Nikolausz

Thanks. I think, it would be not that difficult to produce specific bayonets for popular action cameras, such as Insta360 Ace Pro or DJI Osmo Action 4 (and later). GoPro is still the most popular one, and the underwater housing is the same for many generations (10-12), so it makes sense to support this brand first. I can imagine even that a 3rd party brand will specifically support these alternative action cameras. Finally Backscatter has its own adapter with filter slot. By the way AOI is also designed for smartphones.

I left my tool I use to position the cameras, so some footage are slant, but I included those, so you can check the corner sharpness. I'm absolutely happy. Even the chub very close to the lens is perfectly sharp.

I've just back from the shooting. This AOI is indeed a fantastic lens. I will post some videos soon.

Sometimes I have this problem as well. It's hard to do anything to prevent this.

I'm planning to use my AOI+GP12 tomorrow for the first time in a river (attached to protective case with standard battery). Do you have any recommendation, potential mistakes to be avoided?

In videos, you have to be closer (1-1.5 m) to have any visible effect of your video light. Any video light (regardless how many lumens). You can make a DIY plastic cone and it will have some effect but the WeeFine optical condenser has real lenses in and it's quite effective.

I have a WeeFine Smart Focus 6000 (6000 Lumen) and a Smart Focus 7000 (7000) is on the way. In my opinion it's a quite good quality system. I agree with Davide that you need a pair of light. So far I paired my Smart Focus 6000 with a cheap Chinese lamp and it was OK, but it has a colder light and changing the light intensity was possible only in 3 steps. The best is to have 2 identical lights and I wanted to order the same but the Smart Focus 6000 was discontinued and was replaced by the 7000. It has the same form factor and very similar weight, so I think it will be fine. The Smart Focus 10000 (WF074) is better for wide angle (120 degree and 10000 lumens) videos but not for macro. As I see, due to the dome port (which is excellent for wide angle videos) you cannot add the optical collector snoots that you can add to the Smart Focus 7000. This is an excellent solution for macro.

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

A recent comparison video by Brent Durand

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?

I'm happy it finally worked out in time. I hope that you can still record same mating activity. I'm looking forward to see the new footage

Way overpriced. This one is more affordable but still expensive: https://actionpro.de/produkt/t-housing-aluminiumgehaeuse-h10-power-f-gopro-hero-10-und-hero-9/

It's on Amazon prime (in Germany)

And they even used GP7 or lower, since this Telesin housing is a discontinued model for GP5-7. It would be cool to have an upgraded model for GP12

Yesterday I watched the Freshwater episode of the Wild Isles (BBC?) and they clearly not sponsored by GoPro. The production team even couldn't afford an original GoPro housing so they used a Telesin one. I would also highlight the naturally designed wooden pole and the rock as a tripod replacement.

I agree that a GoPro is so affordable that many people just consider why not to take one for the dive. Really beginner divers with no experience in film making. My colleague is planning to do his first dive course in Egypt in May and he asked me whether to buy a GoPro (I try to convince not). It's also free to post garbage footage on youtube, so it's full with them. But it's not because of the quality of the GoPro and other action cameras but due to the "camera operators" and lack of skills and knowledge (and taste). On the other hand I know that even big productions, "blue chip" wildlife movies use GoPro cameras and not just for B-rolls. Finally the quality is really not that bad in my opinion, and 20 years ago we have just dreamed about such level.

Very nice video, I liked it a lot!

