A6500 substantional over Gopro?

Thanks for your reply! It is true I own both camera's, but I only have used one under water, the gopro, so I have no idea how the quality compares under water, especially since i also have to start using a lens on the a6500 (the 16-50mm) i currently don't own.

I do know for a fact that the quality and the overall picture of the Gopro, together with it's incapacity of shooting portrait-like shots, left me unsatisfied, but it's unclear to me how much of an improvement the a6500 will be under water, especially without a big dome and light set-up. Most video's on youtube I found where made with those kind of set-ups, so leave me guessing how big my jump in quality will be, and if it justifies buying the housing alone.

In the case of a small light I would like it to help regaining colour in the picture, maybe to help the camera focus aswell, altough I can imagine that is more a photo than a video function?

I own a Gopro hero 6, which actually is a nice camera for it's size (but not miles ahead of the Hero 4 Silver, which I have owned for years and really liked) but the field of view really bugs me, and yeah the dynamic range is nowhere in the same league as the a6500. I will pass it on to my girlfriend and divebuddy, or indeed place it on top of the a6500.

I guess I just have to go try it, next spring we will visit Marsa Alam in Egypt. I hope I am not gonna regret not buying a dome and big lights afterwards, but that's the compromise I'm gonna have to make for wanting to shoot video above water (and from the air:) too.

it helps to talk about where you're diving, what you're trying to capture.

generically - that gopro with a pair of good lights will produce better video than the sony without said lighting.   And weight/cost a ton less.

Fixed focus has a ceiling, but it's a lot nicer than an SLR hunting on focus.

Yeah, I'm probably gonna get frustrated with myself when in Egypt next year for wanting to keep my set-up as light as possible now, so gonna invest in some light too, hoping it will be sufficient enough for not wanting to buy a dome after that also I can get carried away like that when it comes to the chase for better quality, but a big dome would really be to much in addition to all our other gear

On the question where we will use the camera, that will mostly be tropical blue waters (Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand, Filippines), at this moment at depth's between 3 and 30m, so with pretty good visibillity. My wish is to have better quality than with the Gopro, being able to zoom a little to shoot portrait-like shots, have more possibilies in editing, etc. Overall quality, macro is not a wish at this moment, and shooting still also not, I only focus on video.

I've been looking at webshops in my country (Netherlands) and found a couple of options that caught my eye;

- SeaLife Sea Dragon 2500 Flat Panel

- SeaLife Sea Dragon 2000F UW

- SeaLife Sea Dragon 3000F

Any reason to not go with the Sealife brand? With my goals, am I better of with the Flat panel model, the UW model or the stronger 3000 Lumen? And am I gonna regret not buying a double handle with 2 lights?

Barmaglot_07 wrote:

16-50mm works okay underwater. You can shoot it either in a dome, or with a flat port and wet lenses. SeaFrogs Salted Line is a good lower-cost alternative to Fantasea, but for good quality video, you will need serious lights. See here for a good comparison: https://wetpixel.com/forums/index.php?/topic/63400-testing-3-10k-lumen-lights-gates-gt14-vs-scubalamp-v6k-vs-jaunt-g18-plus/

Thanks for the link with comparison, I don't think the circumstances of the test are close to mine though, since they tested at 33 meters deep in a dark cave. That's not what I am aiming for (at least for now ). I (kind of) understand the benefit of more and more powerfull light, especially for these kind of purposes, but I'm searching for the sweetspot between quality and a lot of gear to carry.

Sorry for the noobie questions, feels a bit like starting all over again, altough I'm pretty capable with my camera's, gimbal, drone, etc...but the onderwater realm is fairly new to me.

For now I think i will start with one of the Sealife options to see for myself what the result will be, and if that will make me happy or not I understand it is difficult to describe what I can expect from these upgrades.

you don't need a big dome to do fisheye lenses.   it's only the rectalinear lenses that need the 6, 8, 9.5" domes.  That said, fisheyes are better for stills, and for objects very close to you.

If video, and never macro is your focus, you might consider the 1" compacts, most notably the Sony RX100 series.   Remember that the bigger the sensor, the narrower the depth of field.