I used the divevolk and love it but my biggest issue is moving the lens over the correct camera (iPhone 14pro with 3 cameras) when switching between macro and normal underwater. Any suggestions?
One thing forgot to mention is that Divevolk does not recommend to have a phone with screen protection. Therefore for most people, you would need to use a secondary phone to use the Divevolk instead of the primary phone since most people have a screen protection. This means more equipment to travel with.
Unbelievable that such a necessary video has so few views. For those who don’t live in the USA and have to pay high import costs, this critical review is vital. Thank you!!
Thank you so much for your kind words. 🙏🏻 Makes me very happy to hear that my video was beneficial to you. 😊 Feel free to spread the word by sharing it. 😉 Thanks.
I love my Divevolk housing with my Samsung S23 ultra. I can't wait until Kraken releases those intergrated floats for my pair of Kraken 10k lumen lights and i'll be SUPER HAPPY! 🙂
Hello Matthias, it seem that the DiveVolk Seatouch is to top pick for a mobile phone under water housing. I have review many of you comparative videos, non talk about the Kraken phone housing. Do you have any comment on that last one? Thank
The Kraken (or Weefine) housing is very similar to the SeaLife SportDiver housing with the exception, that the housing is made from aluminum and not polycarbonate. Other than that, it has pretty much the same benefits and drawbacks. I didn't include too many housings in this comparison for simplicity reasons. But yeah, the Divevolk Seatouch 4 Max is by far the best solution at the moment in my opinion. Purely due to the fact that you can use the smartphones touchscreen underwater. Absolutely unique and incredibly valuable.
@@MatthiasLebo It is a solid metal housing (up to 150m deep) with buttons (easy to use with drygloves). Because it is compatible with a lot of smartphones, I can easily change my phone. Thanks to an internal batterypack my phone stays charged during the dive. I can use the App from Easydive to take pictures, but I can use the build-in camera app of my phone or any 3-party app, too.
@@patrickmeiers641 how do you access the native camera app or third party apps through the housing? Don't you need to use Easydive's interface to operate your smartphone while inside the housing?
@@MatthiasLebo thanks to accessability there is a keyboard- and mouse-mode in iOS which allows me to control my iPhone outside of the Easydive-app by using the buttons of the housing. At the beginning it is a little bit tricky but after a while I got used to it. Like that I use the native camera app of my iPhone with all its functions. Espacially for macro-photography with dark black backgrounds.
I'm still on the fence of buying a Divevolk, I really like the fact that it doesn't have a vendor lock and i can use my native camera app / focus manually. But one giant flaw is that it is not compatible with a screen protector. I love my screen protector for extra peace of mind and I don't know if i want to throw that away for this housing, or buy and reapply a new screen protector after every dive day.
I fully understand your concerns. Have you considered using a protective case like this instead: bit.ly/3IpQ93m It is a combination of a protective case and a screen protector. I've been using this for awhile and am really happy with it. Whenever I put my smartphone in the Divevolk housing the screen protector comes off together with the case and as soon as I take it out of the housing I put the case back on and the screen is protected again. Works very well for me and eliminates the need to constantly buy new screen protectors.
Love all of your videos and they actually inspired me to get the dive volk. I use it with a Pixel 6 pro and it works great. I am interested to know what accessories you would recommend. I have the red and purple filter as well as the lens adapter and have recently added a light on the cold shoe mount. I noticed in a lot of your videos that you use what looks to be the 0.6x wide angle lens. I tried the macro lens originally and found that the performance was worse than with no lens at all so I returned it. Looking for your thoughts. Thanks!
