Intova Sport Pro / Sport HD - First Tests

Описание: Demo footage shot with my new Intova Sport Pro. 720HD; camera has one higher resolution level. Especially see also:    • Tahiti ~ Moorea ~ Bora Bora ~ Touch Your Soul  

This camera is a lot of fun. I like the super wide angle, the ease of operation, the durability, and the features. No diving yet; will post more later.

This is a portable, rugged sports video camera. It is not very suitable for home movies or vlogging, nor is it a great still camera - though it can perform those functions in a pinch.

I'm using a Class 4 32GB card which looks to hold about 8 hours of 720p video. I'm settling on this resolution for most of my work. The 1080 looks quite good too, though some of my PCs don't play it back well. This is a consumer camera, not a pro, so the optical quality is not like my Nikon. For what it is, it's quite good though. The wide angle hides a lot of sins. Some digital artifacts akin to posterization in dim areas of a scene with a wide range of lighting - par for low light situations I think. Auto exposure seems to work well and adjust well - I'm playing mostly with the Center mode (there is also Average and Spot, or something like that.)

The viewscreen is small but crisp. Audio playback is muffled by casing. Moreover, audio reception is muffled, and my audio contains a faint pulsing sound that almost sounds mechanical - not something I can remove adequately with software (and I'm very good at audio restoration.) Will play with other resolutions and see if this persists. You should not expect to get hi-fi audio from a consumer U/W camera, and for my purposes, the audio is adequate. When people are talking, it picks it up okay, but drops off quickly with distance. You won't get much if people are across a room, say. So this isn't for home movies - it's for outdoor dynamic shots and underwater videography. UW audio is good, since sound conducts better there - you can hear the bubbles, for example.

I like a couple of the extra features such as burst mode photography, and time lapse. I like the TV out port. Cable included is flimsy but works - 3 connections, 2 for audio, 1 for video. The charge port is a standard, and cable provided has USB at the other end. I would have liked a wall charger too, but have some of those around anyway.

The electronic manual is adequate, perhaps better than average for this type of thing. It would be better if it included explanations of the various modes however. It only tells how to set them, but little or nothing about why you might choose them. Menu navigation is easy; I grew accustomed to the buttons quickly.

The lens and back window came with a clear protector sheet on them which I removed. Later put a better one on the back since it was starting to get scratched. I recommend this - I can only imagine how scuffed it will get when used in the surf and such, which would eventually make it hard to see the image on the viewscreen. In bright sun the screen can be hard to see, especially due to the reflectivity of the casing. And don't forget to lubricate the seal - mine came prelubricated, but it doesn't come with silicon. Buy some at a dive store and keep it with the camera!

I boosted the saturation by using the Vivid mode. It's a bit oversaturated, but I will play with that during editing. I found that without it, the saturation felt a little soft. Most sample videos you see for sports cameras are oversaturated - that seems to be the style of extreme excitement!

In the pool the camera performed flawlessly. No leakage, no fogging in 70 degree water. Buttons work fine. Most water streams off when emerging, so video looks good bobbing up and down. Exposure compensation is reasonably quick in this application. I haven't tried an extreme close up yet, but will do that - the camera focuses very close but does not do macro.

So far, battery life looks good. It drained after a couple hours, as advertised.

Adressing a couple comments from others. Someone complained that opening the casing will take off your fingernails. No, if you look carefully at the manual and packaging insert, there is a little curved lever to the latch that pops the back open - no problem. It's quite clever actually. About the buttons being very stiff. Mine seem to have loosened a bit, and I don't generally have a problem. Sometimes I use both thumbs with nails together, which makes it easier. The button sleeve has a groove from top to bottom so that your nails will easily depress the buttons. (Long nails would be a problem here.)

Some scuba footage (pool) at:    • Discover Scuba at Fairfax Country Club - I...