360

Bolo

Contributing Partner
It's always fun for me to combine both of my passions, sailing and photography and so my latest YouTube video is all about my new 360 degree camera and a daysail. I've been a professional commercial (Not weddings, never!) photographer for over 40 years and so it's always great fun to find a new cool camera. Check it out!

 

Christian Williams

E381 - Los Angeles
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
My wife's new car has a 360 camera on the dashboard which presents the car as viewed (impossibly) from 20 feet directly overhead.

Stitches together the car's many safety cameras with some magic program. Really useful in tight parking situations.
 

Bolo

Contributing Partner
Amazing! The observation point seems to be remote - as tho the cam is taking images of itself.
That’s because it is taking images of itself and if you look carefully in some of the scenes you can see the camera mount clamped to the dodger but you can’t see the camera. It basically “stitches” the scene around it to eliminate the camera. Stitching was available on even some of the earliest digital cameras to merge landscape images together to make one wider image. You cell phone can probably do it. I used the process about ten years ago to stitch together three images of the Harrisburg PA capital area from a bridge to produce a single long image that was used as an interior mural except I used a Hasselblad camera. But stitching like the 360 software does in video form is amazing. One of my photographer friends who saw the video said that it was, “Indistinguishable from magic.”
 

Loren Beach

O34 - Portland, OR
Senior Moderator
Blogs Author
But stitching like the 360 software does in video form is amazing. One of my photographer friends who saw the video said that it was, “Indistinguishable from magic.”
Much like the prescient quote from Arthur C Clarke...! Oh so true.
 

jtsai

Member III
Bob, what is the camera mount like? Was the camera mounted vertically or horizontally? Did you use the Insta 360 editing software? I am very interested in purchasing a unit.
 

Bolo

Contributing Partner
Bob, what is the camera mount like? Was the camera mounted vertically or horizontally? Did you use the Insta 360 editing software? I am very interested in purchasing a unit.
I happen to have a camera mount for an iPhone on board. It consisted of an adjustable grip that you tighten up around the phone. This portion is tapped with a 1/4-20 thread that screws into a 1/4-20 stud that sticks out of an adjustable "claw" that grips the 1 inch SS tubing that is the frame for the dodger. I unscrewed the iPhone "gripper" part and screw on the Insta360 camera which has a 1/4-20 internal thread at one end of the camera. You could purchase something like this "Super Clamp" which I used many times as a full time working photographer or something like it.

The camera was mounted sticking out from the dodger but to be honest it doesn't matter which way it faces since it records practically anything around it now matter where the two lenses are facing. I say practically because it dose not record where it's connected...sort of. If you look at some the video that shows the dodger you'll see the clamp holding the camera but not the camera itself because it "stitches' that part out. Real Magic.

As for software, after you buy the camera ($500) you'll need to download the Insta360 Studio software which allows you to do many things but mostly to select what part of the 360 degree view you want to see and when. Then you can produce a video file after you make your adjustments. Besides Insta360, GoPro also offers the MAX 360 Action Camera which is a 360 degree video camera but after reviewing specs and reviews I thought that the Insta360 was better. Here's a video about the camera which I found on B&H photo.
 
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