QYSEA FIFISH P3 Review

Since underwater drones became very popular, we decided to make our next review about it. So now, it is time for the QYSEA FIFISH P3 review.

The FIFISH P3 is an amazing ROV (Remotely operated underwater vehicle). And I find it as the best value of an underwater drone for your money.

Since the underwater world is very big, that brings to us every year with many new products, which are trying to help us scout it. And underwater drones are the first thing most of us can think of when needing to explore the amazing big blue sea.

But, if you want to buy yourself an underwater drone, you should consider many aspects before deciding which one will be the best pick for you. This is since underwater drones are not cheap and they have lots of differences between them. So, deciding on who will be the best choice is not an easy task.

Luckily, underwater drones are in some way like the flying quadcopters. They have many similarities in many things. And even controlling them is almost the same as flying a quadcopter. There is a variety of things that you need to check. Things like speed, cable length, number of thrusters, camera quality, movement ability and the list goes on and on.

To whom the FIFISH P3 is good for?

Before continuing to read our QYSEA FIFISH P3 review, I think it is important to know to whom this great underwater drone is best for.

First, it is for all those people who want to explore new underwater places.

It is perfect for boat owners, as they will find it very useful in many daily tasks, like doing inspections. Or even to check how well your anchor is set on a busy anchorage place, this way, instead of risking a diver, you can use the FIFISH P3 for it.

The FIFISH P3 is also excellent for people who would like to learn and research the behavior of specific sea area, or specific sea life. One battery life of the FIFISH P3 (4.5 hours) will give you enough time to explore and learn everything you will need every single day.

And last, the FIFISH P3 is great for an underwater cameraman who needs to provide excellent underwater footage, as the FIFISH P3 was designed to provide stable videos.

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – Simple facts

• The FIFISH P3 is nominated as the number one seller in several websites.
• It’s having a 5-star rating score among their customers.
• The FIFISH P3 is made by QYSEA – a very friendly company. I, personally, had several communications with them. They have always responded fast and their answers are very helpful and informative.
• It is currently trending for an affordable price of 2,499$.
• FIFISH P3 has a 4K camera and can go deep as 100 meters.
• It has 3 big and strong thrusters.

Before I begin…

I would like to say a few important things ahead. Today you can find many different underwater drones. Hence, it can be very confusing which one will be the best pick for you.

Sometimes the problem in choosing the right ROV lays on the normal specs that most of us know and think that we understand it. And I will explain what I mean.

When I looked over several underwater drones, I could see several specs that they were the same. Let’s look at the camera for example. Most of us know that it is very important to have a 4K. 4K is better than Full HD. And Full HD is better than HD. Well, that is true, but it won’t be right to say that 2 different ROVs will have the same camera quality since they both have a 4K camera. Do you want to know why? Because 4K means the size of each frame. And image size does not say anything about its quality, and it doesn’t say anything about it sharpness. It doesn’t say anything about lightning and also the picture stability.

For example, in our comparison between Spydro and GoFish Cam, the GoFish Cam has 30 frames per second when shooting in 4K, while Spydro has 25  frames per second. So, the picture should be smoother with GoFish, right? Well, I guess you know my question is about to be no. And, in reality, the Spydro provides a much better picture than GoFish Cam.

And the camera is only one side of the underwater drone, so you should keep in mind that comparing technical specs between one underwater drone to another not always will be enough. It is the combination of several specs that you will need to consider. This will help you understand which one is better for you.

And if you don’t know how to do it yourself… Well, therefore I am doing this QYSEA FIFISH P3 review, to help you and do it for you.

Let’s begin, shall we…

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – Camera Quality

As mentioned earlier, the FIFISH P3 underwater drone has a 4K camera. And as I just said, people take the features of the drone for granted and think that if they see a camera with 4K that means that it is the same for all other underwater drones with a 4K camera. Which make them think that they can fairly skip to the next feature in the list. Well, you now know that this is the wrong thing to do.

4K means the number of pixels that each frame will have. But it does not mean the quality of the frame. If that was the case, there was no difference between Canon, Sony or any other great camera.

