Nando Diver

thanks for the explanation about the filters Heres a map where i learn to scuba dive, South of Lisbon, city cost named Sesimbra, theres about 10 dive centres, on weekends theres about 300 to 400 divers across all diving schools, in the summer its a lot more. Its a Marine park with dedicated diving spots for scuba diving boats only Cold green water all year round, diving spots are from 10m to 43m, average visibility is 5-10m in murky water. Compass, Buoys, and dive lights are mandatory. Theres no big pelagics, other marine life and macro are abundant between 15m and 25m. Shallow dive spots are sand or soft corals, flora and rocks with little marine life. We can get 30m visibility in November and half month of December. This is not the Red Sea, Mexico, Florida, Indonesia, Osaka, Raja Ampat, Sipadan, where the water is warm and crystalline with excellent visibility where you can make use of the filters for underwater landscapes. General rule over here (Sesimbra) : Its rare to see an underwater photographer or Videographer with filters, 99.9% use dive lights Anyone that today ask me advice what gear should get for starter kit for underwater (video/photo) with efective results i would say: Divevolk + iphone 13 pro or above + uwacam app (had color correction built-in ) its a good starting point that fits hundreds of divers needs, later its up to each individual pursuit their evolution in underwater photography or video. Not everyone is looking for the holy grain of the perfect color correction, perfect picture, perfect video.

Heres example of the Focus Peaking showing in the live view. ps: The use of focus peaking without dive lights is very unreliable or useless.

Today activate Macro Mod manually to be able to access Focus Peaking ( highlights sharp edges in your Live View with a bright color) It can help a bit while doing Close-up or Macro Mode, its not 100% but its something, especially if you use color red and high sensitivity For example in the video below theres no way i can see if the eyes of the Hermit Crab are getting out of focus, 1 cm to far and the video is ruined. Also activating Macro Mod the 8:7, HDR or Zoom no longer will be available If the small screen is already a challenge, sometimes will be harder to get nice content for macro/close up with Gopro due the lack of super macro capabilities, sea life moves a tad faster than Nudibranch 😉 Ps: From my testing having Macro Mod ON, its seems it doesn't affect the use of wide angle lens, the Focus Peaking can also be extra help while doing close-up with wide angle lens. In gopro labs forum it was mention the Macro Mode might affect Hypersmooth. Regarding the lens AOI UCL-03 its a keeper, on the times if managed to get focus, the image was stunning especially in the details. Davinci resolve free Version GP-TUNE Plugin AOI UCL-03 lens Gopro Labs Firmare Wide=1 Wide color Gamut Bitr=190Mbps Bitrate *Dive=1 optimized for water refraction (No corner distortion) 5.3K 16:9 60Fps WIDE HYPERSMOOTH ON 10 BIT BIT RATE HIGH SHUTTER AUTO EV COMP -05 WB AUTO ISO 100 - 800 SHARPNESS LOW DENOISE LOW COLOR FLAT FOCUS PEAKING RED COLOR (sensitive High)

The problem was the subject behind the camera 😄. It was first time i did macro or close-up on gopro with this lens ucl-03 Its hard to tell if what we filming is in focus. No issues with aoi uwl-03

The little ones (crested blenny) are very shy to get them close enough 😀 Zoom too much in davinci will eat out the details

First time testing AOI UCL-O3 macro lens + Gopro labs firmware 99% of clips was out-of-focus, but the small bits i managed to get in focus looks promising. GT-TUNE plugin makes all the diference. Super-macro is out of the question with Action camera.

ok

The gopro has Auto focus peaking function with selectable colors highlight (purple, green or red) or Auto mode, showing whats in focus on the small screen. This function can be using in just one preset only for macro photo & video The issue is that the focus peaking mode only works automatically when the gopro macro lens is attached, and they dont fit inside gopro underwater case. I think its possible to use some Gopro replaceable lens "hack" to trigger the focus peaking and still fit inside the underwater case and use the Wet macro lens normally. On the less hackable action cams thing, the new AOI UH-ACT underwater case might have magnification screen (not confirmed)

Stick with heavy Wide lens + gopro can work sometimes at shallow waters with natural ambient light in certain time of the day. That's it.. theres limitations and good or bad results will depend on the factors above. Add tray + dive lights to the equation for better results.

Before you going to the Neat video 6 Route, i would test gopro labs Noise Reduction control from 1- 99 ( 1 is the noisest ) If you decide go full Neat Video disable noise reduction completly with gopro labs using NR01 The DIVE=1 removes the distortion underwater Also with noise reduction you would need to get more bitrate video its stable up to 190Mbps White balance lock 1 seconds after recording is also mandatory hack. The best upgrade ive made lately was to purchase the GT-Plugin from xtremestuff along with WIDE=1 mode + Flat color its all here

@GTom AOI / Inon lens and adapters are backwards compatible on gopro (original case) If you not in Rush, i would wait for the new AIO UH-ACT universal case for Action cameras with lens adapter built-in. I expect the new AOI case to be more expensive than the lens adapters + gopro underwater case. I would not go filters route.... Dive lights + gopro labs gives you much better results. Check this account on instagram joe_chang41

Ive tried Neat video 6, in my gopro clips and their own clips. And the Demo Noise reduction is only applied to small square on the clip.

