Next step in video/photos underwater.

[justindaniels]

Hello, I am hoping to get feedback on what my next best step is to help improve my underwater photos/videos.
I currently have a go pro 12 with underwater housing. I have used it as primary video on our first trip and this last trip I did more photos with a few videos. I found with large amount of videos the editing process to get stills and clips took too long so I quit. The second I found the photo quality was just ok and overall know the video quality is more improved. I do like taking pictures/videos of smaller creatures as well as larger and felt the macro was the most limited on photos. I used a red filter for the first couple dives and then took it off and didn't notice a huge change but did use the quik app for post processing so that may be why.

I'm trying to decide for my next steps in my underwater photo/video is:

Option 1 and the one I'm leaning most toward: add a macro lens and tray with a light(s) for the go pro and do shorter video clips to pull stills from as a blend of the first and second trip rather than taking still shots.
Option 2: add a wide angle lens with lights for more videos knowing macro will still be more limited.
Option 3: We have an older sony nex3 that I could get a housing for $100-$200 for still shots.

Open to other options as well and feedback! Thanks for any input.

 

[NatOver]

If you are interested in photography, ditch the go pro, especially if you want to do macro.
Get yourself a TG 5,6 or 7, you should be able to find a used one. Also, get yourself a macro light. Macro photos without light are not that sharp.
Next watch the videos and tutorials in youtube, backscatter and www.uwphotographyguide.com
If you can afford it, backscatter and bluewaterphoto have photography workshops in resorts and liveaboards and you get instruction and critique while doing those trips.
Also, spend some time learning about the basics of UW photography. With all those you will be well on your way to doing photography.
I do a lot of macro photo for fun, I teach the padi course (good start but anyone can become an instructor so not recommended unless it is actually taught by someone who does photography)
feel free to ask anything, I love sharing my love for photography, even as an amateur. see some of my pics in overbounderwater.com

 

[Rat Diver]

I followed your first option of adding a tray and the best video lights your budget allows and was very happy for a lot of dives. You can add a macro lens from Backscatter to provide more flexibility. Later, I did eventually buy a TG6 for macro, which is terrific, and was able to use the previously purchased lights. One twist with the TG6 and 7 is that you can mount your go pro to the cold shoe so you have flexibility to capture both macro with tg and wide angle video with the go pro. It also has the benefit of leveraging your investment in gear. That is a good rig that will serve you well and, if you are inclined to invest your time in learning editing, carry you forward until you are ready to make the big leap into much more expensive cameras and housings.

 

[grantmac]

Phone housing, video light/tray and macro diopter can do some VERY good shots. This is a Pixel 6a which is very outdated.
Also takes excellent wide angle photo and video.

I'm currently moving onto a mirrorless but that's more because we have low light here and the little sensors (including TG) struggle.

 

[justindaniels]

Thank you all for the response.
I know the first question is if I want to mostly focus on photos or videos with intermittent photos.
If really wanting to mostly photo it seems getting the TG6/TG7 makes sense if able to get it in the budget.
Pros/Cons of each option:

Option 1: Tray, video light, and macro lens for go pro. Would be around $600-$800.
Pro: Cheaper option, good video, easy to travel with, have batteries.
Cons: Less photo quality.

Option 2: TG6/7 with either strobe or a video light, would be around $1300-1500.
Pro: Good photo quality, easy to set up. Can use strobe to get good photos, has some video ability.
Con: More expensive, video limited from battery life it seems.

Thats a great photo with the google pixel! I don't know how the photo ability of my google pixel compares to my go pro 12, I would have to look into that!

If able, could do TG6/7 with a strobe and video light with go pro attached to it to try and do best of both as mentioned by rat diver.

I guess for which way to go really depends on if I want to do more video or really focus on photography. Next couple of trips include Fiji which would maybe be more macro focused and then Cocos which may be more video or large animal focused. Diving typically once a year also makes it harder to increase the budget too much.

 

[grantmac]

In my experience the only performance the GoPro will have over a phone is in video which requires stabilization which doesn't really matter underwater. Otherwise everything else blows it away.
The fixed focal length of the GoPro is a huge issue along with the low pixel count.
Plus the case I'm using which is an older Weefine has much easier buttons to manipulate compared to the GoPro and it's rated twice the depth.

 

[arkstorm]

Photo vs. video. Macro vs. wide angle. Each of these is its own distinct art form requiring particularized gear and technique. There is no single camera/lens/lighting configuration that does all of these well.

If you decide to concentrate on video, the GoPro is fine for shooting wide angle, particularly CFWA with the addition of an external wide angle lens. Although the sensor on the GoPro is small, shooting close with good external lighting can yield excellent results.

You can shoot macro video with a GoPro and a macro lens but that is really not what that camera is designed for as image quality suffers from the small sensor size and lighting restriction in a macro scene.

Isolating still shots from video is really no substitute for shooting a good photo. Video frames have some intentionally built-in blur so if your object is on the move, forget about it. As far as macro, you might get an okay isolated frame here and there but a video light can never get an image to pop the way a photo strobe will.

If you want great stills, be it wide angle or macro, shoot photos with a strobe.

IMHO, learning to shoot photo takes more patience, precision and an eye for composition than video where you can use more of a fire hose approach.

The composition element in video comes when you produce your clips into something post shooting.

The bottom line is that video vs. photo requires two completely different skill sets. Choose one to start with, get the right equipment for the job, then practice practice practice until you get the results you want. Then, do the other. Doing both at once or trying to adapt your camera rig for both is a recipe for mediocrity.

 

[MB NZ]

As discussed, I think you have to decide between photo and video before proceeding. I've been using a GoPro for years for underwater video and have never been completely happy with it until recently. I added a UWL-03 Wide Angle Lens. Big difference to my mind.

Test video here. Video lights. Minimal editing.

 

[cerich]

I do a lot of macro photo for fun, I teach the padi course (good start but anyone can become an instructor so not recommended unless it is actually taught by someone who does photography)

This.. I was once a photo "instructor" that was crap at taking photos underwater. I ended up taking a course as a student from Cathy Church, ended up assisting her for a while (lived in Cayman as an instructor so when free would drop by and assist) and then after a while became decent at UW photography and teaching it.



Too many "instructors" aren't good at photography and many great UW photographers aren't great instructors. Finding a good UW photographer that is a good instructor as well and you build a foundation in UW photography that you can grow as far and as long as you wish.