bghazzal

Hello all, I've been using UR-Pro filters for a while on GoPros, and really like working with them, notably for the consistency the UR-Pro (Shallow Water Cyan) gives in tropical ambient light. - More info on this and ambient light filter video experimentations in this GoPro/filters thread, as well as on Dreifish's thread here , and Interceptor121's test in his blog posts, notably here and here Alas, UR-Pro is a thing of the past, and the company is off the map... The aging company ghost-website that was still online but unresponsive a few years back is now gone, and the filters are no longer manufactured. We still find old info like this 2005 review of UR-Pro filters, but not much more info. This is a long shot, but would anyone have more info on the filters themselves, especially the UR-Pro SW Cyan? I have the Keldan SF -1.5 gels, the original Magic Filter gels and the UR-Pro SW Cyan (acrylic and glass). Magic and Keldan work great on my manual white-balancing compact, but for my GoPro flat-profile + grading purposes, I still find that the UR Pro gives the most consistent, gradable ambient light results, and would love to find a way to use it with the AOI UWL-03 lens I now have... It would be fantastic to recreate the UR-Pro SW CY filter in gel form for easy use in more recent GoPro and action cam models, especially now that accessory lenses like the INON/AOI/Backscatter wide lenses are available... Any leads? cheers ben

I just got an AOI UWL-03 wide lense + the AOI grip mount, and ran a little twin test the other day, testing difference between shooting GoPros with a wet wide-lense and without one. This was a dual test, as I was also testing how the GoPro7s performed in ambient light with a UR-Pro Cyan 55mm filter and with the original Magic Filter gel in the housing, which is the solution I found to circumvent the lens+ filter issue (more info on this, as well as the ungraded footage, in this thread ) Test parameters were as follows: Footage is shot on two GoPro7 black cameras, shooting in 4K 60fps, in a flat profile (white balance native, go pro colours), wide fov, sharpness high, ambient light only. GoPro 1 on the left side, is mounted with the AOI UWL-03 wide converter lens and an original Magic Filter gel in the supersuit housing. GoPro 2, on the right side, is using only a UR-Pro Cyan filter (on a 55mm SRP-Blurfix adapter) on the supersuit housing. - Footage is taken in the afternoon, tropical ambient light only, in slightly murky, greenish/blue water, between the surface and depths of roughly 10m. Not perfect conditions, with generally brownish - and sometimes bleached out - coral reef / bommies. - Both cameras are handheld, each in one arm/hand, and the footage is shot in motion, swimming on breath-hold (but without weights), so not the most stable or consistent with angles, but still gives a good impression. This is “quick-and-dirty” compared to tray mounted solutions, but closer to the way I use it - I’ve been using the GoPro without a tray for years, but normally hold the housing with two hands – here I had one in each hand, and freediving without weights, so floaty-floaty! - Footage is left unstabilised in post to highlight differences in the lenses' shooting angles. - Test clip is quickly graded in FinalCut ProX (shooting / testing conditions were not fantastic, and I didn’t spend hours on it - this is mostly highlight the differences in filter response) “Side-by-side” (or almost 😁) comparison clip, quickly graded in FCPX: GoPro7 with the AOI UWL-03 - single cam: First observations on the UWL-03 lens: The wide-lens is lovely – it’s actually quite easy to handle underwater, feels about twice the weight of a standard GoPro. It was possible to hold one in each hand to shoot the test - not ideal of course, and this snorkeling/freediving footage isn’t the most stable, but not too bad given the circumstances… The lens widens the basic GoPro fov as expected, reduces working/focusing distance (see closeups), and basic splitshots - within a very limited range - are somewhat possible with the lens (as in the final shot) It also does seem to improve corner warping / deformation underwater (not so much on land), which has plagued GoPros since the GP4 to GP5 design change. This would need to be checks, but the AOI lens didn’t seem to require burping out air bubbles (whereas the UR-Pro / Blurfix certainly does (since I kept descending and ascending while freediving a couple of bubbles made their way into the UR-Pro filter on some of the first clips. There is no vignetting in Wide fov on the GoPro7. The black corner you see on some of the footage comes from me holding the two cams together in each hand to try to align the cam’s shooting angle.

