Intova Sport Pro

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JamesK

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Well, my Intova came in today. I already have two GoPro's, but I wanted to try this out as an affordable option to hopefully recommend to my friends who don't want to put $400 in to a GoPro. Just playing with it a little bit, it seems nice. First impression is not to shabby. It seems to seal VERY well. I can barely open the door when I unlock it. The camera does not come out of the housing at all, and to me while it's not a huge deal, it is one drawback. The LCD screen is small compared to the GoPro, but it is still easily visible. The buttons are all nicely laid out as well.

It is charging now, but I plan to use it tomorrow if the water is calm enough. Been real rough lately. I am going to mount it on my dual arm tray with my two L&M SOLA 1200's and see how it works in everything from their brightest setting on down. This weekend I am going to take one of my GoPro's out as well and do a comparison dive using one SOLA on for each camera.

I will post up pics, but video in any length will be hard. I will see what I can do.
 
Water looks smooth today when I came in to work, so hopefully I can get some use out of it tonight.
 
Here are a few pics I took with it on a night dive tonight. I am impressed with this little camera so far. The video seemed to turn out just as nice as my GoPro's. So far I would have to say I would recommend this for someone just wanting to capture some vacation footage and some pics.

Lighting was two L&M SOLA 1200's.

I will try to upload some video to YouTube tonight, but it will probably take four hours or so to upload, so it might just have to run over night or while I am at work tomorrow.

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Video is nice but can you please compare features of Intova SP1 to GoPro Hero 2? I understand Intova does not require any 3rd party fix to shoot underwater at the same 1080p resolution and is about $200 cheaper than GoPro ($280 if you count the built in screen) - am I missing something? I need to make a decision fast as I am leaving for a trip next week. Thanks!
 
No problem. The Intova Sport Pro has many things going for it. One being the price! It shoots video in 1080HD, 720HD, and 480p. It does 12MP, 8MP, 5MP, and 3MP pics. The housing has a built in flat lens that shoots in 140* wide angle and has no vignetting in any mode. However, it does not narrow mode like the GoPro. It has digital zoom that works in all mode except 1080. It is waterproof to 200'/60M. The built in LCD is 1.5" and has a good picture. Battery life is approx 2.5hours. In picture mode you can shoot in burst mode in 3,5, or 10 frames. It has a built in 32MB flash memory, and takes Micro SD cards up to 32G. It is about the same size as a GoPro.

Things the Go Pro has over it:
ability to shoot in medium and narrow FOV
regular SD cards as opposed to Micro SD
the fact that in can be removed from the housing


The SP1 is built in to the housing, and I see that as a down side. If you scratch the lens, you can't just pop in a different housing.

Video is just as sharp under water as it is above though.

Macro shots are not possible with it if you want a nice clear pic though.

Another nice feature is it has 4 user adjustable white balance presets. I planned on doing some playing around with the different setting of WB this weekend, but a nasty sinus infection has kept me out of the water. I hope to get in the water this week some time after work though to test it out.

I also plan on doing a side by side of the GoPro and the Intova just to compare the two in same lighting/water conditions.

All in all, I am very impressed with this little camera so far. For some one who wants to capture decent video and pictures, and is not trying to make professional quality, I would recommend it.

Here are a couple more pics I shot a couple nights ago.
AMBA0026.jpg

I would upload more video, but it took me 1.5 hours to upload each of those 1 minute videos above, and ten minutes to upload these pics! SMH....
 

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Thank you for this comparison, exactly what I wanted to see. I have no experience with GoPro but after checking some youtube videos comparing Wide/Medium/Narrow FOV settings I am wondering if those changes make much of a difference for shooting videos. I do however see how switching to a wide mode would benefit taking pictures from up close. I am guessing Intova SP1 shoots everything in 'medium' mode? I was also wondering why macro mode pictures cannot be taken with the camera and if that is a feature that is supported on GoPro H2. Can you comment on that? Thanks!
 
The problem I have found with both cameras is focus when getting in close to get shots. One thing about the GoPro being able to shoot in a narrow mode is that I could fill the frame with the subject easier and not have to get in so close. This was helpful for close up shots.

The Intova shoots everything in a wide 140* FOV.
 
This sounds like a fairly serious feature omission for Intova if one uses it for both video and pictures. I assume you can always capture images from your footage and then crop them in Photoshop if resolution allows...Thanks for the information.
 
https://www.shearwater.com/products/perdix-ai/

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