Thank you for your kind words mate. Makes me very happy that you like my content and find it helpful. Good choice on the Divevolk system. 😉 Yes, I use their wide angle conversion lens (bit.ly/3axiUNd) a fair bit, especially when using the wide lens of my iPhone underwater. If I use the wide lens without the conversion lens, the distortion and corner softness is too strong for my taste, so I try to compensate a bit against that with the wide angle conversion lens. Not sure what the widest lens on your Pixel 6 Pro is, but if you notice corner softness and distortion, the wide angle conversion lens is a good choice to minimize it. You probably won't get rid of it completely, but the results are better than without it. Other than that I don't think you "need" anything else. It seems like you are pretty much set. But I do find their tripod (bit.ly/46pGtiO) very useful for acquiring rock steady close up shots. And remember, if you do want to get any extra accessories, you can use the code MATTHIASLEBO to get an extra 6% discount. 😉 Hope this helps? Cheers, Matthias
@@MatthiasLebo Awesome! Thank you for the prompt and detailed response and for sharing your thoughts on the Tripod. I do a lot of drift diving where I live (South Florida) so staying still for any amount of time can be a bit of a challenge, but for some of the calmer or inland diving, I will definitely look into it. As for now, I think my best course of action is to focus on increasing my experience with framing and possibly post-production which means getting out in the water. Thanks again and I look forward to your next video!
Okay, so I purchased the Oceanic+ housing before I saw the video. Before I started getting familiar with the housing, I watched your video. The comment you made regarding the inability to use the max resolution on my iPhone 15 pro max is false. Yes, it’s true you can’t directly interact with the camera app on the phone. However, if you set your phone up to take 4K video and set your pictures to the max resolution before you put your phone in the housing. The housing software will take pictures at 48 MP and 4K video. It will then process the photos through the app and upload into your phone camera roll. I completely understand the phone restrictions being a problem but if you have an iPhone. I’d recommend this housing 100%! So, unless your a professional underwater videographer and your just looking for something to take on vacations so you can take pics to share. The Oceanic+ is perfect. Fits in the hand perfectly and easy to use with one hand as well. All the buttons are on the right side.
Thanks for your feedback buddy. Happy to hear that you are satisfied with the Oceanic+ Dive Housing. Different tools for different divers I guess. I still prefer the ability to use my smartphones touchscreen while underwater and use any third party app, like the Black Magic Camera App to get better control of my camera setting during my dives. So the Divevolk Seatouch 4 Max is still my favorite choice and will probably stay there until someone else comes up with an even better technology to give us touchscreen access underwater. Regarding the resolution problem, it seems like they have done some software upgrades since I tested the housing, cos that was not possible on my initial testing. Glad to hear that they are improving on the Software part of things. That was absolutely necessary.
Depends on what you consider as being cheap. Keep in mind that the smartphone used inside the Divevolk housing is what's going to determine how good or bad your footage/photos turn out. With this in mind, I would go for a rather decent phone with a good camera than a cheap phone with a mediocre camera. But that's just me. 🤷🏻♂️
I used the divevolk over the winter in Turks and Caicos. Super awesome system. Moving the wet lenses over the correct camera was annoying and sometimes with the MACRO lens it was difficult to get the camera to switch to the macro mode. But the touch screen is dope and real easy.
@@MatthiasLebo anyway, thanks for your content about uw photo-videography. I bought a few weeks ago a new DiveVolk. And now I understand that it is the best box because it has no vendor-lock
Which underwater smartphone housing would you pick to capture your underwater adventures?
I used the divevolk and love it but my biggest issue is moving the lens over the correct camera (iPhone 14pro with 3 cameras) when switching between macro and normal underwater. Any suggestions?
One thing forgot to mention is that Divevolk does not recommend to have a phone with screen protection. Therefore for most people, you would need to use a secondary phone to use the Divevolk instead of the primary phone since most people have a screen protection. This means more equipment to travel with.
I bought the Sea Touch max 4
Unbelievable that such a necessary video has so few views. For those who don’t live in the USA and have to pay high import costs, this critical review is vital. Thank you!!
Thank you so much for your kind words. 🙏🏻 Makes me very happy to hear that my video was beneficial to you. 😊 Feel free to spread the word by sharing it. 😉 Thanks.
