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I'm looking for a true 360 degree camera, so that's both vertical and horizontal 360 degrees. I've seen some clip-ons for the iPhone, but am really not wanting to by an iPhone 4S for this.
What I would like to see: - decent resolution: at least 1920x1080. - and 30fps
I can't settle for an alternative that's not vertically 360 degrees (or at least much more than 180 degrees).
I've seen the ball camera, which isn't out yet, but would be really well suited for my case, given it does video as well.
And here comes another 360/180 product: RICOH THETA - spherical panoramic photos, short videos, wi-fi control
I can't settle for an alternative that's not vertically 360 degrees (or at least much more than 180 degrees).
A camera that shoots in every possible direction is said to have a field of view of 360 (horizontal) x 180 (vertical) degrees. Having more than that means you will be capturing some or all of the scene twice. Consider an imaginary arc that spans 180 degrees, from the top to the bottom. Now rotate this arc 360 degrees horizontally and you have covered the whole sphere.
What I would like to see: - decent resolution: at least 1920x1080. - and 30fps
For a 360 x 180 degree panorama the width will always be twice the height. Resolutions that make sense are 1920x960 or 2160x1080. You can't have exactly 1920x1080 unless you stretch, squeeze, crop or letterbox.
I've seen the ball camera, which isn't out yet, but would be really well suited for my case, given it does video as well.
If you refer to this product, then I don't see any mention that it records video. All it seems to do is take a single panorama when it reaches the highest altitude.
Another similar product is the Tamaggo 360-imager. It isn't out yet either, and while it captures 360 degrees horizontally the vertical range is less than 180 degrees. And it doesn't do video.
Yet another panoramic camera, the DIY Streetview Camera System, is a much better (and expensive) system than the other ones. Based on the example images on their site it shoots much better quality panoramas. It cannot do video, unfortunately. The fastest rate it can shoot at is one panorama every 3 seconds.
I think with time and patience one could build a DIY 360x180 video recording system. You would mount a bunch of small video cameras (maybe video enabled point & shoots or GoPros) to cover every possible direction with some amount of overlap. You want cameras that can be set to manual mode, since you want to get a consistent look from all of them. For syncing the cameras you could build some sort of controller that signals the cameras to start recording all at the same time, or else just start them manually and once all the cameras are running clap to get an audio cue that can help you sync the videos during post-processing.
To process the multiple video streams into a panoramic movie you first need to calibrate. For this you would take one set of images and build a panorama manually using, say, Hugin or Panorama Tools. Once you have a panorama project file that contains all the stitching parameters you can take the videos, break them into sequences of individual images using ffmpeg, run each set of images through the calibrated Panorama Tools project, and finally assemble a new movie with the stitched images using ffmpeg again.
Let me know if you make one of these ;-)
Yes, there are a number of true 360 degree cameras that can do 1080 HD/30fps out on the market at the moment.
With the advent of 360x180 content on Youtube and Facebook, there's been an explosion of 360 cameras (video and still) of late. Many of these are action cameras. Here are the cameras in the $350-$500 price range, that are listed in this June 2016 MacWorld article:
And I'd add:
There are a number of fisheye lenses that capture 180 degrees. You would have to, of course, rotate the camera and shoot at least two and probably 4 shots and then stitch them together.
There are commercial panoramic heads that will rotate the head for you, or you could hack up something with an Arduino, a servo, etc.
I think, IMHO, that its pretty crazy and I don't think the image will be as cool as you hope. but hey, this is art. go for it.
Remember, with the really wide fisheyes, you end up with your feet or the tripod in the image.
I found a couple of alternatives by searching google with 360 camera.
Maybe, Ricoh Theta S matches your requirement. It has all the features you asked for which includes - HD recording (up to 25 mins), 30fps, Wi-Fi capability.
Ricoh Theta S is the upgraded version of Ricoh Theta which was mentioned by szulat.
If you have a professional budget, you should look at the Lytro immerge
Just today on the hugin-ptx mailing list I saw someone promoting the http://www.geonaute360.com/, maybe that's what you intend. Not full 360x180, but very close to it.
There are setups available using multiple GoPro cameras. eg 6 cameras on the outside of a cube, to give 360° coverage.
GoPro make the Omni system. This uses 6 GoPro Hero4 Black cameras, on a cube. All of the cameras are synchronised, so will all record a picture at the same time. And they can all be controlled with a single remote. But is very expensive - $5000 for the full system, including the rig, with 6 cameras, software, and accessories. Or $1500 just for the rig.
Or there are a variety of cheaper rigs, for mounting multiple GoPro cameras. Some are cubes, or circles, or various other shapes, depends on what coverage you want. Some use up to 10 cameras, for even higher resolution. Though most these cheaper rigs are not synchronised, so would be more difficult to take a photo with all of them at once. Video footage could be synchronised with software afterwards, but it would be more work.