As a follow-up to this discussion on shooting action cams in flat profile with filters, I ran a little twin test the other day, to test differences between: - shooting GoPro7s in a flat profile in ambient light with a UR-Pro Cyan filter and with the original Magic Filter - while also testing between results of using GoPros with an accessory wet wide-lense (the AOI UWL-03 that I had just received) and without one. Test parameters were as follows: Both camera gootage is shot on two GoPro7 black cameras using the same settings, ie. shooting in 4K 60fps, in a flat profile (white balance native, go pro colours), wide fov, sharpness high, ambient light only. GoPro 1, on the left side of the screen, is mounted with the AOI UWL-03 wide converter lens and an original Magic Filter gel placed inside the supersuit housing. GoPro 2, on the right side of the screen, is using only a UR-Pro Cyan filter (on a 55mm SRP-Blurfix adapter) mounted on the supersuit housing. - Footage is taken in the afternoon, tropical ambient light only, in slightly murky, greenish/blue water, between the surface and depths of roughly 10m / 15m at the deepest. Not perfect conditions, with generally brownish - and sometimes bleached out - impacted coral reef / bommies. - Both cameras are handheld, each in one arm/hand, and the footage is shot in motion while swimming on breath-hold (but without weights…), so not the most stable or consistent with angles, but still gives a good impression. - Footage is left unstabilised in post to highlight differences in the lenses' shooting angles. - The test clip was also quickly graded in FinalCut ProX (shooting / testing conditions were not fantastic, and I didn’t spend hours on it - this was mostly to highlight the differences in filter response) Here is the ungraded comparison test clip, flat profile out of camera: Here is the same comparison test clip quickly graded in FinalCut ProX: And lastly here is the GoPro7 with AOI UWL-03 + Magic Filter, quickly graded footage only: *** First observations On the UWL-03 wide lens: - The wide-lens is lovely – it’s actually quite easy to handle underwater, feels about twice the weight of a standard GoPro. It was possible to hold one in each hand to shoot the test – not ideal of course, and this snorkeling/freediving footage isn’t the most stable, but not too bad given the circumstances… - The lens widens the basic GoPro fov as expected, reduces working/focusing distance (see closeups), and basic splitshots - within a very limited range - are somewhat possible with the lens (as in the final shot) - It also does seem to improve corner warping / deformation underwater (not so much on land), which has plagued GoPros since the GP4 to GP5 design change. - This would need to be checked, but the AOI lens didn’t seem to require burping out air bubbles (whereas the UR-Pro / Blurfix certainly does (since I kept descending and ascending while freediving a couple of bubbles made their way into the UR-Pro filter on some of the first clips... - There is no vignetting in Wide fov on the GoPro7. The black corner you see on some of the footage comes from me holding the two cams together in each hand to try to align the cam’s shooting angle. On the filter/ footage grading: - The conditions were really not great, a bit murky as usual, and water a little greenish. - The footage itself isn’t super well exposed – light was harsh in the afternoon ( overexposed on skin closeups) and I was filmin on breathold and in motion, so limited time at depth, and paying less attention to the angle of the light than I would diving. - I usually shoot in medium sharpness, I boosted it to high to see how this would work with the contour damping effect of the filters, but I think I’ll probably go back to medium as it does look a little too crisp/artificial for my tastes. Both filters work for ambient tropical light, but with differences: - The Magic Filter gel works with the GoPro, but the UR-Pro generally looks better ungraded, and importantly requires less adjustments in post, as it’s more uniform. The UR-Pro often gives deeper, somewhat more pleasant blues (even if the water was a little greenish), as a base. - The Magic Filter has a milder effect, but really kicks in close-up, sometimes a little too much for my taste in the reds/oranges. This means that for wider shots, red spectrum / colour rendition is more pronounced for objects further in the background with the UR-Pro, whereas they will stay green/blue with the Magic. The colour balancing effect is generally stronger with the UR-Pro - this is very clear at 1'50" of the clip for instance - However, closeup at depth, the Magic Filter does seem to really boost the oranges, which can sometimes be a little problematic to deal in post (10m depth seafan / coral bommie shots, for instance like this sequence at 30" in or 1'40" in), whereas the UR-Pro is more consistent and uniform. - That said, in certain conditions, colour rendition actually does actually seem more accurate / lifelike with the Magic Filter than with the UR-Pro, which is generally more “baked-in”, with brownish hues (something I'd noticed in different conditions as well). - The filters were never removed from the camera, showing that both filters are useable on the surface in a flat profile, and don’t give crazy reddish hues, unremoveable in post - remember these tests are shot freediving, so with a lot of quick depth variations - scuba footage doesn't have the same variations, so much easier to grade consistently. - I started by grading the Magic-Filter + lens footage, then worked on the UR-Pro one, and found myself adjusting the Magic-Filter footage again to try to match the UR-Pro results in quite a few clips… Overall, since the AOI Wide lens performs nicely, it would be great to be able to continue use the UR-Pro Cyan filter for this shooting style, as it’s more consistent overall on the GoPro, and this consistency of the UR-Pro filter really does make life easier for grading, as there are less surprises. cheers ben

