Insta360 Ace Pro vs GoPro Hero12 for Underwater Video

[Music] Hello Ocean People! Welcome back to  Brent Durand Underwater. Today we are going to be comparing the Insta360 Ace Pro versus the  GoPro Hero 12 Black. A battle of the action cameras if you wil. There are some big differences in  underwater footage between these two cameras and those differences could be the deciding  factor in which camera you choose for your underwater video, whether you're scuba diving,  free diving, snorkeling, or doing anything else in the water. We're going to focus

primarily on  camera features and operation underwater. We'll look at white balance, color, and overall image  quality, again underwater, and we'll also look at low light performance. But before we start  there's two important notes to let you know. First, Insta360 was nice enough to send me this  Ace Pro for the comparison review, and I get to keep it. I've reviewed action cameras for a long  time, since long before this YouTube channel, and have reviewed a lot of other photo equipment  and un

derwater photo equipment. So I'm pretty excited to get to do this heads up comparison and  review. Insta360 gave me some talking points on the camera, naturally, just like any press release  for any camera, but I've got the freedom to say what I want to say about the camera and about  the comparison with the Hero 12. So that leads me to my second point, which is full transparency.  In this camera comparison I think the simplest and easiest way is to put the footage on screen  and let you guys ta

ke a look for yourself to see which camera you prefer and which you feel has  that better color and white balance and overall image quality and low light performance  underwater. So that's what we're going to do. [Music] As you can probably see here the Ace  Pro is just a little larger than the GoPro Hero 12 Black. That's because it's built around a 1/1.3" sensor compared to the GoPro's 1/1.9" sensor. So just like with prosumer cameras,  the larger sensor will capture more light. It will also re

cord greater dynamic range in the  scene and it creates the opportunity to create better color underwater. The Ace Pro lens was also  co-engineered by Leica. So I'm not sure exactly what that meant in terms of engineering and the  business arrangement, but suffice it to say that it says Leica right there on the lens and if you  ask any photographer they will tell you positive things about Leica. So great image quality, great  lens, great build. The Ace Pro also features a brand new 5 nanometer A

I chip which enables fast  performance and a lot of advanced functionality. So that's everything from recording accurate color  and white balance underwater and processing all of that information, all the way to a new PureVideo mode which is meant for night shooting and effectively denoises the footage frame by frame as  it is being recorded to the camera... to the memory card. Which takes a lot of processing  power and to be able to do all of that work in real time frame by frame in a tradition

al color  space is just very impressive. And it's enabled by that AI chip. Note that I'll be sharing footage  straight out of each camera and I won't be using any flat color profiles, or FreeFrame video, or  Protune because I think most people who are shooting action cameras just want that simplicity  and ease of use of taking the camera underwater, shooting their video, and easily sharing it  to social media or with their friends. So yes, you can get much better and more professional  quality o

r color match to other cameras you may be shooting with on a project as you're taking  it into your timeline to edit, but we won't worry about those advanced settings. We're going to keep  it simple here and show you the footage right out of camera. The one exception is that I'm going to  try editing one clip from each camera in their native app. On the Ace Pro I want to open up the  app and try AquaVision 2.0, which is a one click color correction solution for your underwater  video, and see ho

w that works compared to editing GoPro's video in the GoPro Quick app and applying  color correction suitable for underwater there. So we'll check that out. But that will be the only  post-processing I'm going to do. Both the Ace Pro and the Hero 12 bBlack have HDR video, which stands  for High Dynamic Range. Now on the Ace Pro, that is automatically enabled at 30 frames per second, 25,  and 24 frames per second, whereas on the GoPro you need to flip to Pro Controls and then turn that  on manual

ly. And what that does is it will create better color and exposure in the shadows of the  image and in the lighter, brighter white areas of the image. The idea being that you have more data  from the white point to the black point, which will give you a more pleasing image with less burnout  or underexposure in the frame. So what else? The GoPro definitely doesn't have this 2.4" flip LCD  screen, which is convenient if if you want to do some blogging ("Hey guys how's it going? This is me.")  or

