My preferred GoPro Hero 11 settings for underwater (for now)

[waywardriley]

In the spirit of growing the new forum, here are my preferred GoPro 11 settings that I use 99% of the time. By no means do you need to follow these, but I think it's a great starting point at the very least.

 

5.3K | 60fps | FOV: Linear | Hypersmooth: On | 10-bit | Bit Rate: High | WB: Auto |  Sharpness: Medium | Color: Natural | QuikCapture: On | Screensavers: Never | Beeps: off | Auto cloud upload : On | Auto clear SD card after upload: On

 

Here's where the GoPro excels in my opinion:

1. Stabilization: It's vastly superior to my Sony A7S3 and Olympus EM1-mk3.
2. App/Cloud/Sharing: Unmatched! The auto upload and erase memory card is so nice, unlimited cloud storage with subscription and discounts on GoPro products. The ultimate setup for sharing videos with my clients with basically zero effort on my end.
3. Handling: Obviously the GoPro is super tiny and you can extend it far from your body easily with a extendable stick. I take it on almost every dive.
4. QuickCapture: One button press to turn on camera and begin recording, one more button press to end recording and turn off. (one battery lasts me 3 dives in a day).
5. Shallow water, snorkeling & rough conditions: I only film with natural light with my GoPro and it's really difficult to beat in 8 meters or shallower.
6. Price: Cheap for what you get.

 

Where the GoPro struggles in my opinion:

1. White balance: I really dislike Auto WB on this camera, but I can't find a way to adjust this setting underwater (help me if you have a solution!).
2. Deep water (without lights) Obvious!: All cameras struggle in this scenario, obviously one with a tiny sensor would not excel in high iso situations.

 

Example clips from various depths with the settings above (only natural light):

Shallow water with Cormorant & sardines (Pelican Rock in Cabo San Lucas): https://gopro.com/v/EBOG7ELyd2n6O

Around 20ft depth with sea lions (Lands End in Cabo San Lucas), listen for the sea lion underwater bark!: https://gopro.com/v/rd170WNkq5q24

Around 30ft depth with school of Porkfish with cheap red clip-on filter (Blow Hole in Cabo San Lucas): https://gopro.com/v/oK5D0qD90b41V

110ft depth at Gordo Banks using a cheap red clip-on filter (offshore near San Jose Del Cabo): https://gopro.com/v/V6JodKPRldkNR

 

Edited January 21 by waywardriley

[bghazzal]

Thanks for sharing.

On white balance, if you work on the footage in post (which is time consuming, especially if you're planning on sharing the footage with customer, so maybe not really what you're after...), you can get good results by setting to native then white balancing in post (if you don't have a grey card to show the camera you can balance on sand, bubbles, tanks, this usually works well). Results are quite different.

 

To give you an idea, here are some examples shot nearby on the Sea of Cortez when I was working in LaPaz - so somewhat similar sea conditions to yours, but also with greenish water early in season.
They're shot in ambient light flat profile (but on a GoPro7 with a UR-Pro Cyan filter) and white balance is rebalanced in post, as the first step of the colour grading process.

Sea lion and sardines

 

Green turtle at La Salvatierra (this one is interesting colour-wise as it's deeper, on the sand, so 18m+ / 60ft depth)

Sea lion morning routine
 

School of jacks in Cabo Pulmo

 

I suspect the GoPro 11 would give really interesting results when white balancing in post.

cheers

 

ben

 

 

 

Edited January 22 by bghazzal

[Guest]

Linear field of view is very narrow for underwater use 

and due to flat port becomes narrower

this remains an unresolved issue with gopro I suppose inon dome like solutions still exist

gopro footage underwater is good when you have the edges void of any content otherwise the warping is horrible

[bghazzal]

Yes definitely the warping is really terrible on the side - it's been like this since the stabilisation was introduced on the 5, and really shocking coming from the 4....

Lots of improvements but also corner distortion when panning.
I wonder if the Inon/AOI lenses will help with this, as this would be fantastic.

I think linear fov is fine though - you can always switch to wide for a larger view but in many situations I prefer linear and rarely shoot in wide.

