180 & 360 degree Photo and Video

Hey All,

Anyone here into taking 180 or 360 degree photo/video ? Would love to know what your opinion is on it.

For those who are into it, what equipment would you recommend for a beginner?

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I come and go on 360 photography. I have the GoPro Fusion and the new Ricoh Theta Z1 – both pretty expensive – and a rarely use either. Mostly I use them when I travel.

I think the problem is playing back the format. It’s very cool - but it’s just not as easy to share as a regular photograph.

Having said that I’ve packed the Z1 for my trip to the Middle East. I’ll try to post some videos here.

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It is true playing back the format is hard as only a few places such as youtube and facebook that supports such a format.

The Theta Z1 looks cool but it is indeed over my budget and i am thinking of actually taking more 180 photos and videos but i don’t see much options out there.

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As a format I think VR180 has more legs than 360 since it can be easily shared in 2D, you get 3D (not the case with 2-lens 360 cameras), and in VR I don’t think anyone (me - I’m lazy) really wants to crane their necks to look all the way behind.

Though as a technology 360 cameras that let you reframe, track, and stabilize a 2D video like the Insta360 ONE X are really interesting and will probably be more useful ultimately. Imagine a car shoot for ‘Hands-On Tech’ - with Just one camera in the middle of the dash, you’d have a wide 2-shot, 2 singles, and a forward ‘down-the-road’ angle. And for the car-on-car shooting, just throw the camera out the window on a selfie stick and worry about framing the other car after the fact. Been meaning to pick one up to play with.

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My thoughts exactly. I do believe VR180 would be much better as we have peripheral vision and yes i too do not want to crane my neck to see the back

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Here is the camera you need to pack for your trip. https://petapixel.com/2018/09/28/red-and-facebook-unveil-manifold-a-3d-and-360-vr-camera/

It seems like it’s such a niche medium. I have a test unit Vuze XR 360 camera. I dig it. It does a nice job, but I don’t think it’s made for beginners. Even the Insta360 EVO that I previously had. I think the devices are more for enthusiasts photographers/videographers. The editing down on mobile apps with these cameras are nice, but the desktop versions of the apps are lacking in tools beyond stitching the actual files. Premiere Pro does a nice job allowing you to do post processing with a stitched file, but at any rate it’s a lot of work for a 2 minute clip to be put together in a captivating way. I have a few 360 vids on my youtube channel. In some instances I made it full 360, other instances I just keyframed the point of view to what I wanted to show the viewers. And the pricing seems to discourage beginners, IMO.

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