Trying the Backscatter Red Filter for Gopro in Coral Bay

[@shotsbyscott6243]

Beautiful video, sorry about losing your video lights. Hope everyone is ok. I am color challenged so not sure about the colors in your video. Did you do any post-processing?

[@seanpe80]

Hi mate. Thanks. In end insurance covered about $3.5k worth of equipment I lost. The problem was getting replacements whilst travelling so I had to shoot this whole video with nothing but the gopro with one red filter sticky taped to the housing. I didn't do any post processing to the colour. There are a few I would have fixed up but I wanted to leave it the same as it came out of the camera. The biggest issue is the lower light. Once you put the filter on it makes everything darker and then the iso goes up. My honest opinion is red filters are definitely better than nothing but just get some cheap ebay lights instead. Red filters on a large sensor camera with the ability to custom white balance can be nice in shallow water but action cameras need lots of light to get good image.

[@shotsbyscott6243]

@@seanpe80 thanks Sean. Yes I have a similar experience with using Red filters and everything is darker. I also have the issue with colors. I have a good set of Kraken video lights but they only work a few feet away and cannot light up a reef scene that well.

[@seanpe80]

I am probably not going to bother upgrading to the Hero 13 and wait for the 14 but I did see Backscatter claiming the 13 white balances quite well with lights and a red filter.

[@shotsbyscott6243]

@@seanpe80 I have not seen a Backscatter review yet of the GP 13. I was disappointed after the announcement that it did not make significant changes considering the competition from Insta360 and DJI action cameras.. Lots of sponsored reviews of the Insta360 and DJI on KZbin. I am not ready to jump ship yet but the colors look much better underwater for me from the Insta360. I was planning on upgrading from the GP 10 -> GP 13 but going to pass right now.

[@seanpe80]

Hi. Im struggling with same of what to do. If I had the money I'd buy all 3 just to try them myself. I was also disappointed in what the 13 offered me apart from the bigger battery. I will be shocked if the 14 isn't a whole new camera (like the 13 should have been) There really is not much change since the 10 for uw. I also was happy to jump ship and waited for the DJI Action 5 and Ace Pro 2 which both initially sounded like great options. However they also disappointed me though in end. Now don't get me wrong if you use both the DJI and Insta just on a selfie stick they clearly are creating better colour out of the box BUT that's not how I use the camera. The Insta 360 is enticing with the low light performance and I'm still considering if I should get one for cave video but what its missing is following 1. Only 8 bit, 2. Needs a 60k60 option (Any resolution that doesn't do 60 frames is pretty useless to me) so DJI and Insta really are just 4k. 3. Ability to lock the white balance and preferably all the functionality of gopro labs 4. Ability to attach the Backscatter Macromate Mini or a similar lens. At the end of the day both DJI and Insta are simply adding a colour correction underwater to pretend image looks better when I can do that much better either by doing things like adding filters, lights, locking the WHB or fixing in post. With the Gopro I have 5.3k60, 10bit and the ability to up the bit rate in gopro labs which then makes the colour correction and ability to crop much more powerful. I'd love to try each and actually see what I can do with each one. I guess every day I stay undecided its one day closer to next years release :) I was considering if I should buy the 13 and do my first VLOG style video and talk about all the reasons why I stuck to Gopro but 1. Not sure I can talk to camera that well and 2. Not sure anyone will care if I don't have a DJI and Insta in my hands to compare. I would suggest though its almost impossible to compare the shots in the use scenario that Im talking given its far more than just taking a shot and comes down to lenses, lighting, focus distances, editing etc. I guess I could show comparison footage against the gopro itself to show why each add on or step makes such a big difference.