Underwater Camera, Recon 5?

[bassin212]

I know there are numerous threads on here but wanted some personal experiences from all of you. I really want an underwater Camera and i'm almost completely sold on the Recon 5, however am I at a big disadvantage by not having a panning option? It blows my mind that to get a panning option i'd have to get the Recon 5 plus AND pay additional to add panning. I like the idea of the PanCam but would like a screen larger than my phone, I don't want to have to worry about keeping my phone warm/having to charge it all day, plus I don't want to be using LTE out there just to view a camera.

those of you who have a non panning camera. How hard is it to actually get the camera facing where you want it to? Especially in say 35-40 FOW.....I'm mainly going to be using this for scouting, but will use it every once in a while in the big Hub Shelter anchored down for some lakers and such.

[Seamonkey84]

Unless you have one of the devices that hold the wire for you, it’s almost impossible to get it to stay where you want. IMHO In most situations, a camera is at best a pain in the butt to use, and useless otherwise. If you haven’t read through the worst/best gear thread on the general board, I’d recomend checking it, as the most common worst purchase mentioned has been cameras. https://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=360450.0

[Fishtrekker]

I think many people have the expectation of underwater camera's being able to see through cloudy/dirty water and having some super ability to ALWAYS display a crystal clear picture in reality if you put a white jig in the water and can’t see it after 6″ of water no video camera will give you any better viewing. They can be a great tool to add to your arsenal and they can also be your worst purchase due to the lake clarity. In many cases I use camera's to scope out transitions, bottom comp. and weedlines. The only way I keep my camera down is if I have at least 5-6 feet of visibility. Nothing beats plucking finicky gills out with a camera. Even with the best sonar and rod's, I feel that it gives me the extra edge to detect and watch those bites happen in real time. 

[3300]

no panner needed for scouting, only for fishing with it because you need your hands. some make holders for theirs like a clamp or block of wood ect.

for me they are more of a hassle than they are worth. if your catching fish then there is no need for one unless you don't have a sonar and think this will work like one in which case they don't very well.
if i'm not catching fish i move, but if you can't or know they aren't going to bite then the camera comes out so you can find out what they are doing when you see them on sonar not biting. so the sonar lets you know if fish are there and if not move on and i don't take time to also set up a camera at each hole looking for fish. once fish are found with sonar, that's all i use to catch them and again, no need to also set up a camera for that. the hole i'm catching them in will slow to a complete stall so i move on and scout with sonar only.
cams are very limited vision also.

[ice dawg]

Some lakes around here I can look down the hole and see my minnow swimming 26' below. Others I have 6' visibility and others are so cloudy I can't see a foot with a camera.  A camera has been a big help with finicky fish in clear water.

[shawn30]

I think the Recon 5 works with the Marcum panner. It has a white plastic deal on the video cable that the panner uses to give you 360 view's. I haven't tried it yet, but figure on buying one for my Recon 5. If you have the spare money, they're fun and a useful tool with limitations.

[jethro]

A camera compass is cheap and worth it's weight in gold. You can even make one in about 15 seconds. Just take a lid to a bucket and cut a slot in it with a razor knife all the way to the edge. Run the cord through the slot and voila, camera compass. I can't tell you how many hours I've watched my buddies fumbling with the cord, wrapping it around all sorts of weird things to try and get it pointing in the right direction.

[ice dawg]

AquaVu  has an Ice Pod manual tripod panner. In order to use it with my AquaVu  Micro, I put a slit in a kid's rubber ball to hold the smaller cable. I also have a full size Marcum camera and AquaVu MoPod remote panner for use in my wheelhouse. The AquaVu Ice Pod costs about $10. 

[JIGGIN-]

For cameras the first thing you need to figure out is how clear the water is. If it is stained or cloudy or muddy, the camera won't do you any good. Go with a vexilar or fish finder instead.

Then do like Doctorgee says and go with the camera compass or make one or a marcum camera cable panning device.

Good luck!