It is not all about 4K

So, what makes FIFISH P3 have a great camera?

Well, it is the camera’ sensor. In short, the bigger the sensor the better it is. Bigger sensor means better quality because it is able to use more information to create an image with more details and better dynamic range. It also gives you better performance in low light conditions.

FIFISH P3 underwater drone has a 1-inch sensor. This provides the FIFISH P3 to record astonishing videos. It is by far the best camera compared to any other underwater drones.

But that is not all. The camera of the FIFISH P3 has also an autofocus feature. It works perfectly, and after a test of almost an hour, the FIFISH P3 auto adjusted the focus all along with the video, making sure whatever FIFISH P3 sees, it will be sharp.

Here is a short demonstration of the Auto-focus mode in the FIFISH P3:

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – Additional camera features

Did you think that that was it? Of course, not. The FIFISH P3 has more to offer. Another great feature is the auto white balance, that provides a better picture.

And another important feature of the camera is its aperture. The camera’ aperture is fast (2.8), which thanks to that, it is allowing the picture to be even sharper and have more light in situations where the scene is darker. And in case you will need to add some light, the FIFISH P3 is equipped with 2 strong led lights, each one having 2,000 lumens. And along with the 1-inch sensor, the FIFISH P3 is providing you with amazing low light capabilities.

Low light you said?

If you are not sure what low light means, I will explain. If you watch videos in dark scenes you will see all of that “graininess” in the video which makes the picture un-sharp. So, having good low light capabilities, that will assure that you will have a good picture even in darker scenes.

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – Taking pictures

Last note about the camera, is about taking stills pictures. Regular photos will be in amazing quality thanks to the 20MP camera sensor.

Note that you cannot take stills pictures if you are currently recording a video. So, in case you want to take some pictures, stop the recording, take your photos, and go back to video mode and continue recording.

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – Macro option

Another good feature that the FIFISH P3 has it’s the macro option. The macro option is very useful when you have something in front of you and you would like to get a sharper view of it, like corals or underwater marine life. This is regardless of the autofocus feature that the FIFISH P3 has.

Controlling the macro option is right from the mobile app, very easy and very intuitive.

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – Night vision

I mentioned earlier about the great lightning correction that the FIFISH P3 has. But, that won’t help you much during the night. So, for that, the FIFISH P3 is equipped with 2 strong led lights, each one is having 2000 lumens, and it will provide you with great lighting in a completely dark scene.

Just that you will know, the lights of the FIFISH are super bright. And when used it underwater, the fish were very attracted to it, so don’t think that the FIFISH will scare the fish out when the lights will be on.

So, let me summarize for you the camera specs of the FIFSH P3

• The camera captures videos in 4K.
• 20MP 1 inch CMOS sensor
• An ultra-wide field of view of 162°.
• A Fast 2.8 aperture
• Auto-focus, auto white-balance.
• Fixed focus, macro, and normal modes
• ISO sensitivity 100-12800, for lower-light environments
• It has eight lens elements in seven groups

As for you, if you are interested to buy an underwater drone, choosing the best camera is one of the most important features that you need to look at – after all, recording the underwater world is one of the main reasons you are buying it for.

And currently, the FIFISH P3 has the best camera compared to almost any other underwater drone I know. And if your final video is very important for you, you should highly consider the FIFISH P3.

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – Controlling & Moving the FIFISH P3

I will start with the fact that controlling the FIFISH P3 is very easy, using its’ intuitive joystick. You can control it up, down, left, right, forward and backward.

No Pitch

The pitch is not available with the FIFISH P3. Not having a pitch is a downside about this great underwater drone. Instead, you can take the drone up and down, in case you will need to change the shot’ angle. But one thing I have to say, since there is no pitch, this will be even hard to look pon objects that are on the ground. This is since the thrusters will stir all the sand in front of the drone, making the picture unclear. So when trying to follow an object on the ground you will need to kind of drag the drone. This is the only real downside about the FIFISH P3 that I could find.