if you want to do a low camera angle, something like this, and still be able to see it. You see  that in skateboarding videos a lot. They hold the camera really low. But what's also really  cool is that it is huge! This 2.4" screen is significantly larger than other action cameras  underwater. It's a pleasure to view. It's bright and it almost doesn't feel like you're looking  at an action camera screen underwater, where you're not quite sure what you're seeing, what's exposed  right. This scree

n makes a huge difference and that large size is very welcome for underwater video,  even underwater photos with action cameras. One last feature to point out is the magnetic mount  on the Ace Pro. You get this little Mount and it clicks right up into the camera. It does have  click so it's really secure and then you can push the buttons. Boop. Off comes the camera, super  cool, super fast, super easy to use. Very secure. There's no wobble. With the Hero12 you still  have the traditional clips t

hat come out and you use the regular mount, and you put the screw  through, and you twist it. You can barely reach it. You twist it back out. The other thing is these  have a little bit of wobble sometimes unless you're really clamped in there tight, which is a  little disconcerting, you know. I like all my gear really secure and firm and not jiggling around  or anything like that. One big note is that both cameras do use that traditional mount inside  of the dive housings. So that's a quick ove

rview of the features. If you have more questions, drop  them in the comments and let's continue in this video. [Music] Let's talk camera operation  underwater. As you may or may not know or have guessed, we don't have access to touching this  LCD screen when the camera, both cameras, are in their dive housings underwater. So we're limited  to the shutter button on top of the camera and then this power button and mode button on  the side of the camera. Now it's the exact same placement on both c

ameras. Shutter button on  top. Power and mode button on the side. And that's how we control the camera inside of the housing.  Now one thing I always advise people to do is to turn on Quick Capture on the cameras. So what  that does is if the camera screen goes to sleep or if the camera completely shuts off after  4 minutes, 5 minutes, to save battery power, all you do is you push the shutter button. The camera  wakes up, turns on, and starts recording video. Now video is the default. If you re

ally wanted it  to record still photos you could set the Quick Capture to wake up and shoot a still photo, but  the default is is that it wakes up and shoots video. For basic video shooters you can use both  cameras almost right out of the box. You do want to download the app and that will prompt you to  choose your language selection, update firmware and get the camera ready to start shooting,  but that's it. It's a quick process and then you're ready to go. I'm going to take it one step  furth

er in this review though. That's because both the Ace Pro and the Hero12 allow you to configure  custom presets. And that allows you to get a custom setting group, set it as a preset, and access those  from within the dive housing when you're shooting underwater video. It's huge! It is the way we can  use multiple settings and access a lot of the camera functionality underwater while diving. All  you have to do is think ahead and configure those presets based on macro shooting, or wide angle  sh

ooting, or fast action. or whatever else it might be that you want to shoot. On the Ace Pro you  get to configure Quick Switch, which allows you to customize exactly what presets or standard video,  photo, time-lapse options appear when you hit the Quick Switch button, so what I did is I configured  3 presets for underwater video and had those one, two, three, so it's real quick for me to hit  this button and cycle through all of those. With the GoPro 12 it's a bit different. Your presets  are c

ategorized under video mode photo mode or time-lapse mode, so what you have to do is hold the  mode button and push the shutter button to access the presets within that mode. So let's say we're  in video. I need to hold the mode button and push the shutter button to access that menu. Sometimes  I hit that and I end up in photo mode and I have to push the button back to video mode and then I have  to try it again. So it's a little tougher just ergonomically and also takes two hands often times. 