Any Iphone with IOS 17 or higher now support 4K Open-Gate RAW without external SSD The result is DNG Video with full access to camera RAW tools using Davinci Resolve, bypassing Apple ISP RAM Cam APP uses MCRaw format developed by Masad the same developer behind Motion Cam Pro for android To play the footage you need a computer with Motion Cam player To color grading in Resolve the MCRAW Files need to be converted to Cinema DNG images sequences option 1 - Motion Cam fuse (windows or mac) option 2 - Motion Cam Tools Davinci resolve autómatícly interpretes DNG sequences has Video Clips > create timeline > go to color page and this unlock camera RAW controls. cDNG RAW > Rec709 sRGB cDNG RAW > Rec709 sRGB > CST to Arri Log C cDNG RAW > Rec709 sRGB > CST to Arri Log C > Arri K1SI LUT Arri Log C BlackMagic Film Gen 5 BlackMagic Film Gen 5 + One LUT for BMPCC Current Limitations Some older iphones can record 4K open gate for only 4 to 5 minutes (non-stop) before dropping frames Iphone 17 pro can record 4K open gate for 20 minutes (non-stop) before dropping frames The Live preview is not accurate due IOS limitation (its not the RAW Capture) No electronic stabilisation Expect files up to 12GB per minute in 4K open gate Auto focus is not available during recording, and manual focus are unstable during recording No vignette correction Heres a video using RAW Cam app that explains whats are the necessary steps (Kudos to Elliot from Epic Tutorials for Mobile Filmaking)

For good quality you will need good lighting For small footprint: Smartphone - Iphone Pro 15/16/17 or Google pixel 10 pro XL (Good for video or macro) Olympus TG-7 excepcional Macro pictures, and good enough for video and pictures (easy to use, you also need lights)

video https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSM3oKpk8X8/?igsh=MXQyY2ZlbGhzNDlkeQ==

The smartphones Android & Iphone they also have a new AOI underwater case, with battery, mouse and shutter. i suspect this case might able to accomodate some SSD. Reference AOI UH-PU1 Videos https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSTlozHmMZe/?igsh=MXA4aHl6cmFqb3VkZg== https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSREsH7gR9p/?igsh=ZGs5Y215b29kMDY4

Beginning of 2026 AOI will have 3 new camera Housing for actions cameras with Quick release Built-in for Wide Angle and Macro, reference AOI UH-ACT in one of the videos is visible that the housing is able to use UMG-01 Magnifier lcd viewfinder, and according to the advertise at the show no more vignetting underwater. Available & prices from Fev/March 2026 video here from hong kong show https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSPCOYZEQTg/

GP-TUNE Plugin 🫡🫡🫡

Regarding the GP-TUNE plugin its very easy to use, but its important to read the Manual and their tutorial to make sure you get the correct profile settings in davinci. https://xtremestuff.net/gp-tune-plugin-manual/

Heres another example

Ive got better results using Wide + Flat, in terms of sharpness/crisp/color and specially more details in dark parts...

Heres another test with Gopro labs firmware this time i added the Wide Color Gamut for underwater filming Gopro Labs Firmware * Wide=1 Wide color Gamut * Bitr=190Mbps Bitrate * Dive=1 optimized for water refraction (No corner distortion) The reason i want to try Wide color Gamut its because sometimes the Video was a little soft, with loss of detail in shadows, i was prepared to turn off Noise reduction with Gopro labs and later i could use Neat video 6 or Davinci Resolve Denoise. After some underwater Filming I've test different Luts in Davinci to convert the Labs Wide to Rec709, some of them had mix results and was bit frustrating and time consuming. Then i decide to opt for GP-TUNE Transform IDT (21€) but didn't realise its for the Davinci resolve Studio paid version, but luckily this year the Xtremestuff they released the GP-Tune Plugin (26€) that works brilliant with free version of davinci resolve. The GP-Tune Plugin is prepared to work with Normal Gopro firmware but also with the Labs firmware, and in terms of color grading is much faster to get correct calibration. The results in my opinion is a step forward to more quality.

The insta360 ace pro 2 has underwater Mode but no WB lock.. and its only 8 bit The dji action 6 has scuba mode and QRS button that can be personalize to lock white balance underwater The Gopro 13 has gopro labs firmware and its possible to create permanent preset for WB lock, bitrate up to 200Mbps and new feature called DIVE=1 that remove underwater distortion, dont forget to Keep Denoise settings at low to avoid a soft video. The Gopro 13 also has 5.3k mode with resolution of 5312 x 2988, perfect for 16:9 or 9:16 for media viewing for later crop the video without any loss of quality. Optional With Gopro 11 it was necessary to use Wide Color gamut (wide=1) + oMLOGB=400 to get GP-log Profile lookalike. But on the Gopro 12/ 13 you can simply use Gp-Log + wide=1 for more details, and later a specific LUT to convert back to Rec709 during color correction. Basically Wide color gamut + oMLOGB=400 are able to push dynamic range and get better details in dark shadows, but is also recommended to apply NR01=1 (permanent disable denoise but more details) and later remove noise in post-production with Neat video 6 or davinci resolve studio (both paid options) ps: this hacks can be applied permanently using QR code once, Optional 2 Wide angle lens from AOI UWL-03 are great upgrade for any of the action cameras above. Ps: The insta360 or DJI can be an easy underwater actions cams for the untrained eye, or the average joe for viewing in small smartphone screen, especially if you do shallow dives with natural lighting their color sensors accuracy can be enough for some people, but has soon you pass certain depths you are limited by firmware, Gopro labs unlock that limit.

Looks like the Full sensor marketing of Dji Action6 dont keep their promises.... Fiming in 1:1 or 4:3 the imaged is cropped