Just few days after I ordered the GoPro Hero 12 camera to replace my aging Yi 4K+, Insta announced the new flagship camera, the Insta360 Ace Pro. The youtube is full with glowing reviews and comparisons to GoPro but only few available about its underwater usage. I'm still testing my GP12 but so far I think I made a good decision. These are the main features of the new pretender: 1) Larger sensor. It has a 1/1.3" sensor compared to 1/1.9" sensor in GP. It has better low light performance, so it might be used in caves, deep or night dives. Daylight situation I haven't observed much difference in comparison videos. However, one negative aspect of the larger sensor is the minimum focus distance is 40 cm with Ace Pro compared to 30 cm with GP12. In my opinion the close focus capability is very important underwater, so it's a tradeoff. The DJI Osmo Action 4 has the same larger sensor and at the beginning even vloggers complained about the close focus problem (unsharp face in the case of hand held camera), which was solved in later production models. 2) 8K 24 FPS and Clarity zoom to crop in without much loss of quality. I don't think it's really relevant underwater, especially that you can't activate the clarity zoom in the housing. Despite the Leica lens I don't think that it can create a 8K resolution behind a flat port through 40-50 cm water. Both cameras can do 4K 120 FPS, which is fine. 3) AI chip. It promises better white balance and improved noise reduction. According to the reviews it's a fast and very responsive camera. The low light performance, also thanks to the larger sensors, is way better than GP12. But be realistic, for serious low light work you will still need a full frame (or some new generation APS-C) camera. 4) Ace Pro has a better battery life (all tests concluded that) and a faster charging option. A real advantage here. 22 minutes vs 2 hours charging time in Ace pro and GP12, respectively. 5) Software support. I use Insta Studio a lot for my One X2 360 degree camera and it's really good. According to online reviewers it's better than the GoPro Quik. 6) Few other gimmicky features: Flip up screen. It can be useful for vloggers but not for me, because I wouldn't use it without underwater housing (although it's water resistant down to 10m according to the company). With the AI chip you can create some cool re-styled AI-enhanced short (4 sec) video clips (AI warp) or can remove selfie stick easily. You can also do some basic editing of video clips in the camera, which is not really relevant underwater (I think). Ace Pro can be controlled by Apple Watch or some Garmin devices, but not underwater, of course. Magnetic mount, nice but not relevant underwater. Functions that are similar or equal: 1) Stabilisation is very important in the case of hand held footage and for long time GoPro was the real leader here but both Insta and DJI are catching up. I haven't seen any thorough underwater test so far, but based on the typical boring running in the park videos they are all very good today. 2) Picture quality under good light conditions. It's hard to tell the difference, sometimes GP12 is better, while other in other case Ace Pro is the winner. 3) HDR mode, flat profile. Both have some options, HDR is slightly better in ACE Pro (based on above water tests). Why I don't regret my GoPro camera purchase? 1) Ace Pro is more expensive (450 Euro vs 350 Euro (was on sale before Christmas)) 2) High quality underwater accessories for GoPro. I'm planning to buy a quality wide angle wet lens for my camera, and I can chose from AOI UWL-03(this will be mypick most probably) or INON UFL G-140 SD. Also high quality more lens element close-focus lenses are available for GoPro but not for Ace Pro. There are more options to buy a dome port fitting to GP12 for split videos. 3) 10-bit video mode offers a better quality of colours and hopefully it will solve the banding (in blue background) problem of old action cameras. 4) GoPro Labs is an official beta platform, which extends the camera capabilities beyond its stock features. It's really fantastic. Besides increasing the bitrate and other not default supported parameters, the coolest thing is that you can create QR codes with various set ups (Low light, fast action, Slow motion etc) and you can take these pictures on laminated sheets with you in your BCD pocket. Just show the QR code to the camera and it will take over the settings. It's a really nice feature. It happened few times with me that my camera had the wrong settings (time lapse from the previous day) and it was too late to turn back or change it underwater. So with GP12 I can have a fast changes of many favourite settings. So who is the new king? Actually Insta360 has a 1-inch sensor module with Leica lens, which offers even better picture quality on paper. However, nobody really use this camera underwater and it's probably due to the marginal image quality increase at a hefty price and the even worse close focus capability. I think, for underwater usage, GoPro has still some advantages, but I think the next DJI Osmo Action will dethrone both GoPro and Insta360 in the future. This is just my prediction based on the the DJI Osmo Pocket 3. If DJI implement the 1-inch sensor with auto focus (current action cameras have fixed focus) and some kind of advanced image stabilisation (not necessarily gimbal) I think that will be a game changer. Until then, I think either with GoPro or Insta, or even with DJI Osmo Action, you cannot go wrong. What do you think, who the king is on the action camera throne?

This one: https://www.backscatter.com/Backscatter-DEEP-Filter-for-Sharp-Wide-Lens-Pro

It's a bayonet system to add either AOI or Inon lenses, but the filter is unique, a kind of slot panel. So you can't use standard filters with it.

The Backscatter lens is just a rebranded AOI lens. The mount is unique in a way that special slot filters (not screw on filters) can be used. As far as I figured out from the descriptions.

Actually the Backscatter version of AOI adapter allows the usage of filters: https://www.backscatter.com/Backscatter-Sharp-Wide-Lens-Pro-Package

My first action camera was a basic GoPro (not the black version) and instead of upgrading it to a newer version I went for Yi 4K+, which was really a good contender that time for half price of GoPro, with same or better quality (4K 60 fps was earlier introduced by Yi than GoPro). Xiaomi stopped producing this camera and the sell out price was really good (around 100 Euro) so I have 3 of them. 2 years ago I purchased a Insta360 One RS and recently a GP12. I even did a recent static comparison: When I compare these new cameras to my old Yi4k+ footage I can't find too much difference in image quality. I would still use the Yi cameras further but the batteries are getting worse and worse (20-30 mins filming) and even newly ordered after market batteries are produced probably years ago, so they're also not that good. Actually I modified all my Yi cameras (changed lens, modified focus) so I will still use them for specific purposes. Another reason I wanted to have a new GoPro is the availability of accessories. It was very difficult to find a dome port for Yi and not to mention quality attachment lenses such as INON or AOI wide angle wet lenses. Stabilisation and WB improved a lot in new generation cameras, but they still perform poor in low light. I still have to check 10-bit, high bit rate. Hopefully it will solve my banding issues with the old Yi cameras. In addition, I have just explored GoPro Labs and it's fantastic. I'm planning to create many QR codes with the most important settings, so I can change the camera settings underwater just by showing the codes to the camera.