I'm not using the gopro these days but these are some of the last clips I shot when i was working in Palau last year, showing different WA shooting scenarios, all in linear.
These are  on the GP7, not on the GP11, but unless i'm mistaken I don't think the field of view options have evolved much since linear was introduced on the GoPro5 to replace the medium fov)

The warping corner distortion on the Jake seaplane shots on the 2nd vid is pretty horrible for instance, it really stands out when there is a little camera movement, panning especially.

If this is has improved on the new models, it would definitely be a major reason to upgrade.
 

 

 

 

cheers
 

Edited January 26 by bghazzal

[Davide DB]

IMHO linear is the way to go with flat port/lens.

 

[waywardriley]

On 1/26/2024 at 2:14 AM, Interceptor121 said:

Linear field of view is very narrow for underwater use 

and due to flat port becomes narrower

this remains an unresolved issue with gopro I suppose inon dome like solutions still exist

gopro footage underwater is good when you have the edges void of any content otherwise the warping is horrible

My GoPro is great and it’s difficult to differentiate vs my Sony A7S3 with WWL1 in shallow well lit conditions. Usually the GoPro footage (in 60p) is slightly better in shallow water because of the vastly superior stabilization. In 120p the Sony is waaaay better. As far as FOV, linear is definitely not too narrow in my opinion. 

On 1/27/2024 at 3:00 AM, Davide DB said:

IMHO linear is the way to go with flat port/lens.

 

I agree completely. 

[Nikolausz]

Since there is no real optical zoom in GoPro, I guess the linear mode is just a crop and a kind of upscaling. Isn't it just better to crop it during the post processing of the video files?

[Davide DB]

That's what I teied now in the river but I'm not sure if it's exactly like that. Using the wide and cropping in post, the images still have a slightly fisheye look that is not there in the linear. 

 

P.S.

The AOI lens is stunning . Quality in water from night to day. At that price it should be the default kit for anyone using it underwater.

[bghazzal]

1 hour ago, Davide DB said:

That's what I teied now in the river but I'm not sure if it's exactly like that. Using the wide and cropping in post, the images still have a slightly fisheye look that is not there in the linear. 

 

P.S.

The AOI lens is stunning . Quality in water from night to day. At that price it should be the default kit for anyone using it underwater.

Great news for the AOI, finally something which can help with the corners then.
 

I've also tested cropped wide in the past - while it's certainly done with a sensor crop, there's something else at play when switching fields of views and the fisheye-style distortion is difficult to correct in post.

It's clearer on land footage comparisons vids like this one:

 

 

[Nikolausz]

1 hour ago, Davide DB said:

That's what I teied now in the river but I'm not sure if it's exactly like that. Using the wide and cropping in post, the images still have a slightly fisheye look that is not there in the linear. 

 

P.S.

The AOI lens is stunning . Quality in water from night to day. At that price it should be the default kit for anyone using it underwater.

I think the linear is not just a crop but also a post-processing to de-fisheye the look, but in my opinion there should be an option to di this in post processing, when needed.

My AOI lens has arrived yesterday. I hope I can try it soon

[Davide DB]

Nikolausz is essentially right: li linear FOV is obtained by cropping the sensor is applying a de-fishing algorithm in camera. 

This is one of the most common questions on forums, articles and videos. There is a clarification to be made, though. Cropping does not necessarily mean deteriorating quality. In earlier models the sensor was practically 3840 horizontal pixels and cropping involved an actual decrease in resolution and subsequent upscaling to 4K.

Since the gopro 11, the sensor is 5.3K and even has an 8:7 or nearly square ratio. This means that 4K can be achieved by cropping but maintaining a 1:1 ratio of image pixels to sensor pixels.

In all the articles I've read everyone is dancing around it but no one has the certainty and Gopro has never been clear and definitive.

Sure, the best theoretical quality is shooting at 5.3K 8:7 wide without hipersmooth and then cropping and de-fishing in post... But why so much hate? Who has the will and time to do this hard work in post?

Besides, are we sure we would appreciate the difference?