You might be able to get around like this if you have bare hands and you're just handholding the  camera, or have a short stick, but if you have the camera mounted on a tray like I do, or a a selfie  stick, or even on top of a larger housing, sometimes it's difficult to get your hand over and simultaneously hold two buttons. So in terms of using the camera and switching between different presets  to access different settings, the Ace Pro has the quicker solution, more ergonomic solution hands  d

own. And all that said you can simply set up one preset with some settings that you've deemed  to be better than the default out of the box and just use that one preset. Once you set it you  can always come back to that preset and you don't need to fuss with anything else. So even if you are  a basic user there may be some settings that you do want to change or optimize for what you're  shooting. Make that one preset. Always use that preset. It's the same camera - it's just a one click  easy act

ion camera. And that's on both cameras. To learn more about presets, check out the link in  the video description below where I will answer some questions and share a lot more information. [Music] Now let's talk about the settings I used to make sure that our underwater video  comparisons were as accurate as possible. Apples to Apples comparisons with the most equivalent  settings I could between the two cameras. So on the Ace Pro I configured two presets. The first one  was 4K resolution at 30

frames per second. And if you remember, 30 frames per second automatically  enables HDR video. So that is On. I also left the lens on Ultra and I also left image stabilization  on Standard. The rest of the camera settings are default out of the box. For my second preset I  used 4K 60 frames per second. I often times recommend that around fast action because 60  frames per second allows you to create 50% slow motion when you're editing or post-processing. So  it's a highly recommended setting an

d I wanted to check out how that worked. Finally I did actually  have a 3rd preset, where I tested pure video mode, that we'll talk about when we're reviewing the  actual footage. Now on the GoPro Hero12 Black I switched the camera from Easy Controls to  Pro Controls. Out of the box the camera comes in Easy Mode, which uses automatic video and is  effectively like a simple point and shoot camera, which is easy to use and great for some people.  But to gain access to those presets, I turned on Pr

o Controls. And for my first preset I chose 4K  resolution 30 frames per second. And I turned on HDR video because that's a manual option. The lens  I left at Wide and image stabilization - the Hypersmooth image stabilization I left On, which is a  standard and the default. The only other setting I adjusted out of default was adjusting the Bit  Rate to High to better match the Ace Pro. I left bit depth alone at 8 bit because you would only  use 10 bit if you're post-processing, and I'm not doing

that in this video. The second preset was 4K60 again to match the Ace Pro. So in case you're curious about underwater and all this talk about  housings, here is the rig I used to test these side by side. So what I did is I mounted each of these  dive housings to an Ultralight Camera Systems TR-DM2 tray along with the handles. A lot of people will use their tray like this. I decided to flip it upside down. I just find it a  lot easier to use and it puts the cameras higher up in front of my face

and gives me full access  to handle both of these housings. Now they're close together. It's as close as I could get to show an  equivalent angle on the scene and work with the exact same lighting and stuff. So this is our  side to side rig. Again with both housings and a nice tray and handles from Ultralight. So now I  think we're ready. Let's dive in! And here we are in Monterey, California about to start this dive.  You'll notice Ace Pro on the left. And I'm already seeing a little more light

in my mask on the Ace  Pro on the left here, so lending towards more of that HDR higher dynamic range shooting  here at 30 frames per second. And you'll start to notice some of the color too. We saw it in that  last clip with blue water, and we're seeing it here, and especially now that we're introducing  the kelp with the Ace Pro versus the GoPro Hero12. So look at those sun rays and the color  of that kelp itself. We're in shallow water right here but you'll notice as we go deeper  we'll we'l

l start to look at those colors as well. I get a little distracted sometimes  with the the sunlight twinkling through the kelp especially on these spectacular winter days  like this, so we're we're taking our time. We're going to ease into it really try to appreciate  some of the the color and the dynamic range here in the scene and the image quality. Here we go  again. We've got some tubesnouts. And look on the footage on the right. The GoPro - there's a bit  of motion jitters. Now this is some

thing that the Ace Pro on the left does really well. When HDR is  active it does very well in motion. We could see that the GoPro was struggling just a little bit  with the HDR on with a little bit of that motion. And here's another shot looking towards the sun. Now we're at depth. We've descended  to about 45ft here at the Monterey Breakwater. And the water's blue but it's not tropical visibility,  so there's a lot less light down here at about 45-50ft than you would have in blue water in  crys

tal clear visibility. Now we had some sea lions come to hang out and play and do their  thing. So you'll notice here at depth again - we're at 45-50ft - we've got a lot more reds and magentas  in the Ace Pro with that frame by frame color correction, so you're really getting more  more of a white in the sand. I'd say this still definitely needs some color correction  in post, which we'll try out with AquaVision 2.0, but really nice so far at depth. Here  I am. So a lot nicer color in my opinion,