Awesome, thanks a bunch for this! cheers ben

Hi and thanks. The first thing that strikes me is the pink / magenta colour cast which shows up in the white of the sand. On one hand, the colour correction works because you got rid of the excess green, restored the colour of the hermit crab and made it more visible. But the pink colour cast is odd. Are you shooting with an artificial light and a filter? If you can white balance manually in your editing software, did you try white balancing on an area of the sand which should be white (eye-dropper, select an area or the sand which should be white)? You could try different areas, see what works best at restoring some colour balance. For the pink/magenta hue my editing software (FCPX) I would try to use the hue vs. luma tool and the colour curves to dial down the cast, but it would better not to have it in the first place, as heavy colour adjustments degrade image quality as well.

AOI informed me today that the DJI to AOI adapter should be released in July/August period (I imagine same goes for the Insta360)

Backscatter's dedicated video light, the MW4300, has LEDs with a CRI of 71.1 / 70.3 on which is a bit of a letdown compared to what is available on the market, especially since the light is otherwise well designed... Wondering if the CRI of the video light included in this strobe/light combo has improved, which could herald an upgrade of the LEDs used in Backscatter video lights as well...

I think you'll get used to the buttons on the MW4300, and would definitely turn them off by dimming (it's only 3 presses, right?) between shots for battery life, and also critter and other diver comfort. On the red light, it can also be useful to use if you're getting swarmed by bugs at night - not sure how it is in Egypt, in some places with rich water it can get pretty insane. While you won't be filming with it, it can be a good standby mode at night, as the red spectrum is supposed to attract less zooplancton or whatever the swarming wormy things are... To gracefully sidetrack on this - did you notice any difference in behaviour when using ambient filters the light - I did (for medium small subjects like seahorse and small octopuses), but haven't done enough testing to see if it's just the diminished filtered light power or actually the fact that the spectrum is brought closer to ambient sunlight at depth. Could be imagining things and it's just the dimming, but it would be worth looking into for video-light shy critters....

Aah, winter... hang in there! Interestingly, looking at this small sample of an 8 year GoPro footage history despite clearly capturing less colour info, I have to say I like the definition of the GoPro4 best - In good conditions like the first tentative Raja clip, I really like the ambient light results - but... it the GoPro4 was not waterproof (stressful as...), had no stabilisation and no 4K... When I started working in the Andaman sea, and in the Sea of Cortez and still used the GoPro4, dives were generally deeper and with less light - and you can see on the same GoPro4 setup clips that the loss of colour is more marked than with GoPro6 and 7 - the UR-Pro filter helps balance the footage out, but there's just less colour info - Shallows are good, but deeper tends to be more monochrome. Recent models like the GoPro 6 (the Koh Tachai clip was quite deep - 12m at the shallowest, and there's just much more colour info, it's not monochrome anymore) and then the GoPro7 were an improvement in this aspect, but the rest, not so sure. It's just less sharp in general (all footage was shot with the sharpen setting on "medium"), more distorted. A lot of things changed when the GoPro5 was introduced - I'm guessing this is linked to stabilisation and the change of fov. I'm guessing that beyond the field of view change, the processing power need to handle stabilisation is what affected overall image quality - the conceptors seemed to have focused on improving colour capture more than anything else. Now that the corner issue can be dealt with by accessory lenses, it would be great if newer action cam models (GoPro or other) allowed us to reclaim the overall image quality models like the GP4 had, with improved colour capture and dynamic range. The Magic Filter looks promising - I quite like the skin tones on the 9m clip for instance, which is a good sign. I would love to try playing around with a short ambient light clip shot in a flat profile at depth (ideally with a good filter on the lens!), so I could see what's under the hood now. I find it very difficult to make sense of action cam comparison vids, because they're systematically shot in auto WB/colours, often showing only non-graded, out-of-the-box footage, straight off the double-mounted tray. I understand the logic, since this is how most users use/wish to use action cams in our days of instant-sharing and interaction , but it's also nice to see what graded, end-result ambient-light footage looks like.

