marcum vs380 issue

I recently purchased a marcum vs380 and I finally got to use it yesterday. However, when I put the camera down the hole I couldn’t see a thing. I had two holes in the shack that were 2 feet apart, one for the camera and the other for my lx-5 and line/jig. When I would drop the camera to the 10 foot fishing depth I couldn’t see anything, I assumed I would see either the lake bottom or my jig. If i would pull the camera eye to the bottom of the hole I could see my transducer puck and my jig. If I pulled the camera out of the water I could see everything in my shack. I messed around with all the camera Settings and nothing seemed to help. O, and I tried two batteries and both gave me the same results.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Question 1) What body of water are you in? How dirty of water is it?

2) Did you turn on the 4 stage light?

How is the water clarity on the water you were fishing?

Did you try it with the lights on the highest setting?

It sounds like your camera is working fine but there is
minimal light penetration at 10 feet.

Yes, I did have the lights on and turned all the way up. The water is stained but in a dark shack I can see lake bottom in 5 feet of water.

are you sure the camera is still working under the water? you should see something as you start to lower down the hole.and watch as visibility gets less. I had a Marcum 500 for several years that developed the problem of only working above the water but would not work below, it would just quit sending any video to the screen. ended up being a unrepairable camera/cable problem.

I went out again on saturday afternoon and I was getting the same results. Im not going to rule out stained water as a cause but i know of other guys using cameras on the same lake I was fishing and they said that they work.

I will call marcum on monday and see what they have to say. Maybe I can find someone near where i live that has a VS380 and hook a different camera/cable to mine and do some troubleshooting that way.

I had the same exact issue last weekend on Lake Onalaska in about 11 ft of water. Camera works fine out of water but in the water no visual. Never had this issue last year. Camera is only a year old. When I first bought this camera had a similar problem but it had no picture; in or out of water. Took it back to were I bought it and tried a new camera and problem cured, until now.