Best Freediving Camera of 2023 To Capture Your Freediving Adventures!

Armed with the best freediving camera, you’ll be able to capture amazing freediving experiences forever.

As a freediver, you have a rare privilege of not being burdened with big clunky scuba tanks and other noisy diving equipment that scares fish off during dives.

This makes it very easy to ‘blend in’ to the rest of the marine world and get a full, up-close and personal view of the underwater world in it’s natural state…without the disruption of machinery or startled fish dashing away when first seeing you.

And as you can probably guess – this puts freedivers in an incredibly rare position to do some amazing, jaw-dropping underwater photography.

To date, the best freediving cameras I recommend for underwater photography & filming are the GoPro Hero series.

I recommend investing in the GoPro Hero 10 Black Edition. It can be used hands-free, is small and light-weight (no drag while finning) and has incredible picture/film quality Click here to view the price on Amazon.

Why the GoPro Hero 10 is the best freediving camera

• Incredibly High Definition Camera: The GoPro Hero 10 comes with a 5.3K Video + 23MP Photos making it the best ‘bang-for-your-buck’ freediving camera on the market. Your jaw will drop when you see how such high definition footage can be created from such a small contraption.

• Hydrodynamic Structure: As a freediver, you don’t want to deal with all the drag that comes from carrying a big, clunky, expensive camera around. Big camera’s are not user friendly and massively slow you down in the water.The GoPro Hero 10 is small, sleek and built for speed. Using a GoPro underwater, you are highly mobile and can easily dart through the water and film your target scene instantly.

• Video Stabilizer: The GoPro Hero 10 comes with an inbuilt video/camera stabilizer that predicts your movements and automatically corrects camera angles. This means you can relax and enjoy your dive, while the stabilizer does all the tricky filming for you.

• Usable With One Hand: Investing in a hand-held GoPro Pole makes underwater photo-snapping a breeze.

Hand-held GoPro poles are compatible with any GoPro (even Series 10) and make high-quality up-close shots of marine life much easier. In addition, hand-held poles are also very useful for filming things in hidden spots with difficult angles (eg between rocks and coral), meaning you get rare, once-of-a-life-time shots.

Hand-held GoPros can make it easier to film rare, hard-to-reach scenic spots.

• All Accessories Included: Comes with rechargable batteries, USB Cable, casing, small screwdriver – this really saves time as you don’t have to run around and buy a whole bunch of cables & devices etc.

However, I will recommend to invest in a water-proof casing for your GoPro if you’re freediving with it. I recommend the case every freediver uses (196ft(60m) depth limit & compatible with GoPro Hero 10) which is the casing here.

And as an optional investment, you may want to grab a hard-padded GoPro case to protect your camera equipment during travel. I recommend this best selling camera suit case here.

Overall, the GoPro Hero 10 is really the best freediving camera for 99% freedivers out there.

The only exception to this is if you’re a professional underwater photographer, in which case you’ll need to invest in a heavy-duty camera and probably won’t be able to freedive while using it (too heavy/clunky).

And by the way…there are other waterproof cameras out there that you could use for freediving…

But why risk going with some unknown brand name that no other freedivers have really ever heard of?

Sure it could be cheaper…but that’s because they are typically lower quality and less durable. I’d rather invest ~$370 on a high-quality, proven freediving GoPro that will last an entire freediving career…

As opposed to spending money on a cheaper camera that needs to get replaced every 1.5 years (which funnily enough is more expensive long-term!) 😉

GoPro is a highly reputable camera used by almost every freediver, to me it’s a no-brainer investment.

Click here to check the price of the GoPro Hero 10 on Amazon.

What about freediving with a hands-free camera?

If you want to use a camera while freediving but don’t want one arm to be stuck holding a camera/GoPro pole…

(maybe you’re holding a torch or feel it’s unsafe not having both hands free)…

Then your best bet is still the GoPro Hero 7. However, ditch the mountable camera pole and instead invest in a mask with a GoPro mount.

All you do is simply screw the camera securely on to the top of the mask.

When complete, you have a 100% hands-free camera experience while freediving.

It’s pretty amazing having your GoPro mounted on your mask, because you automatically film anything as long as you look in the direction of it.

It’s so much more convenient – not to mention much safer & relaxing having your hands completely free when freediving.

For a good, high-quality mask with an adjustable GoPro mount, I recommend the Octomask.

Reasons why the Octomask is best for hands-free freediving

• Built in GoPro support & works with all GoPro models (even the most recent – version 10).

• Ultra soft silicone skirt: makes it a more flexible mask to match almost any facial shape.

• Very easy to mount your camera on: Comes with a thumbscrew so you can easily mount your GoPro in seconds.

• Durable: The thumbscrew is made of aluminium, so it won’t break or rust (you won’t have to worry about your camera detaching and dropping to the bottom of the ocean during your dives!).

• Low-volume freediving mask: Although it has the mountable GoPro feature, the Octomask is still a freediving mask with low volume. This means your mask requires very little air to equalize, so there’s more air left in your lungs for deeper dives.

Note: it does say “Scuba Diving” in the product title description on the Amazon page. Ignore this. To get the freediving Octomask, all you have to do is go to under the product title & price and under where it says ‘Color’…

And select one of the two last masks. You’ll notice the last two masks look different than the first three.

The first three are Octomask SCUBA masks. The last two are FREEDIVING masks.

Once you click the freediving mask, you should see that above the ‘Color’ title again, it will now say

“X – Freediver – {Black/Clear}”. (Also, it will look like a freediving mask – less volume and smaller lenses).

Click here to have a look at the Octomask on Amazon.

Final thoughts…

Two last things to consider:

1) If you’re going to be filming all your underwater adventures, you’ll need high-quality video editing software.

I recommend investing in VEGAS video editing software. It’s pretty straight forward to use, is affordable and there’s tons of Youtube tutorials & walk-throughs to help you out if you get stuck.

Oh and lastly…

2) If you’re serious about filming and you want to get full birds-eye-view shots of the ocean and landscape surrounding your dives, you can always invest in a camera drone like this one here.