Getting the best colors with the Panasonic GH5

[Interceptor121]

Hey Juergen,
I've uploaded a short clip to answer your question:

Both mantas were at exactly 30m (legal limit in the Maldives), at about 8-8.30 a.m. In both cases, the grading I had to do was mainly to reduce the red. I found that moving the curves in Vegas Pro 15 by very small amounts produced quite big changes on the screen. Filter is an external UrPro red, so removable. The result looks very good to ME, on MY t.v., as it corresponds to how I REMEMBER the dive in my mind. This is SUBJECTIVE.
PLEASE note, I'm not saying this is the way to go for everyone. Why should everyone's videos have the same "look"? For closeup, I know you can get better colours with lights, but: I don't think any lights would have illuminated a manta 7 metres away, and in any case I personally just don't feel comfortable about shining incredibly bright lights in the eyes of the fish I'm trying to film. At the very least I reckon it would p*ss them off enough to change their behaviour at a dive site over time, and at worst it might be harmful. Since I don't know for sure, I prefer to err on the side of caution, but EVERYONE is free to have their own view about this.
Cheers,
Matt
Sorry about the capitals, but I really wanted to be clear that I'l not saying that everyone should do things this way!

URPRO is a filter that actually works better at depth. I agree there is no right or wrong colour it is totally subjective and artistic license is allowed. In the specific your example is totally acceptable though you can see it is turning purple. I dislike the orange cast of URPRO at shallower depth and generally is a filter that is quite poor on the GH5 at normal working range. Here you have reflective sand and a lot of light so that helps the filter work despite the 30 meters. This is a one off exception normally you will get nothing at that depth
To be able to get the headway you need tools are required. In fact I do not agree with manual white balance without filters and purist approach that water need to look dull because this is how you saw it

 

[Storker]

between 10 and 20 something meters: how does the GH5 manage a reasonable color result (manual WB) with a filter?

Depends on the water. You might be lucky and have a few smidgens of yellow left, or you might be unlucky and everything is green.

Bring a light or a strobe (or two).