GoPro Knockoff (Yi 4K) not such a good deal underwater.

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1080 at 60fps will give you a YouTube worthy clip. If you want to low down the action you can edit the play back at half speed and it will smooth out the action. For unlit diving you can bring a red filter to help balance the reds, be warned it does that by forcing a lot more red while reducing other colors through. That works well under bright conditions, but not so much in low light.

If you are bringing a light, don’t use the filter and light at the same time. For white balanc, I will either color correct on a piece of whit gear on another diver or a shell that I know would be stark white on the surface. If you are super industrious, bring a white slate on the dive a film it occasionally during the dive so you have a reference color to correct against.
 
I use an ActiveOn CX Gold and am very happy with it. Very inexpensive and takes great video.
 
1080 at 60fps will give you a YouTube worthy clip. If you want to low down the action you can edit the play back at half speed and it will smooth out the action. For unlit diving you can bring a red filter to help balance the reds, be warned it does that by forcing a lot more red while reducing other colors through. That works well under bright conditions, but not so much in low light.

If you are bringing a light, don’t use the filter and light at the same time. For white balanc, I will either color correct on a piece of whit gear on another diver or a shell that I know would be stark white on the surface. If you are super industrious, bring a white slate on the dive a film it occasionally during the dive so you have a reference color to correct against.

THank you for your answer.

I will be diving in south east asia the next 2 months. I think the light is pretty good though, some people argue that 30 fps is better than 60fps for catching the light. What do you think?

Good idea for the white balance.
 
THank you for your answer.

I will be diving in south east asia the next 2 months. I think the light is pretty good though, some people argue that 30 fps is better than 60fps for catching the light. What do you think?

Good idea for the white balance.
I am not sure about how much light the camera catches at the different frame rates. A fish darting around in front of a moving camera may look better at 30 FPS if it was filmed at 60 and slowed down. You have to research carefully with these low cost cameras, sometimes they actually make two identical pictures 30 times.
 
I am going to be diving in the Red Sea in the sort future and I will take my Yi 4k into the water for sure.

I was filming with another action camera in the past without any filter, just using lights and the results were a bit poor. Try to use color correction in post production was not that helpful as I was expecting.

Yi 4k is an amazing good camera that should be able to film as well or better than a GoPro Hero 3 and Hero 4, the hardware is better. Do not get confused by the price, is not another cheap crap Chinese action camera.

I guess the settings are so important here, W/B, resolution and so on.

I would like to know if there is any one that could share his experience so I have an starting point. I don´t want to spend the trip doing test, as you all know in this trips you have just one chance to capture it.

I will report my experience later.

Thanks in advance.
 
I've been using the Yi 4k with a Backscatter Flip6 red filter for the past two Cozumel trips. 1080p 60fps. I would only use the 4k settings if you have the Yi 4k+, since you can grab video at 60fps. The Yi 4ks I have only do 4k at 30fps, which is terrible for still frame capture. Still pretty pleased with the results at 1080/60fps.

.
 
Nice video horn34.

Could you share camera settings and post production details?. At the beginning of the video look like if you used a stabilization filter.

Which program do you use for editing? I use Vegas Pro as is easy to use and quite powerful.

I have a Yi 4K so I´ll be shooting at 1080@60 that I think is a good quality for the kind of videos I want to have.

Looking for information about which filter I should buy.

Do you use the Flip 6 different deep filters or just one. What about the macro? do you feel it´s a must or not?

To many doubts, and with the price of that things you better do it right at first attempt.

Thanks for your help.

Regards from Doha.
 
Nice video horn34.

Could you share camera settings and post production details?. At the beginning of the video look like if you used a stabilization filter.

Which program do you use for editing? I use Vegas Pro as is easy to use and quite powerful.

I have a Yi 4K so I´ll be shooting at 1080@60 that I think is a good quality for the kind of videos I want to have.

Looking for information about which filter I should buy.

Do you use the Flip 6 different deep filters or just one. What about the macro? do you feel it´s a must or not?

To many doubts, and with the price of that things you better do it right at first attempt.

Thanks for your help.

Regards from Doha.
I really didn't change many of the default settings. Sound is off and stabilization is on, that's about it. If you have a specific setting you want me to check, I can, but I'm not gonna list all of the 50+ settings on the camera.

VideoRedo for edits, but that video hasn't been edited. I rarely edit unless it's something like a 10 minute video with only a few seconds of footage I care about.

I have the Flip 6 macro but never use it. My buddy has a filter made by a Backscatter competitor that he tried out with a GoPro and didn't like the results. I let him use my backup Yi 4k (same settings) with an older Backscatter FLEX filter and he says the video from my setup is still better. I use the DIVE filter exclusively. I used to have the DIVE and DEEP filters both attached, but whichever filter isn't in use tends to flop around and annoy you, so I took the DEEP off. There were definitely some videos that could have used it, but 80% of my video is below 55 feet anyway.
 
Thanks a lot for your answer horn34.

Would you be so kind to check the white balance setting? do you set it to cloudy or any other thing?

I was thinking on the Flip filter, this posibility to use easilly 2 different filters, for different deeps, sound interesting, but after reading you comments, I not so sure right now. Do the filters move so looselly? it doesn't stay fixed in the two possitions (in and out)?

Thanks again for your help.

Best regards from Doha
 
Thanks a lot for your answer horn34.

Would you be so kind to check the white balance setting? do you set it to cloudy or any other thing?

I was thinking on the Flip filter, this posibility to use easilly 2 different filters, for different deeps, sound interesting, but after reading you comments, I not so sure right now. Do the filters move so looselly? it doesn't stay fixed in the two possitions (in and out)?

Thanks again for your help.

Best regards from Doha
My white balance is set to Auto. I wanted to play around with the different WB settings but didn't get around to it. My plan was to have both my Yi's mounted to a single camera mount with different WB settings, but it didn't happen. Maybe next time.

The primary filter that flips over the lens area stays just fine, it's the secondary filter that doesn't lock down. I would just order the Flip 7 and see if you like it. The 2nd filter flopping around might not bother you. If it does, you can just unscrew it and store it somewhere like I did.
 

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