Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Product sources underwater video camera....need advise

Wife and I have discussed getting a underwater video camera. She wants to pick me one up for Father's Day. Don't know ANYTHING about them. Need advise on the best ones for looking under my boat dock in color and hd if possible. How do most of them work? with a probe? About how much should I spend on a good one?

How is your water clarity?

Visibility matters.

And do you want it full time or place and recover?

I usually run between 15 and 26 inch visibility with a secchi dish.Place and recover I would think. Mostly want to check out activity under my dock and maybe take it out to some structure by boat and look around. Pond is only 2 acres.

Keep in mind that as sunlight diminishes so does color. Limited light = limited color.

Ewest, Good point. I probably only need a black and white. Might be a lot less expensive,but if not much more I just as well go with color.More pixels and better high definition is probably what I need to shoot for and not worry so much of the color.

I own several Aqua Vu products, primarily for ice fishing - a reconditioned Aqua Vu mini is handheld, mobile and can be had for under $200. Sounds like a good fit for what you want to do, but to manage your expectations clarity will impact your field of view significantly.

That being said, the next larger camera I purchase will be a Marcum - fewer issues than the Aqua Vu.

My handheld cams are a lot of fun to use and educational. I use them in cages to verify condition of fish without having to use nets and stress them, can verify volume of uneaten food on bottom of cage to modify my programs, and can verify species of vegetation anywhere around the pond, etc. My water clarity ranges anywhere from 40-100", so cams work very well for me. Again, your experience will be different with the reduced clarity.

Hope some of this is helpful.

Go Pro, it's not what we use for live feed during our dives but we do set them up sometimes to capture us doing larger projects in clear water for client/marketing videos. Not to mention they are super versatile and can be used almost anywhere(excluding volcano's).

I have personally taken them down to 100' Seawater we let them sit for most of the day and recovered them at the end of the shift. Nice picture quality and data is only limited by what SD card type you put in them.

Hey DC! Great to see you posting again! As always, great info.....still waiting on an update of your project!

GoPro Hero4 Session is my go-to. Heres a quick video I made with it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bckojbQdd9I

Gavin, what is that little green/blue finned fish in your video? Looks allot like a Mandarin fish.

Wow. Great looking picture with that go pro

Excellent work DC !

Dono, that bright green fish is a Greenside Darter, Etheostoma blenniodes. It is a male in breeding colors. They live throughout must of the mississippi river drainage and are close relatives of Perch.
I've never seen a mandarinfish before, but I definitely see the resemblance!

Wow, that's awesome. Looks like I need to go toy shopping!

This is one of the video's a coworker made of a project we were doing. Most of the underwater video is done using a Go Pro. :54 in Trigger Fish they hurt when they bite you in the back of the arm.

Hope this helps you make an informed decision and I did the embeding of the video correctly. Time to go get some work done on the house.