haven't read anything about it in the pipeline, a refreshed version with 2020 specs and some solid stabilization would be so nice.

I'm going to be getting something probably around the end of the year, but my time with gopros has probably come to an end, I don't need 5000fps capabilities. That doesn't help me underwater at all, I need more light hitting the sensor not less.

If gopro was smart they would put an extra button on the camera that is a programmable button. You could bind it to do whatever action you wanted, like a manual white balance (if it even had that function) or zoom to a certain ratio etc.

Yeah, that's pretty much it.... GoPro is really focused on staying ahead in the action cam market, aiming primarily for users using for immersive action videos - while they've introduced new more vlogging friendly features, they're all aimed at land users...

One other camera you could look into is the soon to be released Paralenz Vaquita.
It will have a small screen and adjustable white balance, sounds promising and it is aimed at underwater users.


Paralenz Vaquita – Packed for Impact

But manual controls will probably be limited.

I finally got the LX10, despite its age, and will probably stick to it for a couple of years then go for a second-hand GH5 setup once the GH6 is out...

 

[CanadaDan]

Yeah, that's pretty much it.... GoPro is really focused on staying ahead in the action cam market, aiming primarily for users using for immersive action videos - while they've introduced new more vlogging friendly features, they're all aimed at land users...

One other camera you could look into is the soon to be released Paralenz Vaquita.
It will have a small screen and adjustable white balance, sounds promising and it is aimed at underwater users.


Paralenz Vaquita – Packed for Impact

But manual controls will probably be limited.

I finally got the LX10, despite its age, and will probably stick to it for a couple of years then go for a second-hand GH5 setup once the GH6 is out...

I have the current Paralenz (no screen) and it is awesome. Easy to travel with as no extra dive housing is required. It has great video and data collection (depth and temp either overlayed or stored as a sub-title file). Current version captures up to 4K Video and stills.

No manual control outside of selecting the type of white balance control... match to the 'temp' of your lights, auto-white balance to available light or their proprietary Depth Controlled balance for your water type (green or blue).

 

[afieldofblue]

No manual control outside of selecting the type of white balance control... match to the 'temp' of your lights, auto-white balance to available light or their proprietary Depth Controlled balance for your water type (green or blue).

This is actually why I'm moving away from automatic action cams - I want white balance control, along with aperture and iso. I work on footage in post, so for me the aim of the game is to get well exposed flat footage that I can work with, not color corrected in camera - it's just too random.
With the LX10 I can load the cinestyle D profile, then lower sharpness / contrast / sat etc - I have control over aperture, and can white balance at depth.
It might sound like more work, but after years on GoPros more manual control, and a bigger sensor, is what I'm after.

 

[Pearlman]

The Sony ZV-1 seems to be a good candidate to rival the LX10 but its very new in the market. Been getting good reviews for its video features for vloggers.

Sony Sony digital camera ZV-1

Will take some time before UW housings appear in the market for this model though.