I love my Divevolk housing with my Samsung S23 ultra. I can't wait until Kraken releases those intergrated floats for my pair of Kraken 10k lumen lights and i'll be SUPER HAPPY! 🙂
Glad to hear that you're enjoying your Divevolk housing. 😊
Hello Matthias, it seem that the DiveVolk Seatouch is to top pick for a mobile phone under water housing. I have review many of you comparative videos, non talk about the Kraken phone housing. Do you have any comment on that last one? Thank
The Kraken (or Weefine) housing is very similar to the SeaLife SportDiver housing with the exception, that the housing is made from aluminum and not polycarbonate. Other than that, it has pretty much the same benefits and drawbacks. I didn't include too many housings in this comparison for simplicity reasons. But yeah, the Divevolk Seatouch 4 Max is by far the best solution at the moment in my opinion. Purely due to the fact that you can use the smartphones touchscreen underwater. Absolutely unique and incredibly valuable.
I still prefer my Easydive Leo3 Smart 😊
Interesting. What do you like so much about the Easydive Leo3 Smart?
@@MatthiasLebo It is a solid metal housing (up to 150m deep) with buttons (easy to use with drygloves). Because it is compatible with a lot of smartphones, I can easily change my phone. Thanks to an internal batterypack my phone stays charged during the dive. I can use the App from Easydive to take pictures, but I can use the build-in camera app of my phone or any 3-party app, too.
@@patrickmeiers641 how do you access the native camera app or third party apps through the housing? Don't you need to use Easydive's interface to operate your smartphone while inside the housing?
@@MatthiasLebo thanks to accessability there is a keyboard- and mouse-mode in iOS which allows me to control my iPhone outside of the Easydive-app by using the buttons of the housing. At the beginning it is a little bit tricky but after a while I got used to it. Like that I use the native camera app of my iPhone with all its functions. Espacially for macro-photography with dark black backgrounds.
@@MatthiasLebo th-cam.com/video/XkA7r5Jgs0w/w-d-xo.htmlsi=q584wooksnOSg-45
I'm still on the fence of buying a Divevolk, I really like the fact that it doesn't have a vendor lock and i can use my native camera app / focus manually. But one giant flaw is that it is not compatible with a screen protector. I love my screen protector for extra peace of mind and I don't know if i want to throw that away for this housing, or buy and reapply a new screen protector after every dive day.
I fully understand your concerns. Have you considered using a protective case like this instead: bit.ly/3IpQ93m
It is a combination of a protective case and a screen protector. I've been using this for awhile and am really happy with it. Whenever I put my smartphone in the Divevolk housing the screen protector comes off together with the case and as soon as I take it out of the housing I put the case back on and the screen is protected again. Works very well for me and eliminates the need to constantly buy new screen protectors.
Love all of your videos and they actually inspired me to get the dive volk. I use it with a Pixel 6 pro and it works great. I am interested to know what accessories you would recommend. I have the red and purple filter as well as the lens adapter and have recently added a light on the cold shoe mount. I noticed in a lot of your videos that you use what looks to be the 0.6x wide angle lens. I tried the macro lens originally and found that the performance was worse than with no lens at all so I returned it. Looking for your thoughts. Thanks!
Thank you for your kind words mate. Makes me very happy that you like my content and find it helpful. Good choice on the Divevolk system. 😉
Yes, I use their wide angle conversion lens (bit.ly/3axiUNd) a fair bit, especially when using the wide lens of my iPhone underwater. If I use the wide lens without the conversion lens, the distortion and corner softness is too strong for my taste, so I try to compensate a bit against that with the wide angle conversion lens.
Not sure what the widest lens on your Pixel 6 Pro is, but if you notice corner softness and distortion, the wide angle conversion lens is a good choice to minimize it. You probably won't get rid of it completely, but the results are better than without it.
Other than that I don't think you "need" anything else. It seems like you are pretty much set. But I do find their tripod (bit.ly/46pGtiO) very useful for acquiring rock steady close up shots.