It's back again here as well now, real strange since it was unaccessible on 2 computers and phone, different browsers and with or without vpn. Anyway, sorry for the false alarm folks!

Great thanks - not sure how easy it is to change the settings UW, but if you could film a short clip, like 20 seconds of a good colour reference at depth in a flat profile (before it was ProTune on, white balance native, gopro colour, not sure on the 11) it would be great. if your editing software can't white balance I can try to do it for you on FCPX - really interested in what the GP11 is capable of in flat. I've also just bought the wide angle lens (an AOI UWL-03), should be arriving in a few days.

GoPro7 + UR Pro Coming from the GoPro4, corner distortion is ugly (this is all in linear, argh), but there's colour data more to work with at depth - hope the new accessory wide angle lenses + wide will help! I was shooting in linear 2.7K as it's a hassle for my aging laptop to handle GoPro's HEVC265 4K codec (the joys of nomadism...) - GP7 Komodo - 10-20m depth - GP7 Komodo - various depths, mostly shallow 10m - GP7 Japan (quite blue water, 10m depth) - GP7 Japan 10m, greenish water, - GP7 Maldives - Kudara Thila roughly 10-20m, early in the season so greenish/bad viz that year... - GP7 - Palau / Blue Corner, roughly 15m - GP7 - Palau 18m - average viz, but the white sand acted as a reflector - Finally, here is yesterday morning's test of the GoPro 7 with an original Magic Filer GoPro7 4K60fps wide (yes, not 2.7K this time), flat profile, with an Original Magic Filter gel inside the housing. First clip is at 18m and second clip at 9m, shot in tropical (east Bali) mid-morning ambient light only in the usual slightly murky, particle-rich water. You can see how strongly the Magic filter is kicking in when I film the depth on backlit dive computer. cheers

GoPro 6 + UR Pro I hated the clunky 6 and only used it a few times - let down coming from the 4, even though the newly introduced stabilisation was nice and waterproofing offered peace of mind. GP6 Andaman sea, 12m-15m depth

Some examples, in different locales/conditions/depths, of GoPro 4 to 7 footage shot exclusively in ambient light only with UR-Pro filter, flat profile white-balanced in post. GoPro4 ambient light + UR Pro (no stabilisation, not waterproof, colours were not great, but loved the sharpness and corners of medium fov, and miss it to this day...) - GP4 Raja Ampat - 15m This is one of the first clips I shot to test the GoPro4 + UrPro combo in 2016 or 2017 - not sure what I graded it on... not interesting but illustrates GoPro4 + UrPro filter colours. - GP4 Andaman Sea, 10-20m depth - GP4 LaPaz Mexico (greener water) 18m depth (it's on the sand next to a wreck) - GP4 LaPaz 15-20m (the mantas returning after 20 years were big news in 2018) - average viz not much colour there, shows the limits of the GP4_filter at depth. - GP4 LaPaz 10m depth GoPro 4 to 7 + UR Pro Andaman Sea, various depths

Nope, no go on the phone as well - tried on two computers and mobile - maybe it's an Indonesian internet thing, but normally a VPN takes care of that. Odd!

