How to Get the Most Out of Your GoPro Around Water?

GoPros are fantastic since you can use them in the water without worry.  Taking a GoPro camera on your next trip is a new and exciting choice since it allows you to capture footage in challenging environments that traditional cameras just can’t. That is particularly true near water. While the vast majority of GoPros are water-resistant right out of the box, you can improve your images by following these guidelines. Find out here the best GoPros for Snorkeling.

Some of these are actions to be taken. Some things are essential to be aware of. And some of them are items you can purchase. Some are minor comforts, while others have the potential to be show-stoppers.

General Tips

If you plan on using your GoPro near or even in the water, consider the following these important tips. Below, you’ll find more detailed suggestions organized by activity category. While swimming, snorkeling, and diving are the main topics of this article, much of it also applies to other activities that take place in or near water.

Check the Seals

It bears repeating that you should check the seals on your camera’s doors, as this is the single most critical piece of advice in this article.

Although GoPros are made to be waterproof right out of the box, the quality of the door seals determines how waterproof they are. Therefore, check to see that the rubber seals around the two trapdoors, as well as the USB & HDMI ports, the battery, and the SD card compartments, are clean and free of nicks or tears. Replace the doors if they are damaged; you can purchase them as spare parts.

You should check that the lens port is firmly attached to the camera, which is especially important if you’ve been taking it off frequently. Poor seals can limit your possibilities when you’re at sea, so it’s important to double-check this before setting off. Because water getting won’t just completely destroy the shot, it could wreck the camera.

Add a Strap and a Float.

GoPros sink. And they sink quickly. They are also small and gray, making it challenging to locate and recover them from the ocean floor. The likelihood that you may lose your camera is significantly decreased by adding a float.

You can solve this issue in a variety of ways. Each has benefits and drawbacks depending on the situation and preference. Generally speaking, the floaty grip is the recommended method. Additionally, if you’re wearing dive gloves, this provides you with something to grip onto when underwater.

Also, floating wrist straps and floaty cases are available. Any of these will help to lessen the possibility of losing your camera. In the same way, if you’re not holding it in your hand, use a tether rather than a strap. Although they are somewhat bulky, foam floating cases are effective.

Using a wrist strap alone, without the floating portion, is a simpler solution. Obviously, that doesn’t stop the camera from sinking, but at least it ties it to you directly and reduces the likelihood that the camera will go to the bottom of the sea.

Lock the Orientation

When you’re swimming with a GoPro, the camera isn’t going to be staying level and right-way-up every time. If you have automatic rotation turned on, it’s simple for the orientation to shoot vertically when you intend horizontally.

Although it is more of a pain when shooting video than when taking pictures, locking the orientation can be helpful to keep things simple and spare yourself some post-processing trouble.

Lock the Screen

The touchscreen is not usable underwater, yet it is still functional above the surface even when it has water drops on it. However, a moist screen is not always as dependable, and you may find yourself having to struggle with it to get it to perform as you desire.

And occasionally, water splashes on the screen may be recognized as touches. This could cause the camera to enter settings mode or change the shooting mode. Though it doesn’t happen frequently, it sometimes does.

Using the screen lock can help you avoid this. Although not necessary, it does lessen the likelihood of accidental shooting mode switches.

Tips while using a GoPro Underwater when Snorkeling or Diving

You must take additional precautions if you plan to photograph underwater or through the water with your GoPro.

The Viewing Field is Narrower Under Water

You’ll notice that the GoPro’s extremely wide angle of vision isn’t as broad as you start shooting through the water. That is a result of refraction occurring through the water. You need to understand that the wide angle will not be as wide while using GoPro underwater.

Things Will Become Less Blue with an Underwater Filter

There’s a strong possibility your underwater photography turned out blue. The deeper you go, the worse it gets. This is because blue light travels through the water more effectively than longer wavelengths of light, such as red and orange. As a result, you may frequently end up with images or videos that are only various hues of blue.

An underwater filter can help make the image appear more vivid and realistic by increasing the proportion of red and orange in the light compared to blue. Depending on it, the filters are typically tinted with a slightly different shade of red or orange.

When diving deep, use a dive housing.

Individual GoPro models have different depth ratings. However, several of them are rated to withstand pressure equivalent to diving to a depth of 10 meters (33 feet). That is suitable for swimming, surfing, or snorkeling at or near the surface. However, there’s a significant chance that you might go deeper than that if you’re scuba diving, even if it’s just for a short while. 

In actual use, issues are unlikely to arise at depths of 12 or even 15 meters and possibly even lower. Still, the possibility of the camera’s seal leaking increases the deeper you go beyond the rated depth, particularly for any length of time.

Ration Battery Life

Even under ideal circumstances, GoPro batteries don’t last very long. It will be significantly less if you are shooting in cool water. Power consumption increases while recording video rather than photos underwater. Therefore, you should turn off any features you aren’t utilizing to maximize battery life. Also, make sure the camera is turned off during breaks between dives.

Portion SD Card Space

This is primarily a problem while recording video, but if you want to record an entire dive in one of the high-bitrate video settings, battery life isn’t the only thing to watch out for. These modes consume a significant amount of storage. A smart starting point is with a large-capacity SD card, like one with 128GB or 256GB.

Stabilizing Handles while Shooting Video

Traditional stabilizers are useless underwater, but using a handle frame is a quick and easy approach to achieve smoother footage. You may hold it with both hands, giving you a considerably stronger grip and reducing the need for delicate adjustments. It can make a big difference if you capture video while scuba diving or snorkeling. For the rig to be neutrally buoyant, you can even add floats to the frame. And if you’re wearing dive gloves, you’ll have something much sturdier to hold onto. And you can attach video lights to the frame if you choose to add one or more.

Defogging

In some cases, camera lenses can fog up, just like glasses can when exposed to humid and moist environments. This mainly occurs with GoPros if you’re using an external housing that causes air to become trapped inside. Dunking the camera into water that is significantly cooler than the outside air temperature is a tried-and-true way of witnessing this occurrence. However, it occurs only under specific humidity and temperature difference conditions. 

The issue is that there isn’t a simple remedy if the lens port fogs up while you’re out filming—the fogging is on the inside of the lens port glass, so wiping the lens won’t work. So, before hitting the sea, you should take safety measures.

There are two options to at least lessen the risk. The first step is to completely enclose your camera in its housing while keeping it cool, dry, and comfortable in a hotel room or cabin. As a result, the housing is now filled with dry air rather than moist air.

Anti-fogging housing inserts are another alternative. These will help remove moisture from the air trapped inside the enclosure. Although the anti-fogging inserts are intended to be thin and compact, there is no guarantee that they will fit in the housing; therefore, testing them beforehand is recommended.

Wrap up

You can take some fantastic pictures with a GoPro because they are designed for use in water. Of course, there are restrictions, like GoPro’s mediocre performance in the kind of low-light situations you’ll encounter when deep diving. But in ideal illumination, they’re unbeatable for the comfort, simplicity of use, and pure enjoyment when things become drenched.