And remember, if you do want to get any extra accessories, you can use the code MATTHIASLEBO to get an extra 6% discount. 😉
Hope this helps?
Cheers,
Matthias
@@MatthiasLebo Awesome! Thank you for the prompt and detailed response and for sharing your thoughts on the Tripod. I do a lot of drift diving where I live (South Florida) so staying still for any amount of time can be a bit of a challenge, but for some of the calmer or inland diving, I will definitely look into it. As for now, I think my best course of action is to focus on increasing my experience with framing and possibly post-production which means getting out in the water. Thanks again and I look forward to your next video!
Okay, so I purchased the Oceanic+ housing before I saw the video. Before I started getting familiar with the housing, I watched your video. The comment you made regarding the inability to use the max resolution on my iPhone 15 pro max is false. Yes, it’s true you can’t directly interact with the camera app on the phone. However, if you set your phone up to take 4K video and set your pictures to the max resolution before you put your phone in the housing. The housing software will take pictures at 48 MP and 4K video. It will then process the photos through the app and upload into your phone camera roll. I completely understand the phone restrictions being a problem but if you have an iPhone. I’d recommend this housing 100%! So, unless your a professional underwater videographer and your just looking for something to take on vacations so you can take pics to share. The Oceanic+ is perfect. Fits in the hand perfectly and easy to use with one hand as well. All the buttons are on the right side.
Thanks for your feedback buddy. Happy to hear that you are satisfied with the Oceanic+ Dive Housing. Different tools for different divers I guess. I still prefer the ability to use my smartphones touchscreen while underwater and use any third party app, like the Black Magic Camera App to get better control of my camera setting during my dives. So the Divevolk Seatouch 4 Max is still my favorite choice and will probably stay there until someone else comes up with an even better technology to give us touchscreen access underwater.
Regarding the resolution problem, it seems like they have done some software upgrades since I tested the housing, cos that was not possible on my initial testing. Glad to hear that they are improving on the Software part of things. That was absolutely necessary.
Which cheap phone you guys suggesting to pair with the divevolk case?
Depends on what you consider as being cheap. Keep in mind that the smartphone used inside the Divevolk housing is what's going to determine how good or bad your footage/photos turn out. With this in mind, I would go for a rather decent phone with a good camera than a cheap phone with a mediocre camera. But that's just me. 🤷🏻♂️
@@MatthiasLebo thanks for your reply based on your experience then which phone do you suggest?
Any of the more recent iPhone Pro models (13/14/15).
The touch membrane is fun and all till you dive in Canada and need 7mm gloves to dive mid summer
I guess it's difficult to work any small camera (buttons) when wearing 7mm gloves. Gotta go dive more in the tropics mate... 😉
@@MatthiasLebo lol. You’re not wrong. I miss diving in warm water
I used the divevolk over the winter in Turks and Caicos. Super awesome system. Moving the wet lenses over the correct camera was annoying and sometimes with the MACRO lens it was difficult to get the camera to switch to the macro mode. But the touch screen is dope and real easy.
Glad to hear you're enjoying your Divevolk system. Regarding the wet lenses, yeah that can be a bit tricky, but gets easier with some routine. 😊
I thought that the sponsor would be DiveVolk😂 but it turned out to be a neighbour of DiveVolk.
Can't really have one of the contenders sponsor a comparison video. 😉
@@MatthiasLebo anyway, thanks for your content about uw photo-videography. I bought a few weeks ago a new DiveVolk. And now I understand that it is the best box because it has no vendor-lock
I am from the Island, your videos really helps. You just earned a Sub.. Very impressive.. 😊❤
Thank you very much for your feedback mate. Really appreciate your support. 🙏🏻
@@MatthiasLebo You're welcome 🙏
Nice review, thx
You’re welcome buddy 👍🏻
229$ reasonable for a piece of plastic?!
I probably will not be surprised for the winner, but....
😂 You watch too many of my videos mate. 😉
🎉❤