Is the iPhone now becoming a viable underwater videographer tool?

[bubffm 178]

Hi folks,

with the iPhone 13 Pro /Max on the market and the first ProRes "overland" samples hitting Youtube et al, I thought I start a little discussion / opinion search on the above topic.

Some background:
At the end of 2016 or thereabout I first started looking around for options to "play" with the iPhone underwater alongside my main video gear.  Most "smartphone housings" then where flimsy plasticky thingies that I would not want to entrust my trusted iPhone to. I then came across the housing from Valstech and actually bought it. While also plastic (at that time), I looked quite solid and played a little with it and my then iPhone 6s.  

Of course the camera / sensor of the 6s was a million miles away from today's iPhone 13 Pro, but the results where reasonably encouraging for things potentially to come. Here a link to that old clip:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9I32-msbnE

When Valstech created an aluminum housing for the iPhone X, with an (optional) optical WA glass dome, I bought it.

https://www.valstech.com/products/v-series-pro-package

The results looked vastly improved over the 6s. But unfortunatly my external drive with the clips got lost somehow, so no samples to show.... For the next trip I wanted to take my iPhone 11 Pro for some dives  - but Covid cancelled that attempt.

I have now ordered the iPhone 13Pro which will fit the housing with some minor mods to the holding clips (according to Valstech).

Having the possibility to shoot ProRes underwater with all its color grading potential certainly sounds really interesting.  Just wondering what others thing and whether anyone has plans or the opportunity to try this out as my next drive trip will probably only be in Jan 2022.

Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 5, 2021 by bubffm

[wydeangle 31]

Bub,

I wonder if the macro capability of the iPhone 13 will be supported?

Tom

[TimG 62]

SeaLife also make a good iPhone underwater housing which seems to fit pretty much all iPhone models. I've seen the results which, yep, seem pretty impressive for video - even stills in shallow-ish water.

 

[bubffm 178]

4 hours ago, wydeangle said:

I wonder if the macro capability of the iPhone 13 will be supported?

With the Valstech housing probably not as that only supports the main iPhone camera and the macro mode afaik requires the ultrawide (weitwinkel) lens

[bubffm 178]

3 hours ago, TimG said:

SeaLife also make a good iPhone underwater housing

Probably still got a SeaLife hangover from the very first UW camera I ever owned many many years ago. That was a SeaLife and it was total cr@@p..  But times are changing…

[TimG 62]

2 hours ago, bubffm said:

Probably still got a SeaLife hangover from the very first UW camera I ever owned many many years ago. That was a SeaLife and it was total cr@@p..  But times are changing…

LOL,  yeah, I think many of us where there at one time or another! But I've seen the iPhone SeaLife housing being used many times and it is very impressive. 

[wydeangle 31]

I looked a little further at the iPhone and concluded, possibly correctly, that its "macro" was simply digital zoom and not optical zoom. My enthusiasm went to zero at that time...

Tom