It's a very long story. To make it short lights are usually much better than filters (in terms of image quality). Here is why:
Red filters don't add any light/color, they just reduce blues and greens. Hence in an underwater scene shallower than 30 feet (where only red is low), the filter reduces blues and greens to bring them closer (i.e. balance them) to the red and the scene looks more natural. Problems arise when you go deeper where even green gets low. Red is totally absent, the green is low and the filter reduces it even more and you get these totally blue scenes. BTW you can get filters for different depths and different water colors (greenish vs blueish etc) but all of them suffer at depths/waters other than the ones that they are designed for.
Now for lights. Bring a light (preferably wide angle - not spot one) with you to a dive at depths of about 30feet (10 meters) and deeper and you will be amazed by how much nicer colors and richer details you will be able to see even during a day dive.
Lights illuminate (i.e. add light to) the object so you can see it much clearer and in full color. Problems arise with objects that are further away. Then the power of the light is not enough to illuminate them adequately. So further objects (including background like the far end of the reef or the ocean etc) retain their blueish colors.
Keep in mind that the lights have drawbacks too: they can be expensive (one light is usually not enough
), they need batteries/maintenance, they are heavy, they can flood (they have o-rings), they need arms/trays to move/attach them, etc etc
Filters on the other hand are very easy to use
To sum up:
- for videos with good ambient light (clear, shallow water in a sunny day) filters are ok.
- for videos deeper than ~30 feet and/or without enough sun light (bad visibility, not sunny day) filters are not ok and lights become your only option
- for videos with objects near the camera (macro and up to several feet/meters) lights are very good
- the further away your object is from the camera the stronger lights you will need.
About the combination filter+lights it simply doesn't work. 99% of the time you will get unusable videos i.e. very wrong colors. So wrong that it will be very difficult to correct them even in post processing.
BTW I am far from being an expert. I am just trying to give you a simplified explanation of what's going on...
I hope it helps.
Good luck
