GoPro4 Best setting for Underwater Video??

[Brian Robinson]

I just finished my first dive using my GOPro4 . The video was O.K. , But, I think I need to tweek the Setting to get better videos. I used a mask mount and just did not get any of the small colorful fish in the video. Please give me advice.


Thank You in advance for all of your advice and expertise.

 

[Chris Hunger]

First of all... get rid of your mask mount . You most likely wont be able to get steady footage while pointing in the right direction.
Get a pole or maybe better a tray. I use a pole and won`t be changing that because thats what i bought first (cheaper) and won`t shell out more money.
I might rather upgrade to a bigger camera rig. Key thing is good buoyancy control, slow movements and calm hands!
The pole has some advantages though.... it gives me some room to marine life and i don`t have to come too close which might scare some creatures on OC.

As for modes... for me i found 1080p@60fps is the best allrounder. If you want to get super slow motion shots you might go up to 120fps but only in good lighting conditions.
Same for 4K... you have to have very good lighting conditions and you can only go 30fps which in my opinion is insufficient for underwater footage. You will want that 60fps to smoothe out movements, fast moving subjects and for slowing things down when needed.

Shoot either in narrow or wide mode because u wont have that much bending around the edges of your footage. Stay away from that.. super wide mode or how they call it. Don`t exactly remember how it`s called cause i dont`t use it .
Filters and lights is a whole new discussion but feel free to ask if you have any further questions.
These are roughly the basic that came to my mind. Most important part... practice, practice and again practice
This should be a starting point which hopefully will get you there. Hope i could help out a bit. For some examples you can checkout my YT channel.

Greeting Chris

 

[AZNetEng]

I just finished my first dive using my GOPro4 . The video was O.K. , But, I think I need to tweek the Setting to get better videos. I used a mask mount and just did not get any of the small colorful fish in the video. Please give me advice.


Thank You in advance for all of your advice and expertise.

Pretty much everything Chris said. I shoot in 1080 using natural light on top of the reef and occasionally over the wall. Im going to be swapping out from a pole to a tray for the next trip. I did a ton of video on a mask mount just because I wanted my hands free. I have since disposed of that and will NOT go back.

Just edited this and uploaded from last weeks trip to Belize.

 

[spoolin01]

I just did my first trip with the Hero4 Silver, and shot 1080/60 in Linear mode. I really liked the results, especially the lack of barrel distortion. The GoPro is a wide angle camera, and if you want the little ones to look bigger, getting the camera closer with a pole is needed.

I wish Linear were an option at 720fps, since it would keep file size down a bit.

 

[Vesla]

Is there any convenient solutions for having external light when filming with GoPro? I guess some kind of tray for camera and light might be the best and easiest option?

I recall there was an option for removing fisheye effect afterwards when using the GoPro Studio software. Is this going to decrease the quality of video somehow?

 

[spoolin01]

There are many lights available but even the just decent ones are fairly expensive, and lighting a GoPro suffers from the need to light such a wide angle - necessitating two or more lights to get even results - and the unavoidable fact that the effectiveness of a wide angle light is going to drop off rapidly beyond 3 or 4 feet from the light. Lights also provide the least backscatter when located as far to the side of the camera as practical. So your handy GoPro can quickly become an unwieldy beast. For some circumstances - night diving, caves, wrecks, close-ups - lights are a workable option. It's always a compromise.

For shallow tropical diving, down to 30 ft or so, I like to use an underwater "red" filter. It somewhat restores the color balance, at the slight expense of incident light (generally not a problem for shallow clear water since the camera automatically adjusts for light level), and over-compensation at 0-15ft depths such that you get a noticeable ruddy brown hue to things. Within reason I don't find that to be obectionable. Below 30 ft or so there is just not enough ambient red light available for the filter to make much of a noticeable difference. The filters are externally mounted and generally can be taken on and off underwater, providing some flexibility.

Some users prefer to do color balancing after the dive, using software. You can find discussions of the pros and cons of these options in various threads here and elsewhere, and numerous examples of the results under various dive conditions.

 

[Nikole]

On my Gopro session 4 I use 30fps. Everything plays back too fast if I use 60 for my dives.

I keep mine on wide angle, but if I take a picture on wide angle then my close-uo shots appear further away that they really are. I have to get right in the eel's face for a close-up on wide angle and hope he doesn't bitem

 

[Rainer]

I just got back from Bonaire and shot the following video on my Hero 4 Session (both topside and underwater). Here are some tips:

(1) For non-nauseating video, you need to keep the tiny camera stable. Where you can, use a tripod or mount the camera to something with substantial mass. Basically any footage we got using just a pole was useless (it makes you sick when you watch it). For underwater shots I either used a tripod (placed gingerly in the sand) or attached the GoPro to my much larger and massive DSLR housing.

(2) 1080p / 30 FPS works well (but use higher res / faster frame rate if your camera supports it; 60 FPS or faster is best if you want any slow-motion). I actually shot everything in 1920x1440 and then cropped down to 1080 in my editing software. This gave me more control over the scene since you don't have an LCD with the Session for framing. It's more hassle in post, but helps tremendously with getting the shot framed properly.

(3) Shoot in shallow, bright water. Personally, I found any footage deeper than about 60' useless (zero color). For the best stuff, shoot shallower than 40'.

(4) Keep the sun over your shoulder, so your scene is lit as well as possible. Wall dives can be hard if the sun isn't in the right location.

(5) A red filter helps tremendously. I'm using one from Go-Scope.

(6) You'll still need to make fine color corrections in your editing software. The on-board white balance is not great (it does better with scenes containing a lot of sand).

Good luck!

 

[Diver Roonz]

I am relatively new to videoing / editing - this is my second ever video, this footage was taken across 23 dives in the Maldives two weeks ago. If you watch with settings on 1080p it looks a lot better.


Some of the shots don't look that great, simply due the water not being super clear.

I find that a red filter makes a huge difference when taking close up shots - although still need to do some basic colour correction when editing. I used to have my gopro on a pole, but found it moved way too much. So now I simply have my gopro in my hand and try to keep as still as possible (it is secured around my wrist so I can't lose it). Although I will be investing in a tray to improve the steadiness of the footage I capture as I'm sure the results will be improved dramatically. My settings are always 1080p, wide view, 60fps. I haven't yet mastered filming with a light, and am still learning about everything else as well.

 

[Daniel Veltre]

What kind of tray would you guys recommend using with the GoPro? I've been looking at the tray by SRP, but wanted to get some other opinions.