[zwiggles]

Unless you have one of the devices that hold the wire for you, it’s almost impossible to get it to stay where you want. IMHO In most situations, a camera is at best a pain in the butt to use, and useless otherwise. If you haven’t read through the worst/best gear thread on the general board, I’d recomend checking it, as the most common worst purchase mentioned has been cameras. https://www.iceshanty.com/ice_fishing/index.php?topic=360450.0

I wanted a camera bad last year. I still kind of want one, but I think I’m going to go the way you went with the new Garmin equipment. Probably not this year, but I’m hopin I can pull the trigger next year on it. Who needs a camera when the finder works in real time...

[bassin212]

I already have a flasher, LX3 that i love and use every time I hit the ice. The camera wouldn't be used every second of every trip or even on every body of water. More so for scouting or seeing what's under my. on slow days see how the fish are biting. I plan on doing a lot of laker fishing so I feel like that tends to lean towards clearer water. By no means do I have the expectation of being able to see perfectly clear on every body of water. I mainly fish Winni, Squam, Champlain with hopes of making it to the CT Lakes this year.

I guess I don't mind skimping out on the panning idea as long as it's not a complete PITA to at least set the camera where i know i can set it an forget it. When scouting i can just twist the cable because once I find what I want I can just use the flasher and fish. But on the times I wanna set up and stay somewhere I don't wanna have to fix my cable all the time.

[HWeber]

I wish I had the panoptix due to water clarity. I get the most use out of my camera facing down at the bottom. Don't really have to mess around panning that way. When it's clear its great when its not its useless.  Those who put it as their worst purchase imo had unrealistic expectations

[Agronomist_at_IA]

I know there are numerous threads on here but wanted some personal experiences from all of you. I really want an underwater Camera and i'm almost completely sold on the Recon 5, however am I at a big disadvantage by not having a panning option? It blows my mind that to get a panning option i'd have to get the Recon 5 plus AND pay additional to add panning. I like the idea of the PanCam but would like a screen larger than my phone, I don't want to have to worry about keeping my phone warm/having to charge it all day, plus I don't want to be using LTE out there just to view a camera.

those of you who have a non panning camera. How hard is it to actually get the camera facing where you want it to? Especially in say 35-40 FOW.....I'm mainly going to be using this for scouting, but will use it every once in a while in the big Hub Shelter anchored down for some lakers and such.

I've used cameras since I started ice fishing. They work well if you know what to expect. Yes some lakes are terrible for water clarity, however once the lake is capped with ice water clarity usually gets better has the season goes on.

here are some tips.

Buy a camera that shows the direction on the screen your camera is pointing. Really helps to find your lures when setting up.

I have found ALL lights to be worthless for the most part, and once it is dark so is the camera.

You need something to hold your camera in place. The camera compass works really well and simple to use. The aqua view tripods and stuff are a fricking joke and suck. Yes there are holders from marcum that can pan your camera to look around, but need to be charged and work so-so. I found just manually turning the camera compass to be about the easiest.

[mowbizz]

I have two of the Marcum cameras with the panner units and I don’t feel they are a pain at all. After the holes are drilled it takes 5 minutes to set each camera (me and wifey) then we’re set for the day. So much fun being able to see what’s going on at the bottom. We fish the ultra clear Newfound lake but there was some silt flying around last season after heavy rains washed down the river. Still able to see fish at 35-40 FOW

[Gunflint]

Another thing you can do to increase visibility is to point your camera up at the ice below your lure. That helped me many times last winter. The lakes where I fish typically have clearer water but dark bottoms that can make it hard to see, especially on overcast days. Also, the less snow on the ice, the lighter things are. I never use the on-camera lights because the plankton in the water reflects the light and visibility actually goes down for me.

I made a cone from a piece of insulated foam from a sleeping mat- I place this over the AquaVu remote control panner holding the camera. This allows me to place the camera outside of my shelter for a broader field of view and still control it with no ice on the hole.

The whole experience is much more fun with the camera than without it. I catch more fish and have more fun doing it. Also, because I have a camera with the internal DVR, I can show my friends and family the best videos of the day when I return.

[bassin212]

I have two of the Marcum cameras with the panner units and I don’t feel they are a pain at all. After the holes are drilled it takes 5 minutes to set each camera (me and wifey) then we’re set for the day. So much fun being able to see what’s going on at the bottom. We fish the ultra clear Newfound lake but there was some silt flying around last season after heavy rains washed down the river. Still able to see fish at 35-40 FOW

Mowbizz, what kind of Camera's do you have?