Hello all – I find myself bringing the subject up in various threads (notably here, here here) so instead of further derailing innocent threads with my ramblings, I figured I'd try to regroup the discussion here. I’d love to discuss and share experience reports on a specific shooting technique now often seen as antiquated and unneccessary due to technological advances made by recent action cameras: shooting with “red” filters in ambient light, in a flat profile, and manually white-balancing the footage in postproduction What you’ll mostly read/ hear everywhere nowadays is basically that recent camera white-balancing capacities have improved to the point that the "balancing" effect of filters on a camera lens are no longer necessary underwater, or even detrimental to the overall quality of the footage. While there is definitely a very good case for this in the shallows / snorkeling zone, where spectrum alteration is not as marked, I’m actually less convinced by the results what I am seeing at depth when it comes to ambient light shooting. Of course, speaking of colours, grading etc, is entering into slightly dangerous, highly subjective territory – but let's say it - to my tastes, I find that in most cases, if the ambient-light underwater action cam footage I see is certainly usable, sometimes even quite ok with recent models, fine in the shallows, I’m much less convinced by the overall balance of colours at common diving depths, especially in the 10m to 20m zone (as a disclaimer, I do have a fondness for the soft "ambient light" look in wide-angle, ambient light-dominant scenarios) Personally, I’ve been shooting in flat with filters since the GoPro4, following this up on the GoPro 6, and 7 models. But the change in housing design with the upgrade to the GoPro8 has made it more difficult to use filters on the GP8 and up, a reality bolstered by the widespread idea that recent model’s auto white balance capacities underwater rendered filter use obsolete. I actually held back from upgrading the cam primarily for this reason, and also because I was not fully convinced by the improvements brought about by each yearly update - but now, generations later, there is probably a reason to do so - but what of the filters? the filter + flat profile combo Now when I say I shoot with filters, what I really mean is that I shoot ambient light with filters in a flat profile. This is important, as it's quite a different approach to simply slapping on a filter and letting the camera figure things out for itself underwater. By that I mean that I’ve been using the ProTune settings since they were implemented to basically stop the camera from trying to make white-balance and colour adjustments. Human control (freakism...) - the opposite of AI if you wish 😁 In GoPro's ProTune mode you can set the cam to a relatively flat profile (on mine, which is a GP7, it's called "native" for WB, and colour profile to "flat"), which works great for grading in post, and most other action cam models have similar "flat" settings (log, etc) As always with flat profiles designed for grading, this gives a rather dull-looking result out-of-the box (read not great for near instantaneous uploads to your socials of choice...) However - and this is where it gets interesting in my opinion - the recorded colour data is there, just waiting for you to work on it in post. This allows you more flexibility to set the white balance (sand, bubble, tank, white little rock or even WB slate if you have one) in post-production instead of at depth, and also work with the colour and overall colour balance. Clearly, this is more dedicated approach - it does mean more work in post, and also means having access to editing software which gives you the option to work on the footage (Adobe Premiere, DaVinci Resolve, Final Cut Pro, Sony Vegas, iMovie all work, but there might be others). So yes, more work, but since I always work on the footage anyway, I find that this approach generally gives a much more balanced ambient light colour cast, and actually in the end not that different from having performed a manual white-balance at depth... Which is why I would argue, to the risk of sound vintage retro and old-fashioned, that lens filters, especially combined with flat-profile shooting, still have a role to play underwater video, especially on action-cams, since they allows us to make-up for these camera's lack of manual-white balancing functions at depth. Yes, action cams cannot manually white-balance at depth – but shooting in a flat profile with a filter actually gives you a rather similar flexibility, by allowing you to set/adjust the white balancing point and colour balance in post. However, having tried to work on footage shot in non-flat profiles, it just doesn't work as well in post if it's not been shot flat - adjustement options are very limited, since you are pretty much locked-in to adjustments made in camera by the camera software. Shooting in flat is something of a radical choice, but if you intend to work on the footage in post, I would recommend shooting in flat whenever possible, for maximum flexibility and more balanced results. And in this shooting scenario, the physical "red" filter in itself plays an important role - as it does for ambient light with manual-balancing cameras - by, very schematically, "evening out" the balance of the data recorded in the flat profile. Using a filter at depth means that there is not as much of an adjustment/stretch to be made to rebalance the wb point and colours of the footage - the logic when rebalancing flat-filtered footage in post is basically the same as when manually white-balancing at depth, and end results actually somewhat comparable. Of course camera capacities / IQ come into play, which is why I would be very eager to see footage shot in flat profile with a good filter on more recent, advanced action cam models! Again, this is very subjective territory - as are most colour / grading considerations - and what follows is a very subjective statement, but for shooting at depth in full-ambient light or ambient light dominant scenario, I would argue that a (good) filter really helps, and that shooting in a flat-profile, will allow you to get better balanced end results (with the “ambient light look” ) than using no filter. It's worth losing some stops of light and/or definition for this And I would argue that this is also the case for quite a few cameras capable of manually white balancing at depth as well... "good" filters I’ve mentioned “good” filters a few time – what I mean by this is that I also believe that filter quality matters, an aspect which is often overlooked. Sure, any “red” filter will help to some extent, but if we are talking about obtaining a well-balanced end result, then filter design, and its action on the spectrum, is also important. This is also a little controversial, but I’m not very convinced by the results obtained on commonly referenced filters like the PolarPro or even Flip system (which seemed, awhile back to give slightly dayglo results...) – this is also true for other cameras. As example, on my Lumix compact (which I manually white-balance at depth, the difference in results between a generic “red filter” (the Howshot filter I first used with my Inon UWL-100) and well-designed filters like the Magic Filter or Keldan are massive, for instance (eg Hotshot generic vs. Magic vs Keldan ) You need to find something that works in your conditions, and gives you a good base to work with post. For more on this, I would recommend reading up on the fantastic tests and experimentations done by Interceptor121 in his blog and by Dreifish in this fantastic Wetpixel thread (read it while you still can!) All this to say that actual filter design does matter underwater, it's not just a question of sticking any red piece of glass or plastic on your lens - this is true for any camera, and this statement applies to action cams as well. Furthermore, I think the true value of using filters at depth come to light when combined with a flat profile, for white-balancing in post - this crucial aspect is very often overlooked in the discussion on filters. If planning to work on / grade the footage, flat profiles are the way forward for shooting ambient light at depth, especially in the zone where you still have a lot of ambient light and colour info making it to the sensor, but the spectrum is quite alterated (typically 10-20m in strong ambient light areas - ymmv...) back to the future - using filters in an unfiltered world Personally I’ve been using the UR-Pro cyan filter since the GoPro4 – it’s a proven, solid filter, that works very well for this purpose (shooting in flat, white-balancing in post) I have 55mm SRP-UR-Pro acrylic filters, and also a glass UR-Pro filter. I'll post some ambient light examples, shot in different locales/conditions, below. Alas, UR-Pro doesn’t exist anymore, and it’s also very difficult to find 55mm / 52mm filter mounting options for recent cameras. And this is also complicated by the new wide-angle lens accessory options, which are seemingly finally improving quality and reducing wobbly corner / angle distortion which have plagued GoPros since stabilisation was introduced and the field of views changed (GoPro4 > GoPro5, corners, argh...) Also shooting ambient light with a compact camera I had, however, also experimented with filter gels, which are the way to go with fixed-lenses (taped to the lens, not super sexy but hey...), notably the Keldan Spectrum filter (SF -1.5 gel) and the original Magic Filter gels. I tested the Keldan gel on the GoPro when I was working in Palau and also using the UR-Pro daily. Well, while the Keldan's high quality filter turned out to be my favorite filter for ambient light on my Lumix compact, it was actually a let down on the GoPro... However, after a long hiatus, I finally got the motivation to try something I hadn't done yet, which is use an original Magic Filter in the GoPro7 housing. I tested this yesterday morning, and results were quite good, making it a good option for use with newer camera models and accessory lenses, no mounts required. This is something I would be pursuing in the future if I finally upgrade my veteran GoPro7 to either a newer model or a DJI or Insta360... More testing would be needed, but seems like a good solution for using filters on recent action cams. Sure, you would lose the option to shoot with the camera (in the housing) topside and on the surface, but it's always a compromise, and there's always the solution to remove use it out of the housing. ambient - and beyond? Of course, all this applies primarily to ambient light / dominant ambient light shooting. If artificial light is your dominant light source, auto WB or a kelvin setting is the way to go - unless.... you use ambient light filters on the lights, ie a mixed lighting scenario. While this has been mostly researched on cameras capable of manually white balancing at depth, this his would be something interesting to play with with action cams shooting in flat profiles - a good base to start would be the ambient filter tests done by Interceptor121 and Dreifish previously linked above, matched to good quality, well-designed camera filters (the usual suspects being the late UR-Pro, Magic Filter and Keldan Spectrum filters). If the filtered artificial light spectrum is very close to matching the ambient light spectrum, given the results given by white-balancing flat profile in post, there's no real reason it shouldn't work like it does on manual white balance capable cameras.... To conclude, and go beyond filter use, I'd love to see examples of ambient-light footage shot in flat and rebalanced in post ( especially with a good filters) on recent action cams, and seeing how these results compare to in-camera adjustements, and recent AI-enabled depth-correction bells and whistles. cheers ben