 

I mean reading all the bombastic articles about how to get the most out of these cameras reminds me of when I was 14 years old and we used to spend our days putting mufflers and other modifications on our mopeds to get an extra sprint 🙂

 

 

[Davide DB]

17 minutes ago, Nikolausz said:

My AOI lens has arrived yesterday. I hope I can try it soon

 

Wow!

 

Looking at my footage of the 11 with AOI lens and the other 11 without it is like comparing a gopro 3 with a 11.

 

[bghazzal]

Darn, now you both have now got me jonesing for an AOI lens I don't need at the moment....

 

4 hours ago, Davide DB said:

I mean reading all the bombastic articles about how to get the most out of these cameras reminds me of when I was 14 years old and we used to spend our days putting mufflers and other modifications on our mopeds to get an extra sprint 🙂

 

That is pretty much spot on 😆

 

 

[waywardriley]

On 2/2/2024 at 1:46 AM, Nikolausz said:

Since there is no real optical zoom in GoPro, I guess the linear mode is just a crop and a kind of upscaling. Isn't it just better to crop it during the post processing of the video files?

Linear FOV probably is a crop. But the resolution of the crop is 5.3k, so I don't think it's an issue at all. Cropping every video to get narrower field of view is not of interest to me honestly. I have more than 1,000 gopro videos just from the Hero11, so that would be a huge time spend.

[hellhole]

i think i only use linear if i am using it for macro with the right lens

[Gmsalterego]

Sorry, I dont understand... whats the best underwater settings (fov. White bilance and so on)  for gopro hero12 and AOI wide angle lens? I ve seen recently the new backscatter wa kit and it seems fine. Its similar to aoi lens

Thanks

[Davide DB]

4 hours ago, Gmsalterego said:

Sorry, I dont understand... whats the best underwater settings (fov. White bilance and so on)  for gopro hero12 and AOI wide angle lens? I ve seen recently the new backscatter wa kit and it seems fine. Its similar to aoi lens

Thanks

 

I think the suggestions given from the op are a good start.

Regarding WB I'd go for "native" as @bghazzal suggested. Auto wb on Gopro is really unpredictable. Of course you are forced to do some color correction during edit but for uw work it's a must.

You are in a PAL country so 50p is mandatory.

With the AOI lens you don't have corners problem so wide FOV all the life.

If you are filming in the Med you need a couple of good lights. Give a look at the YouTube channel of our member @jpiovano He has several good examples of Gopro in the Med and IIRC he is using an AOI lens. Maybe he can share his settings.

 

Last but not the least: Gopros are tiny weightless cameras so a perfect trim is paramount and it's difficult to achieve. Often I see Gopro kit unmanageable underwater. Weight all unbalanced to the lights. With such a setup it's impossible to get steady shots.

 

 

 

[jpiovano]

The AOI lens is a good addition to GoPro gear. It offers sharper images, a wider field of view, and works perfectly with the 8:7 GoPro aspect ratio. After cropping, you can get great footage in both 16:9 and 9:16 formats. The only downside is that I used to always dive with the Backscatter Macromate (which is also very good), but now I can’t use both simultaneously due to the different lens mounts.

 

As for settings, 4K 8:7 at 60fps, then slow it down to 30fps. With almost everything set to auto, I can always achieve the colors I want in post-processing.

 

 

[Davide DB]

Nice video indeed and amazing dive spot!

I hope to dive there soon.

[TmxDiver]

Does anybody know if there is an AOI lens that is compatible with the Isotta housing for the GoPro 9-12?

 

https://www.isotecnic.it/en/products/action-cam-housings/gopro-eng/gopro-hero9-black-eng

 

Regards,

 

- brett

 

[bghazzal]

The AOI UWL-03-BLK wide lens has an optional threaded mounts in the following sizes:  M55, M52 & M46.

 

If there are any filter options for the Isota housing's square port, you could use one of these adapters (housing > filter adapter > AOI M55 or M52 adapter > lens) , but keep in mind that the lens is heavy, so the housing filter mount would need to be sturdy to hold the weight of the lens...

Edited August 13 by bghazzal

[Davide DB]

I couldn't find anything. 

Better ask to Isotta.