truer whites and better white balance in the left  with the Ace Pro. Here's another blade of kelp. This is about 25ft or so so. We're still in the  shallows looking at all of this. There's another scene here. You can really see backlit some  of those reds in the corynactis, which is really cool. And as we're swimming here. So now we were  at that 25ft of depth and we're we're going to descend and see what happens here. And what I do  notice is that the GoPro does really well here in the color a

s we're descending. We had  a moment. We're starting to lose it now, but we had that moment where it was actually doing a  nice job with that change, but as you'll see here when we get down the Ace Pro is creating more of  an accurate white. So that color balance is more pleasing and more accurate compared to what most  people are trying to color correct for in post with third party apps or themselves. So here  we are 45-50ft. And this is my test of PureVideo. I shot the Ace Pro PureVideo agains

t the Ace  Pro without PureVideo. You'll see that PureVideo is on the left. What I think happened is  the footage got smoothed out a little bit. You can start to see some of that smoothing and also the  color correction isn't as strong in that scene with the PureVideo on. It's no surprise. It's meant  to be used at night, so this is not a really good test. I just wanted to show one clip to show  what it does do underwater in daylight conditions. PureVideo is best for night time shooting. Now we'

re spicing it up a bit more with dual 4300 lumen video lights to see how the white balance  and the image quality adapted to having that artificial light underwater. You'll see that  we've got really great color with the Ace Pro on the left. The GoPro is still a little bit green  even with that artificial lighting. Here you will see we've got a couple of starfish here and  nice same blue color with the Ace Pro. The GoPro footage is also a little more jumpy here. We're  back at 30 frames per seco

nd HDR and with a little bit of movement of the water the stabilization isn't as strong with the HDR video enabled. And this is a fun little test. We're down  at 50-55ft here on the sand and I'm turning off the video lights to see how the white balance and  the color correction adapts underwater. We just saw the subtle change with the cameras now that the  the artificial lighting is off, so even with the the change, that dramatic change in light, the Ace  Pro is doing really well at depth. And h

ere we go at 60 frames per second. I just wanted to throw in  the faster frame rate with video lights. We had a cormorant come down, swim down, to say hello, so here we  are just looking at what that cormorant's doing. You'll see we get that same nice color and image  quality in the Ace Pro as we did at 30 frames per second. You'll notice that the water through  snell's window up at the top is less overexposed where the sun is shining down, again pointing out  to the great dynamic range of the c

amera due to the larger sensor. And now the dive is over. I've  got the Insta360 app open up on my phone. I don't think I showed everyone this, but we saw a  little harbor seal swing by to say hello. But what I really want to do is show you AquaVision 2.0.  So we pick a clip. I think this one's really nice with some white here. And if you tap it you have  access to the AquaVision 2.0 button. Here you can adjust the tone of the image and what you're  seeing in the video, and once you find somethi

ng you like, like maybe that looks about accurate,  or here, then you can adjust the intensity. So 0% of the effect or 100% of the effect. This  is really nice so that you can really hone in the color and get your video looking just the way  you want it before you export it for social media. And now I've opened up the GoPro Quik app on  my phone. I'm here at the same clip and we can start to watch that, and if I want to edit it  now I'll hit the pencil icon right there, and then I can scroll ove

r until I see 'Adjust' to  get some manual control over the adjustments I want to make. And I will scroll again to find  'Temperature' for color temperature a.k.a. white balance. And I can start to make my adjustments  right here. So maybe I'll find what I think is right - something like that. I've got some other  adjustments I can make just like with the the Ace Pro app and third party editing software,  but it takes a couple more steps than using AquaVision 2.0. So there we have it: the Insta3

60 Ace Pro versus the GoPro Hero12 Black for underwater video. I'd love to hear your feedback,  so leave all your comments and your thoughts in the comment section under this video and stay  tuned for more videos on action cameras, the Ace Pro, and all sorts of underwater photo and  video tips. We'll see you in the next one.