MISSION 1 PRO

GoPro's answer to being outgunned on image quality. The sensor is a full inch, four times the area of the one in a HERO, and it shows in exactly the places a reef punishes a small sensor: the dark side of a wall, the shadow under a coral head, the blue an hour before sunset. Stabilization is still HyperSmooth, still the steadiest thing you can buy, now with a 360 degree horizon lock.

It is waterproof to 20 m (66 ft) on its own, and that figure is a pressure rating rather than an invitation. Red Sea water carries close to 40 g of salt per litre, evaporates hard and refills itself from nothing but the Indian Ocean, and salt in a seal or a button is what kills cameras here, not depth. The housing is a 60 dollar accessory and it is not optional.

What it is not is a macro camera. The lens is a fixed 14 mm equivalent at f/2.8, wide and fast, built for a diver in the frame and a wall behind them. For a nudibranch on a sea fan you still want the TG-7.

At 207 g (7.3 oz) it is also twice the weight of the action camera you are used to holding at arm's length, which matters more on the third dive of the day than on the first.