Tom Rainey 0 Posted March 4, 2021 Has anybody used a Paralenz vaquita in the field yet. I used mine on a live aboard in the Bahamas and have mixed results. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
waterpixel 66 Posted March 5, 2021 Hi Tom, Do you mind sharing your thoughts on it? I don't have one but keen to hear more about your mixed results? Thank you Alex Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Rainey 0 Posted March 5, 2021 The quality of video from the Vaquita is stunning. In my opinion better than GoPro. But I could not get the location or dive profto work. Also, unable to get any of the clip mounts to attach the Vaquita to any of my mounting accessories. This makes it hard to hold steady enough to remove camera shake in post. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rickmorgan 4 Posted March 7, 2021 Tom, are you able to post any of your video? I recently received a Vaquita which I'd ordered mid-2020 after diving with a couple who were using the original Paralenz a couple of months before lockdown. Lots of what I've seen from the Vaquita so far has left me concerned, but your comment on the video quality is encouraging. We're heading for St Croix later this month and I expect to give it a workout. By the way--to attach the ballhead or any of the other accessories, use the two splines directly opposite the power switch (or any other pair, but that would start to get confusing pretty quick, at least for me). The ballhead clamps on with two little hex bolts (and seems rock-solid), and on the other gizmos, the end with the rubber strap hooks into one spline, wraps around and hooks on to the prong. --Rick Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Rainey 0 Posted March 7, 2021 I'm working on my videos/photos from Tiger Beach. I don't believe I can upload them here due to size limits. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Tom Rainey 0 Posted March 7, 2021 I'm having trouble with the snap on mounts. The ball and mask mounts work fine. The vaquita is much easier to use given the view finder and much better video quality. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
TmxDiver 39 Posted March 7, 2021 I've had my Vaquita a while but have only used it a couple times. I had the original Paralenz and used it relatively often so I'm familiar with the form factor, features, etc. I've noticed a few things about the Vaquita: 1. Battery life doesn't seem to be great. My "normal" use case was mounting it on my camera housing to take video footage as a backup while I was taking stills. Most of my dives are deeper and so the bottom time is usually 20-25 minutes a dive and the battery would drain rather quickly. I don't (yet) have any scientific data on that but something I observed. 2. The image stabilization doesn't seem great. They were fixing this in firmware and it still seems like it isn't as good as a GoPro. This is also something I'm assuming they will improve over time. 3. I did a shallow shore dive (30-50 feet probably) a couple months ago to test it out again and I took still pictures. I could very well have had something incorrectly configured, but I noticed that it appeared to favor slower shutter speed to get a lower ISO. The result was blurred images. I'm not a great photographer, but I'm not that bad! (BTW, this was with the latest firmware available at the time (mid-Feb 2021). Below is an example which was 1/30th, f 2.8, ISO 159 I have been working on a lot of other projects and really haven't had much time to work on figuring out what is going on with it or reporting bugs, etc. And, it is possible I'm doing something wrong. I've attached an image from a GoPro 7 from the same dive area at about the same depth. The GoPro is at 1/250th, f 2.8, ISO 524. Neither of the files has any post processing. - brett Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
blipstream 2 Posted April 24, 2021 I have had both. But I sold the vaquita after about 10 dives. Poor battery life. Poor end cap design, there is always water under the pull back ring which gets sucked into the area of the display, sd-card and charging port!! Very poor lens. I contacted the manufacturer because the videos were completely out of focus very often. I was told that it is normal if you get closer than 1m/3ft to the critter or whatever you film it is out of focus. Because they changed the lens. DCC seems a little bit better than on the old model. Still no EIS (image stabilization). Overall I regret buying it. Happy that I kept the old one. 1 Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
