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Amie and I love being in and on the water kayaking, snorkeling, and scuba diving. We see so many amazing things from coral to turtles and spotted eagle rays. I wanted to find a way to capture the sights and share them with friends, family, and y’all here on the blog. After some research, we wound up buying an Akaso Brave 4 with a waterproof case and a floating handle. We tested this setup snorkeling in Grand Cayman and later snorkeling in Ilhéu de Vila Franca do Campo in the Azores with generally positive results.
This setup worked surprisingly well for snorkeling and might be good for diving with a red filter. I say surprisingly because of how affordable it was. We’ll tell you about our experience, how to color correct underwater photos with GIMP to optimize the camera’s output, and show some example Akaso Brave 4 underwater photos.
My photography background
As a disclaimer, you should know that I have little experience in photography. Smartphone photography and videography are about the full extent of what I’ve done. I do have some photo and video editing experience for creating media and other material in my software job. Those with more photography expertise will likely have more refined opinions than me.
How we chose the Akaso Brave 4
When looking at cameras we had a few requirements
- Must be waterproof or compatible with a waterproof housing to diving depths
- Must be capable of taking underwater photos and underwater videos
- Should be simple to use while in the water
- Ought to be affordable in case this hobby doesn’t stick
In my initial research, I narrowed things down to an OLYMPUS TG-6, TG-5, or a GoPro. The tradeoffs were that the Olympus did better still photography while the GoPro did better video. The Olympus also seemed to have better underwater and macro capabilities. However, the total cost of the Olympus with an underwater housing was much more expensive. So I was leaning toward the GoPro.
Then Amie suggested I look at some of the cheaper GoPro alternatives for my entry to underwater photography. We came across the Akaso Brave line of incredibly affordable cameras. Given the price, I was surprised to see Akaso Brave 4 reviews being generally positive. I settled on an Akaso Brave 4 that wound up being much more affordable than the OLYMPUS or GoPro and added a Sametop floating handgrip. The Brave 4 comes with an underwater housing that’s waterproof to 100 ft (30 m).
Note Akaso has models newer than the Brave 4 that may provide improvements. We haven’t tested these and can’t speak to specifics.
Akaso Brave 4 review
The Akaso Brave 4 supports 4k video and 20MP photos. It comes with 2 1050mAh batteries, an underwater housing, a dual battery charger, and tons of mounts/straps/etc. We used a SanDisk 64GB Extreme microSD for our Akaso Brave 4 SD card which works well.
The camera has 4 buttons that operate easily whether in or out of the housing. Underwater I was able to easily change the mode from video to photo and back. The camera supports various options like adjusting the white balance and has a built-in diving mode that enhances red light to help with underwater color balance. More on that later. The rear screen is serviceable but somewhat small and a bit blurry when out and about.
The camera and handle are compact and easy to carry with our snorkeling gear even on a Grand Cayman bus.
How to use Akaso Brave 4 underwater
Simply insert the camera into the provided housing and you’re ready to use it underwater. For best results
- Get a floating handle with a lanyard like this
- Consider using the diving mode to enhance reds
Underwater and action usage
Using the camera while snorkeling was reasonably simple. The buttons on the housing are obvious, easy to find, and easy to press. My biggest complaint is that changing settings like enabling/disabling dive mode takes over 10 button presses, I counted! That was distracting and pulled me away from enjoying being in the water. The wide angle let me focus on the sights with my eyes and still get reasonable shots.
The rear screen was somewhat hard to see clearly under lighting conditions so I sometimes struggled to know that I had my subject perfectly centered.
The handle’s lanyard stayed securely attached to my wrist while swimming and diving. It was great to use.
Akaso Brave 4 underwater photos
So how did the camera do underwater? Overall I’d say it’s sufficient for snorkeling pictures at depths under 15-20 ft (4.5-6 m). Deeper than that, our photos had no red light left and we’d need to get a red filter. I don’t know how this stacks up against other cameras.
Let’s take a look at some Akaso Brave 4 photos.
Here’s an image straight from the camera (compressed for the website click for original) in about 10 ft (3 m) of water at the Wreck of the Gamma
You’ll notice a green hue. However, I was able to clean this up using GIMP.
Here’s another image at 30-40 ft (9-12 m)
It has more blue and green. There wasn’t any red left to correct in GIMP.
Finally here’s coral on a wall closer to 60-70 ft (18-21 m)
It’s completely blue but still shows good detail.
For snorkeling, I’d say this was a great camera! For diving, I’d want to experiment with red filters and see how this compares to other setups.
Akaso Brave 4 underwater videos
The Akaso Brave 4 4k underwater video showed similar characteristics with possibly better default colors.
Here’s one of our snorkeling videos of a nurse shark swimming in shallow water (10 ft / 3 m)
This was another snorkeling video showing a distant stingray swimming in around 30 ft (10 m) of water
Finally here’s a deep video of a spotted eagle ray swimming at about 60 ft (18 m)
It’s very blue but did pick up the white underside quite well. We were lucky to see spotted eagle rays 3 times on this single dive!
How to color correct underwater photos in GIMP
Even with diving mode enabled, photos generally came out with a green or blue hue. I was able to pretty easily color correct our snorkeling photos taken at about 15 ft (4.5 m) or shallower using GIMP. Deeper depths and longer-distance photos were not as successful.
Here’s what I did in GIMP. Clicking on Colors→Levels→Auto Input Levels gave great results in the majority of cases! For a few photos, I did that, clicked on “Edit these Settings as Curves”, and turned down the red channel a bit. Finally, tweaking Colors→Color Balance helped tone down greens on a few other photos.
These honestly came out significantly better than I imagined they could for snorkeling! With a bit of underwater photo editing, we got some great results!
I took some tips for underwater photo editing from this post and this post.
Underwater videos after correction
I used OpenShot and Kdenlive to color-correct the underwater video and got similarly good results. The workflow in OpenShot is nowhere near as smooth as GIMP but it was able to get the job done. I preferred Kdenlive’s more powerful interface.
Gamma shipwreck video
Here’s a video of the Gamma shipwreck in Grand Cayman showing depths up to 15ft (4.5m). The colors were pretty good overall here with ample natural lighting.
Summary of the Akaso Brave 4 underwater performance
Here’s what I thought overall
Akaso Brave 4 strengths
- Ease of use
- Wide angle gives a margin of error
- Good performance at snorkeling depths
- After some color correction, we got some excellent shots at snorkeling depths
- Videos were reasonably good
- 1 battery lasted for an entire day of snorkeling
- Camera comes with housing, straps, and all the mounts you could want
- Above water photos and videos came out great
- Great price
Akaso Brave 4 weaknesses
- Changing settings requires many clicks
- No RAW mode for photos. Only JPG is supported.
- The rear screen can be hard to see in certain light underwater
- Deeper photos and videos are very blue and weren’t correctable given what I know
- Some photos come out grainy
- Video stability could be improved
Wrapping up
So there’s my initial Akaso Brave 4 review. For an introductory underwater camera, I think the Akaso Brave 4 is perfectly serviceable. It’s a great fit for me. With a bit of underwater color correction, the snorkeling photography was great! At deeper depths, the camera did struggle with blue hues. The housing and handle performed well.
I imagine someone with more experience will find other things lacking. As I continue using the camera I’ll update this post.
I’ll continue using this camera for now and will likely consider a red filter for diving to see how that goes.
What snorkeling camera or diving camera are you using? Any snorkeling photography tips for our setup or on the best snorkeling camera you use? Let us know below!