Going Diving? Best GoPro Settings, Tips, and Gear for Scuba Diving

In this post, you’ll learn 5 GoPro settings for diving. We also include gear, tips, and more to help you get the best underwater footage and photos while scuba diving.

While most of these apply to snorkeling, we also have a full guide to GoPro snorkeling.

I love to snorkel – and have had a blast filming animals with a GoPro.

But since I’m not a diver, I will lean on GoPro athlete Mark Healey. Mark is a big wave surfer, free diver, photographer, and part-time Hollywood stuntman.

In the following video, Mark will cover the following:

• Prepping Your Camera (The Night Before)
• GoPro Dive Filter Basics
• GoPro Dive Shooting Modes

Read more about how to use GoPro underwater.

5 GoPro Settings for Diving w/ Mark Healey

Learn more about your camera’s capability in our GoPro Waterproof Guide for all models.

Prepping Your GoPro Camera (The Night Before)

1. Make Sure The Lens is Clean Inside

A fingerprint or a piece of lint will ruin your dive footage. Take a minute and make sure your lens is clean and clear.

Don’t forget to check the lens glass on the dive housing too.

2. Add the Anti-Fog Inserts

These anti-fog inserts do as their name suggests: they prevent fog from forming inside the case.

When you add them, make sure they don’t affect the gasket seal. The case will leak if the insert gets between the door and the case.

Here’s why your GoPro fogs up.

3. Floaty or Floaty Backdoor

The flotation will give you a chance to find your camera if it comes off your mount in the water.

Older models use an adhesive backdoor floaty. New models use a little orange lifejacket, called a Floaty by GoPro.

The floaty will take the camera to the surface – bright orange (or yellow) side up. This is a good idea to use a floaty handle or a selfie stick.

For the newer model GoPros, you’ll want a floaty case. It slips over the camera, keeps it afloat, and still lets you view the screen and adjust settings.

4. GoPro Dive Filter Basics

Choose your Dive Filter: To get quality footage, you will want to use dive filters.

Because water naturally filters out color – especially reds and magentas – these need to be replaced with an add-on filter. Otherwise, your colors will look skewed.

Red is for blue water, and magenta is for green water. The filters just pop on and off. This Soonsun 3-pack gives you what you need.

You can either wait to mount the filter until you’re underwater (to prevent bubbles) or you can mount the filter, enter the water and quickly remove the filter to let all the air escape, and then pop it back on.

 Trapped air bubbles will ruin your photos. With the tether, you won’t have to worry about losing it.

Make sure you tether the filter so you won’t lose it if it comes off.

5. GoPro Diving Shooting Modes: 1440P at 30fps

Because you probably won’t need to slow down the motion from your underwater footage, Mark recommends shooting at 30 frames per second.

His favorite resolution is 1440P (1920 x 1440). This is basically the same as the standard 1080P resolution, except with a little more height.

This is a great video resolution for all point-of-view (POV) shots. Read more about GoPro settings.

If there is tons of natural light, then you might want to bump the resolution up to 2.7K. But make sure that you have the light to support it.

Want to shoot for slow motion? I recommend shooting in SuperView (either 1080 or 720). At 1080 SuperView you can shoot at 80 frames per second.

And at 720 SuperView you can shoot up to 120 fps – that means that you can slow the footage to render 4 seconds of video for every 1 second shot underwater.

Should you shoot in Protune? It really depends on how much editing you want to do after your dive. I’m a big fan of Protune but if you’re just getting started, don’t worry. The standard GoPro Color setting produces some great footage.

Want to use GoPro WiFi underwater? Here’s how.

Your Turn

What are your favorite GoPro settings for diving? What mounts and settings are you planning on using? Let me know in the comments!