In my last blog post, I dug into the photo capabilities of my new iPhone X - this week we'll look at the other new "mobile" photo solution I've got my hands on - the Insta 360 One - a GoPro sized 4K 360 camera that I got for Christmas. Now my primary reason for wanting it was to experiment with 360 video, which I have dabbled in a little since getting it, but not to enough of an extent to really talk on it. However, I have been using the still photo mode a lot recently. A couple weeks ago I took some 360's for the office and we'll look at a couple of them today, as well as one I shot as a test.
Now before we move forward in the world of 360 there's a couple of terms that are worth identifying to avoid confusion (If you want to skip the crash course in terminology, scroll down to the next picture):
"VR" - VR has become the catch-all term in the public (especially with publications that don't know what they're talking about) for any content that can be viewed by putting on a headset and looking around, and is starting to be used interchangeably with "360 video". VR is Virtual Reality - and without going into too much detail the only things that are truly "VR" are videogames - you can't "shoot" VR yet, though I did see some awesome prototype tech at NAB last year. Basically, the baseline between what you would call VR vs. 360 video is "can you look behind things?" If you can move around and look behind objects in the VR "room" then its VR, if you can't move through the space on your own, its 360 video. "360 video/stills" - this is what you can actually "shoot" with a camera. In its purest form a 360 camera has a truly spherical field of view and can record stills/video in any direction in a 360 degree sphere from the camera. there are some "360" cameras that cheat and only shoot 270 degrees or shoot 360 horizontally but ignore the "floor" and the "ceiling", but generally speaking 360 is 360 in any direction and these cameras usually have at least 2 lenses on them (one on the front and one on the back). "Monoscopic 360" vs "Stereoscopic 360" - this is referring to whether or not the 360 image has been captured in "3D". Much like 3D films, a Steroscopic 360 image has at least 2 lenses for each angle that it records offset for left or right eye, creating the depth that we're used to seeing in the real world. Of course "Monoscopic" would then refer to "flat" or "2D" images. Most cameras that we all use are "monoscopic" they have one lens and it captures a flat image. The other difference between Monoscopic and Stereoscopic is how you can view it. Stereoscopic 360 can't be viewed properly without a headset of some kind - regardless of if you're putting your phone in a google cardboard, or watching on an HTC Vive, you need a headset so that it can show your left and right eye the different sides of the image to create depth. Monoscopic 360 video and stills can be viewed just on your phone or computer like any other video, like when you look around with a 360 video from Facebook, you don't need anything special to view them. Of course when you watch monoscopic video on a headset, it still splits it left and right, but you won't get the depth the same way. The Insta360 One that I have is a Monoscopic 360 camera - it can shoot a flat sphere that you can look around, but the image doesn't have depth, so its slightly less immersive. They also make an Insta360 Pro which does record stereoscopic 360 and is just an awesome camera - I saw it at NAB last year:
Now that we've all learned a little something about 360 cameras, lets dig into what I shot a couple weeks ago:
I took this photo in the elevator lobby on our floor in One Greenway. It serves as an excellent example of how the camera handles the range of light in a "normal" indoor setting. Also, it gave me an opportunity to see just how well the images overlap from the two lenses because of how many hard lines there are in the image, if the two hemispheres don't line up just right, the lines won't line up perfectly.
The thing that was really cool about this picture, is that when the camera shot it and stitched the image, the lines in the ceiling didn't match. However, in Insta360 studio, (the free software that they've made to process the unedited camera files) there's an option to re-calibrate the stitching, and it would appear that when there's clearly defined lines (as there are in the above shot) the computer can get the two images lined up almost seamlessly - now it doesn't have a 100% success rate, but its a useful feature either way.
This image I shot just playing around with it while on a webcast shoot a few weeks back. It gives you a fun behind-the-scenes glimpse into what goes into a live-streamed show, but also shows off the range of the camera from highlights to shadows.
Its nothing amazing of course - it more or less appears to have the range of an iPhone 6's camera, but the fact that it stitches the full 360 so nicely (not quite as perfect because I had to hold the camera in this one!) in a situation with varying lighting is still impressive.
And finally, there's this picture I took in Studio B at TPC - unlike the other two, this one was shot RAW. The raw photo is saved as a .dng opens in photoshop like any other raw photo. It definitely adds range to the picture, however I did notice that you have to work with it a little more to get the colors where you expect them to be. In its own way it feels more like working with s-log footage than a true raw photo. I'm sure I could have gotten the image closer to "real" colors if I'd wanted to, but just playing around with it, this was close enough.
I took some other photos at TPC and you can expect to see them popping up on their social media channels in the coming weeks. However, the next time you see me posting about 360, I'll be talking about shooting a narrative video with the camera. If you follow my instagram and twitter, you saw that I finished a script the other day that I intend to shoot with this camera with the intent of really seeing how far I can push it. And of course to tell a fun story. No spoilers yet, but I'm really excited to dive into this one.
Anyway, that about wraps it up for this week's post.
As always, thank you for reading - if you have any ideas for something you'd like to see me address in the blog, such as some more insight into one of my past projects, or a my thoughts on a piece of gear you see me commenting on with my social media accounts, please let me know in the comments below. Of course, be sure to follow me on Twitter and Instagram: @tomameek to see behind the scenes glimpses of what I'm working on (especially when it doesn't justify a full blog post!) And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel - I plan on getting back into my vlog soon, I just keep putting it off because I haven't had the time or enegery - plus I've got some other fun little projects planned. Until next time. -Thomas |
AuthorThomas Meek is an independent filmmaker living and working in Houston, TX Archives
March 2021
Categories
All
|