Ok thanks - must be something else then. Still can't connect here - firefox, chrome, private windows, VPNs... odd!

Hello all - this might be just some random downtime, or could it be that wetpixel.com is finally gone? I managed to look up a thread earlier today, but a few hours later I'm getting error messages on different browsers / VPN connections. Does it work for anyone? Could this be much discussed final over-and-out? cheers ben

Thanks. Frankly, I've never really seen results that I find encouraging with Polapro or even the Flipfilters - filter design really matters for these purposes. I've been using the UR-Pro Cyan filter since the GoPro4, and it's a solid - but these are no longer made - however tests with quality filters like the Keldan Spectrum SF-1.5 gel were inconclusive. Magic Filters seem to work well as well - these are gels, meaning you can use them with any lens accessory (but you will lose the option to shoot topside or on the surface). I find the most important aspect when shooting with a filters is to shoot in a flat profile - which the most commonly overlooked aspect - by shooting flat, you dont let the camera handle while balance / colour adjustments. Since it's not possible to do a manual white balance at depth on a Gopro or other action cams shooting in native (flat) WB, lets the camera record without trying to / or making only minimal make adjustments. Footage will be dull and flat out-of-the-box. However, this leaves you the possibility to do a general white balance in postproduction, and I find that this gives a much more balanced colour cast to ambient light clips. But this only works if the footage has been shot in a flat profile. If shooting in artificial light, yes, you can't use lights with filters, and if artificial light is your dominant light source, auto or a kelvin setting is the way to go - unless.... you use ambient light filters on the lights, ie a mixed lighting scenario. This would be something interesting to play with - a good base are the ambient filter tests done by Interceptor121 and Dreifish, matched to good quality, well designed camera filters (the usual suspects being the late UR-Pro, Magic Filter and Keldan Spectrums). Then, if the filtered light spectrum is very close to matching the ambient light spectrum, there's no reason it should work like it does on manual white balance capable cameras. But I think it's time to open a new thread on filter use for action cameras so we don't derail this one too much 😄 EDIT - here is the thread

It's difficult to know precisely, but just keep in mind the inner volume of the NA-LX10 is tiny. I do about the same - one good pull after it's green - you really feel the resistance increasing. 3 hard pulls once it's green would probably be over-doing it on such a small housing. Yes, I didn't know either, and it's not really explicit in the housing's service manual - it was only when I was in touch with Nauticam suppot after the leak they mentionned over-vaccuming (I copy-pasted the exchange / advice given here on WeP, as this could be problematic in some case, but as Chris also pointed out back then you don't really want to under-pull the vaccum either! 🙂

Ouch - Sorry to hear this - very good advice in the thread already, but I'll add to be extra careful with the NALX10 housing - check out this report as well: https://waterpixels.net/forums/topic/1243-catastrophic-housing-flood-this-week/#comment-6644 A few years back, I had a leak on what was the third dive with my NALX10, 45 minutes into a shallow-water macro dive in Thailand, half a teaspoon of water in, toasted camera, and it turned out electronics (they seemed to work after service, but started behaving erratically, and had to be changed). So full service, then a second round to change the electronics by Nauticam's Japanese dealer. The scariest thing is that I never knew what happened - the fact that it happened in a shallow dive with very little pressure change is concerning, especually since the housing had been vaccum-pulled and on green for 3 hours before the dive, never knew what had happened... Don't want to jinx it, but it's been good since. What has become my routine since is to inspect the o-ring and housing groove when opening the housing of course, but also systematically grease the o-ring after each diving day Iwith the minimal amount of Nauticam grease - just to make sure everything is smooth, clean and help the o-rign slide into the groove easily. O-ring maintenance seems to be much more important / less forgiving on small-sized, single o-rign clam-shell designs like the NALX10. I also pull the vaccum much longer in advance, like the day before, but this won't be practical on a liveaboard... And yes, stay away from rinse tanks... Otherwise it's quite easy to get water on the o-ring when opening if it's not super dry - wiping the housing down with a couple of sports towels (one for very wet state, one for when it's drier), and then blowing a bit compressed air works - if you don't have access to compressed air you can, for the future, buy a nozzle for your LPI hose, turning the remaining 50 bar in your tank into a compressed air device, they work great and you can adjust the pressure of the air you're blowing. Be extra carefful under the tray, hinges and also under the latch, where water always accumulates and is hard to remove with some air pressure. Also make sure to dry the area around the vaccum valve, as it could suck in water as you press it to release the vaccum. Lastly, but careful to overpull the vaccum on such a small volume compact camera housing - Chris has more info on this, but there is a goldilocks zone to be found, as you want to avoid both over/under-vaccuming.

