Marcum RC5P Recon 5 Plus Underwater Camera Viewing System

Overall this is a good little unit. It's a nice manageable size, it's lightweight, and the picture quality is reasonable. However, there are some really puzzling design choices that were made. First, the rubber flap that hides and protects the usb charging port and the SD card is mostly covered up by the camera cable spooled on the back. The carrying case has a flap on the back that is secured with velcro. I think perhaps it was intended to be used to unspool camera cable, however there's no way to access the cable from the opening, it's too small. You have to take the unit out of the case to unspool the cable. It's like there were three designers: one for the main unit, one for the cable bracket on the back, and one for the pouch, and none of the three designers talked to each other or tested the assembled product in the field with actual users. The recorded video on the SD card is distorted. The system's native video resolution is 16:9, however the AVI files stored on the card are 27:9. A bluegill or sunfish is stretched and shaped more like a pickerel. Support will advise you to use a program on your computer to correct this. The battery life is reasonable but I find it will not hold up for a whole day of fishing. I would have sacrificed some of the light weight to have a heftier battery, or would have preferred a coaxial DC power jack to power the unit from 12 VDC when needed.

Have been using this all winter ice spear fishing. Picture is hard to get used to but once you do it is a great setup. I dropped my phone in the lake and was able to retrieve it with help from this lil gem

It works well. Overall I like it but I have a few complaints. It is annoying that it records in .avi format. Combining the video with GoPro footage is a headache. It is also a challenge to unwind the cable with the camera in the case. Finally the charger Input is in an awkward place but that is minor compared to my other complaints.

Used it a couple times and worked good. The downside is the glare. Any sun out on the boat will make reading this quite difficult. Can see down ~15 feet with no problem (didn't go any deeper).

It is a bit hard to see in bright sunlight. We haven't had very clear water either.

Super handy, very good little unit. Long battery life. Easily 6 hours on a full charge. Clarity I was surprised by, even in murky brown water of MN. This unit in the water I fish seems to work best with no led or ir lights on. But i would think it would work even better in clear water with those options on. The directional view and depth is a must have for finding structure and your jig.

Not happy with how hard it is to plug charging cord and micro card.

I love this unit, I can easily see whats below so I can use the flasher/sonar and the camera for dual threat. The ability to see how the fish react to the lure and the jigging action is a huge help as well. What's the most fun is being able to record some live action of hooking the fish! I wouldn't say this is a "must have" but if you're like me you can never buy too much stuff. Very very neat to use ice fishing.To answer some questions I am not sure about using this to scope or view drain lines, I would probably just recommend using this for fishing/ice fishing etc etc. You could easily use it for under water inspection of a dock or boat hull, but I would keep this strictly marine use.

Resolution is quoted as 800x480 on their website, but that's not what you get. The Camera is 720x240. This means the image you see on the screen and any video/photos you record are less than 1/4 the resolution of the screen, and will be squashed vertically.Spoke to their technical support, and they told me the camera resolution they don't specify and is deliberately left off the specifications because it's low. Was also told that many have complained about it. There will be no firmware upgrade and no fix, it's the hardware.Additionally because every photo/video will be squashed vertically, you'll have to resize it to double the vertical resolution before it's usable.When IR light is on the lowest setting, banding occurs on the screen.