By the way, controlling the pitch is not common with all the underwater drones. Maybe, this is a feature the companies should consider in the future. One thing for sure, QYSEA already considered it. I will get to it later on this review.

Here is a short video showing how the hard is to follow an object on the ground.

One important thing I would like to mention is about the left and right. The response from the joystick won’t be the same as you will use the up and down or forward or backward. The reason for that is to make sure your video won’t have sudden changes, and your video will be smoother.

AUTO mode

The last thing before wrapping the movement of the FIFISH P3 drone is the AUTO button on the remote controller. Clicking the AUTO button on the remote controller will make the FIFISH P3 buoyant over the water, and it will move according to the currents.

And after speaking about the controlling of the FIFISH P3, it’s time to speak about the remote controller itself.

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – FIFISH P3 Remote Control

The remote control is really well designed and feels comfortable when holding it. It has been ergonomically designed so it will fit perfectly on your hands.

The phone holder can hold any size of a smartphone you have or even a tablet. There is a button behind it, which, by pushing it, it enlarges its’ clamps, allowing you to place your phone.

Controlling the drone using its remote control is very easy and straight forward. If you were flying quadcopters before, you will find it very a like the same.

Holding up in currents

The FIFISH P3 can hold itself in some currents but when they will become stronger you will find it a bit difficult to maintain the FIFISH in its position. Which means you won’t be able to use the MACRO feature properly.

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – Tether

Another element of the FIFISH P3 is its tether. The tether is quite strong and it has a break force of 220LB (100 Kg). That’s why you could see in videos that people are pulling the FIFISH out of the water right from the tether cable.  And QYSEA even made the tether connected to the drone in a kind of an anchor way, so it will be easy for you to pull it from there.

Another, and a very important thing, is that the tether is made of natural buoyancy material. This will help the tether from entanglement during its movement.

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review  – 2.4 GHz WiFi signal

Communication between your smartphone (or tablet, whatever you choose) and the FIFISH P3, is done using the remote control. The remote control is connected with a tether directly to the drone. And the remote control is communicating with your smartphone using a 2.4GHz WiFi signal.

2.4 GHz means good news to all of those people who live in countries that are restricting the usage of the 5 GHz signals. Unfortunately, lots of drones and underwater drones are still using the 5.8 GHz in order to communicate. Even though not too many countries are restricting the 5.8Ghz signal, it is still important to see that some companies are making sure to use only the international 2.4GHz signal.

Additional features

• Compass – The compass of the FIFISH is very accurate, allowing the FIFISH to know its orientation while it is underwater. A very important feature.
• The mobile app is good for Android and iOS. It is extremely friendly and easy to use. Even beginners will find their way very fast to control the drone.
• The FIFISH is doing a great job at keeping its depth.

QYSEA FIFISH P3 review – Other Specs:

Maximum Depth: 328 feet / 100 m

Max Speed: 3 knots (5 feet per second / 1.5 m per second)

Connectivity: 328 feet / 100 m tether

ROV Battery life: 4.5 hours – Charging time is 3.5 hours.

Controller Battery life: 5 hours – Charging time is 3.5 hours.

Dimensions : 19.4 x 13.3 x 6.9″ / 49.2 x 33.7 x 17.4 cm

Weight: 12.9 lb / 5.9 kg

Conclusion

QYSEA made great improvements to their underwater drone in the past year. And the latest version of the FIFISH is extremely stable, reliable and strong.

It is, for sure, one of the best underwater drones I have seen. If you are a professional underwater cameraman you must have the FIFISH P3 in your bag. Especially now, since it is trending for a very affordable price of 2,499$.

However, if you are looking for an underwater drone to scout the sea floor, well my friend, the FIFISH P3 is not the right drone for you. At least not yet. QYSEA already announced on a new product which is the V6, which is about to be released to market in the third quarter of 2019. This model is expecting to have great new features related to the movement of the drone. And the camera will have the pitch feature as well.

I hope you enjoyed our QYSEA FIFISH P3 Review. Let me know what you think about it in the comments section below.

Till next time, tight lines and be safe.