multi-brand consumer

[blmeanie]

So after getting the fever for a 360 camera and doing some reviews for how/what I want it for, I ended up complementing my GoPro 7 black with an Insta360 x2 camera. Time will tell if I made a good choice over the 360 Max or not.

As I said, it will complement my 7 black, not replace. None of the 360 cameras today have the ability IMO to replace the action camera that works only on that aspect.

The transaction wasn't easy though as I have been a loyal GoPro consumer for many years now. I do wonder how many GoPro enthusiasts have ventured to adjacent brands for "complementary" products?

Once I take delivery and get into it I will post some video here, unless that is frowned upon of course...

 

[Jatekman]

Sounds interesting, agree that the 360 will help but not replace the normal cam, thought also a while about it.
Most thing I don't like is the strong distortion of the 360 and the difference to the normal cam.
Well I am exited and hopeful that you make some arguments for the idea to use both system and wait for your results.

Ciao Rob

 

[blmeanie]

yeah, I am excited, I see how addictive it is, honestly , there are plenty of features that are gimmicky. I will provide some clips here as a way of sharing my opinion on the platform, I do think the brands are comparable, honestly one of the main reasons i ventured away from gopro was lots of complaints about battery shut downs while filming and the form factor (bit clunkier). I am going to write a reminder and put it on the wall near where I edit, "360 is complementary - not dominant"

 

[Jatekman]

I can imagine to do some shots in or at the car while driving as a narrative element of a vid to show location change.
What are the possibilities in post for reframing and which editor can be used? Magix Pro?

Ciao Rob

 

[blmeanie]

from what I have seen on youtube and read online, editing is possible in the big packages such as Premiere Pro. I don't have any of the big editors but interestingly the app that comes with the camera has an editor to take the raw footage and get it to an exportable (out of proprietary) format to import in anything with the reframing done in the app. I just now did see some youtube videos on editing in Magix pro specifically.

The biggest hangup in videos I have seen so far is that the video quality goes through a compression sequence in the exporting as mp4 out. I am no pro so not sure I will have the same complaint but time will tell.

Received the camera yesterday, charged it up and look forward to trying it out this weekend.

 

[blmeanie]

here are three quick edits, my first time playing with the app:

quality drops a little bit each time you save/export, as a supplemental camera going to have some fun with this

 

[Jatekman]

The third clip looks interesting, that's what I imagine when mounted in/on car, maybe you have time to make a little test inside a car while driving.

Why this strange format and is this max resolution, on YouTube only 480?

Ciao Rob

 

[blmeanie]

on the third, no, youtube has never processed 1080, keeps saying it is processing

I mistakenly must have hit the format that it ended up. Learning the app and likely just accidentally clicked wrong. I will probably reedit it and will change format and try to get HD processed

 

[blmeanie]

had a moment this morning to rework it and upload, should be better

 

[Jatekman]

Yeah, looks great and fascinating - how do you hold/is the cam mounted and why it's not visible?

Ciao Rob

 

[blmeanie]

Yeah, looks great and fascinating - how do you hold/is the cam mounted and why it's not visible?

Ciao Rob

so the beauty of the 360 camera (all of them I believe) is that the fov for each of the two lenses is greater than 180 degrees so there is overlap and software removes the selfie stick as long as the stick and mounts are not wider than the camera itself. So in this clip, I have the camera on the selfie stick extended about 5 feet out in front of me the entire time...again beauty of this tech, I never changed angle or facing of the lenses. In the part where I am in the video, the black spot on the pouch of my hoodie is where I am holding the selfie stick and where the software couldn't figure out how to deal with it. Hope that all makes sense, doing all the camera pointing in post is pretty cool, others in videos have made statements like " you never have to wonder if you caught the shot or if you pointed it in right direction, no more cutting part of your head off etc"

 

[Jatekman]

Thank you very much for your explanation, wondering how it would look if the cam is mounted in a car, maybe with a suction cup on the front/side window.
Going sometimes on a track with the car and till now using two cams for front and back view, would be interesting how looks with a 360 - wil search on YouTube for examples.

Ciao Rob

 

[blmeanie]

check this guy out, he does reviews and other product stuff. Some of the mounts he shows are very interesting and might be good on cars