Hello all,

I'm finally getting back in the water, and here's a little clip I shot in Okinawa on my aging GoPro7, with the AOI UWL-03 wide lens and a Rosco filter, in 4K 60fps.

Water might still be a modest 23°C, but spring is here and ❤️ is in the air...
Courting Ijima's turtlehead sea snakes (Emydocephalus ijimae) at Gorilla Chop, Okinawa main island, Japan

To get into kitchen stuff - we are on an UW imaging forum after all - this is my second dive after a long moving-to-Japan-in-winter-life-stuff hiatus, and also I'm testing a brand new drysuit, so didn't bring my faithful Lumix LX10.
But I did carry my old GoPro 7, mounted with the AOI UWL03 wide lens and a filter-gel inside the housing, with the idea of testing what is one of the most promising replacements for the illustrious UR-Pro Cyan.

Alas, conditions were really not ideal to test the filter gel, with cloudy murky - if slightly blueish - water and a slightly ridiculous depth ranging between 2 to 5 meters...
So yes, clearly in the no-filter zone, but it is what it is, as ruthless lawmaker Mr Murphy always says...
The "deeper" shots, on the sand, didn't require as much as a stretch to re-white balance in post (which does affect the highlights), and show the filter's potential a little better.
I need to confirm these observations on a ̶n̶o̶r̶m̶a̶l̶ ̶ deeper dive, with a side to side test, but the Rosco seems to be the one I was looking for 🤞

Cheers and happy bubbles!

Ben

Edited 18 hours ago18 hr by bghazzal

It's almost time to update the filter thread then!

Plain old Gopro without oil snake... good job indeed!

I wish I had a beach dive like this here 😝

Well done sir! Cool little study.

18 hours ago, Davide DB said:

It's almost time to update the filter thread then!

Plain old Gopro without oil snake... good job indeed!

I wish I had a beach dive like this here 😝

Thanks! Yes, the filter seems to be the Chosen One - I'm also really happy with the AOI wide lens, really solved the corner issues, and closeups do seem sharper than before, really a game changer for action cams!

Beach diving here has a lot of potential, but is a little complicated by parking and/or water access issues... Can you park close enough to the entry point to lug your gear, and can the point be accessed without too much of a trek on sharp rocks, not to mention tide/depth issues.

But it's just a learning process and I'm definitely not complaining 😄

12 hours ago, humu9679 said:

Well done sir! Cool little study.

Thanks Craig! It was a fun watch - spent 15 minutes with the snakes - a lot going on under rocks that I didn't put in the clip - at some point another male tried his luck but got chased away... fun times 😄