[3300]

i see cams and the sonar most of us use should be outdated soon with panoptix style sonar with life like images for return signals showing shade and fish and structure. garmin started it and now lowrance is in it. most companies should adapt or be left behind.
it's much better than a line sonar draws for representation of a surface, but also shows it as images that are roughly drawn more like a long range camera.
i won't be buying any thing made today (sonar and camera) until panoptix style sonar is perfected and priced reasonably.

[mowbizz]

Mowbizz, what kind of Camera's do you have?

Marcum VS825SD x 2
Got them from AJ’s shop in Meredith

[kayl]

I look at a camera and panoptix as complimentary. Panoptix will show you fish, but you don't know what species they are without catching them. Drop a camera down to scout quick and you'll know.

[Gunflint]

i see cams and the sonar most of us use should be outdated soon with panoptix style sonar with life like images for return signals showing shade and fish and structure. garmin started it and now lowrance is in it. most companies should adapt or be left behind.
it's much better than a line sonar draws for representation of a surface, but also shows it as images that are roughly drawn more like a long range camera.
i won't be buying any thing made today (sonar and camera) until panoptix style sonar is perfected and priced reasonably.

I agree with you on your assessment of the new sonar (Garmin Livescope and Lowrance Livesight). They will fill much of the place that is currently filled by cameras.

The problem is that there is a patent issue as well and Humminbird has been left out of things. Ultimately, however, the price will come down and it will be the norm and not the exception.

The improvements are simply too amazing to ignore and will be obvious in the fish catch between those who have and those who have not.

[kayl]

Here are a couple of new videos that just came out.  Oddly, you do have a pretty good guess about which species of fish it was.  I did not understand the catfish one until I actually saw the fish.  I have see a few others that make it obvious that the fish was a bass.

Pike: 

Catfish:

I should have clarified; I meant the ps22 (non livescope) panoptix. I think livescope is too power hungry to be viable currently. I can't run it on mine anyways, so I'm not tempted. 😉

[zwiggles]

I should have clarified; I meant the ps22 (non livescope) panoptix. I think livescope is too power hungry to be viable currently. I can't run it on mine anyways, so I'm not tempted. 😉

Even with the ps22 you should be able to pretty much tell the species by the behavior. Even on modern tech a school of crappies loving through the water column vs a school of perch pinned to the bottom you can make a good guess. I would imagine that once you have some time on it you will be able to tell species (most of the time) with relative accuracy especially during ice season.

However, the two together would be rediculously entertaining. The camera biz should also be seeing a huge jump in tech soon. Once the current AV tech filters down from the corporate environment, high quality cameras with audio and video should be cheap money for fishermen. Pretty soon we will be dropping down camera mounted drones, and looking for the fish before we ever drill a hole to fish out of.

[Gunflint]

Yup.

[FishinDJ]

I have the Recon 5+ and getting the camera to face where I want is pretty tricky. I only use it for scouting but several times last season I dropped it down and had fish that I wanted to record but getting the camera to settle down and stop spinning by hand was a pain. Overall I've been impressed with the clarity of image and having on screen camera direction is a feature I would highly recommend. Being able to record video on the 5+ is another bonus. It was a tedious process but I did manage to get some clips of actually catching fish on it.

The biggest drawback to that camera for me is unspooling the damn camera cord to put down the hole. It takes forever and the 'spool' they give on the back of the unit isn't really practical when your winding/unwinding a wet cord in freezing temps. I remember seeing that some of the Aqua Vu cameras now come with a reel to wind and unwind the cable.

[kayl]

The biggest drawback to that camera for me is unspooling the damn camera cord to put down the hole. It takes forever and the 'spool' they give on the back of the unit isn't really practical when your winding/unwinding a wet cord in freezing temps. I remember seeing that some of the Aqua Vu cameras now come with a reel to wind and unwind the cable.

I was debating between the Recon 5+ and the Aqua Vu Micro Revolution Pro and went with the Aqua Vu for the reel feature and it has been great. I got it last spring and haven't used it on the ice yet, but the reel was fantastic when I used it on the boat and kayak this year.

[Gunflint]

I love mine. Here is a video from mine. It was deep.