As a follow up, here are two samples shot this morning on the ol' GoPro7 with an original Magic Filter gel inside the housing. I think the Magic Filter perfoms quite well in this context, so is a good practical alternative to the now-defunct UR-Pro cyan filter ( as mentioned the Keldan Spectrum -1.5 gel didn't perform well on the GoPro). Since the Magic filter is a simple gel which can slide into any housing, I think it would be really interesting to try this shooting approach (= flat profile with Magic Filter, white-balanced in post) on both newer some GoPro models, DJI Action 4 and the the New King of Action Cameras the Insta 360 Ace, to reap the benefits from improved IQ and all the rest. Back to the test itself, these dull test clips were shot in ambient light only on the GoPro7 4K60fps wide, flat profile, with an Original Magic Filter gel inside the housing. First clip is at 18m and second clip at 9m, shot in tropical (east Bali) mid-morning ambient light only in the usual slightly murky, particle-rich water. The clips and white balanced in post, and crudely graded. You can see how strongly the filter is kicking in when I film the depth on backlit dive computer. Given the flexibility the Magic filter-gel offers, I might now upgrade to either one of the more recent action-cam model discussed here at some point in the future. But my first investment is actually a wide-angle conversion to try to correct the GoPro's wobbly horrific corners that I've hated so much since stabilisation was introduced and field of views changed on the GoPro5. Now assured that I can use a respectable filter that works for my purposes, I actually ordered an AOI UWL-03 lens today. To return to the original thread subject, if anyone could test the newer GoPros / DJI Action 4 / Insta 360 Ace shooting at depth in flat profile with a (good) filter white-balanced in post, it would be great to see what results can now be achieved with these new beasts. cheers! ben

Good to know thanks - we'll see - I might update in the near future if I can find a way to use a (good) filter at depth. I've been using the UR-Pro cyan in a flat profile and white-balancing in post since the GoPro 4, it just works for ambient light wide-angle. Unfortunately, since the 8 upgrade it's been difficult to mount filters (I have a 55mm mm mount for the supersuit, and both 55mm acrylic and 52mm glass UR-Pros) - not really interested in the Backscatter flip/insert solutions as I don't think the filter colour balance is as good as the results I'm getting. It's actually one of the reasons I never upgraded the 7. I've tried with the Keldan Spectrum SF -1.5 I use on my compact (it's a gel, so slides in the GP housing), and unfortunately the results were not good at all compared to the UR-Pro. I'll try some test shots with a Magic Filter gel tomorrow, see how it performs. Ideally, I'd like to use a good filter like the UR-Pro combined with the new AOI wide lenses, but it's a bit of a headache. If the Magic Filter works it would be great...

Nice comparison, but surprisingly - on such a clip anyway - not that much of an upgrade from even prehistoric GoPro models like the 7 I still have... Have action cams have hit their limits, and the new Emperor-King of action cams really wears no clothes? the specs are ot of this world, but the results - as far as I can see - are, well, much more down to earth...

Yep, unfortunately a few inches are missing (or rather, the Nauticam M10 mount is a little too long, and I couldn't find a smaller M10 ball mount) and also there are no extra-long open triple clamps, which is what I would need in this case. If not using triple clamps, maybe single extra-long clamps wound work. Another option would be to have extra long ball mounts on the handles themselves, but Nauticam doesn't make these either. It's possible to mount the float directly with the M10 mount on, but then this means the jumbo float is off-set behind the M10 ball mount, which moves to the rear of the housing (whereas with wet lenses negative buoyancy tilts to the front). The other issue is that you can't access the vaccum valve (meaning that you need to pull vaccum before setting up the floats - no biggie, but still...). Solution I found is to add 2 small arms - this also allows to move the position of the jumbo float (up and down, but also forwards/backawards), should it be required, but in practice I don't need to. But if you were using single clamps, then the Nauticam or similar extended clamps could give you the needed reach.