Welcome to the outskirts of Joshua Tree, high up in the air! You’re watching this
in stunning 8K 360 video, shot entirely on the brand-new Insta360 X4. Feel free
to look around by panning your phone, or immerse yourself using the new YouTube VR
App at 8K resolution on devices like the Apple Vision Pro or Meta Quest 3. Today,
we’re diving into the world of 360 Photo Virtual Tours with the Insta360 X4. If you look down now,
you'll spot a beautiful desert house right beneath us. Let’s fly over there and meet our host.
Hey, today we are in this very nice Western Saloon in Joshua Tree,
California. We are going to do a virtual tour of this Saloon. The goal is to compare Insta360
X4 to X3, One RS 1”, Qoocam 3 with DNG8 and Ricoh Theta X and the King of virtual tour,
after almost 5 years, still the best Ricoh Theta Z1 with the Dual Fisheye Lens plugin.
Insta360 X4 now finally can do 72MP 8K 360 photo in HDR, while X3 can only do
18MP - which is way too low for Virtual Tour. The specs of X3 can not reach any bare minimum
of 360 virtual tour, even tho some other very unprofessional influencers advertise it can,
for their affiliates sells of course, which I think it is very unethical. I am one of those
professional against using 1-shot 360 camera for virtual tour. So you should not use any
of these camera. But in reality, speed and ease to use is important and I guess it. X4 actually
has in camera AI-powered Pure Shot in 72MP. So in this video, we will find out if this
good enough for direct upload to Zillow or other MLS website for quick and dirty virtual tour.
This is a 360 video, so look around to see the quality by panning your
phone. If you really want to see the full quality,
we do recommend watch this entire video using your Meta Quest 3 or better, Apple Vision Pro.
The helmet I am wearing here which I think it is the next revolution of virtual tour.
Okay, no more talk, let come on in this western Saloon and take some 360 photos together.
now we are inside look at this house is very nice but again it's very dramatic
lighting that's why having HDR is so important we have so many window out
out here outside is Mojave Desert is very bright right inside is you know just house
uh it's it's dark inside an environment so uh HDR is very important so now let's
take a look at the first photo from X4 see how look compared to others photos
We've taken our first photo using the Insta360 X4's regular photo mode, which captures images
at 72MP in pureshot jpg format. The exact resolution is displayed on your screen now,
which is roughly 12K. Keep in mind that if you're not watching this video in 8K,
YouTube's compression may affect the image quality slightly. However, the main goal of
this video isn't to test sharpness, but to give you a general feel of the image quality
in a virtual tour scenario. Go ahead and pause this video now to take a closer look around.
Now we have the Insta360 X3, also 72MP pureshot but processed in the Studio App. The quality
is similar to that of X4, which is expected as they have the same image sensor and resolution.
If you download both of these 12K 360 photos from my Patreon, and look very closely,
you should see X4 does has more details and looks slightly better than X3.
Here we have One RS 1" 360. Even the resolution is smaller, 21MP in 6.5K,
the photo seems to have more details than X3 and X4. It just feel more high quality thanks to its
bigger image sensor. I think it is better looking than X3 and X4, what do you think? Comment below!
Next, we have Qoocam 3 in DNG 8 edited in Adobe Lightroom. DNG8 requires post-photo editing,
as it is a RAW file. I mean, this is literally dropping in Lightroom, hitting the auto button,
and slapping on my virtual tour preset and done. Like 5 minutes of extra work,
and the quality is so much better. It feels higher quality and less digital like X3, X4,
or even One RS 1". This is also the smallest resolution - in 5.5K. So to show you,
resolution means nothing in Virtual Tour photography.
All of these results look bad and blow out when you turn
around and look at the windows. Indoor Virtual Tours require HDR photography,
there is really no way around it. Lucky, all Insta360 cameras have this feature.
Here is X4 in 72MP HDR in-camera process. No post-processing is needed, and you can
upload this directly to Zillow or any other MLS virtual tour platform, even Matterport.
If you did not turn around, you should now. Look at the outside windows,
now you see there is an entire world out there. Before, the outside windows were just white.
Here is X3 HDR, well it looks really bad. Because it is only
6K 18MP. Unlike X4, it also requires post-processing in
Studio or a Mobile app. So I really won't recommand using X3 for virtual tour.
Here is One RS 1-INCH 360. It is obviously better looking than X3 and X4 HDR,
not in terms of resolution but in terms of dynamic range. This is also 6.5K 21MP,
lower resolution than X4 HDR. Again, resolution means nothing here. One RS
1-INCH 360 looks sharper and clearer than X4 HDR. It does has stitching problem tho,
as you notice in the Lap here. You can easily fix that with Photoshop GenAI.
All Insta360 HDR photos look kinda strange tho in the highlight. Look at the outside
windows again. It has that strange blue tint HDR artifact that just does not look right.
Here is the Ricoh Theta X HDR. Like the Insta360 X4, Theta X can also do in-camera stitching and
HDR merging. But the result is worse than X4 in my opinion. Especially in the stitch line area.
Okay, finally we have Theta Z1 HDR using the Dual Fisheye Plugin. Wow, the King is still
the King. Theta Z1 is so much better than all the results we saw before it. Theta Z1
has 1-inch sensor and, a lot bigger lens than all the other cameras, and a far better optic.
Theta Z1 HDR also produces RAW DNG files that require editing. However, editing is very
easy if you follow my in-depth tutorial here. Please do support me by giving this tutorial
more love. Many people have copied this original tutorial since it was released three years ago,
even putting their version behind a paywall and never crediting where they learned it from. Only
you guys know the source of knowledge. So support your boy Hugh by subscribing,
giving us likes, and dropping us a thank you comment below.
Here are more results of Insta360 X4 HDR vs. Theta Z1 HDR. The reason why Insta360 HDR
looks so unnatural is partially because of the way the camera takes HDR photos.
Insta360 is an action camera brand. It requires taking photos super fast, including HDR. So,
when you handheld taking an HDR photo with an invisible selfie stick, it will not have motion
blur - as the camera shutter is so fast, which is a very good thing and by design!
If you load all the individual photos taken by X3 or One RS 1-INCH 360 HDR into
Adobe Lightroom and look at the EXIF data. You see in higher EV brackets,
the ISO is higher. It jumps from 100 to 400. Increasing ISO increases noise and unwanted
artifacts. Thank to community members Sam Rohn, and Rui HerrPedro for pointing this out.
This problem also leads to unwanted banding in the sky in X4 HDR, as you
see here above the Arch Rock in Joshua Tree. Here is another comparison between Insta360 X4
HDR and Pureshot. So I recommend that you DO NOT use X4 HDR outdoors. Just to avoid
the banding artifacts. You do not really gain any dynamic range advantage outdoor.
Theta Z1 HDR uses the lowest ISO and true shutter bracketing. It is a professional photo camera,
as for the price. It is still the most expensive 1-shot 360 camera that can only really do 360
photo. So you do pay what you get. You also notice this big stitching
problem here on your left. Here is what it is supposed to look like in Insta360 X4 HDR. It
is pretty strong winds out in the backyard, and the strings here were moving slowly. So,
the HDR merging never matches exactly in the Theta Z1 result.
This will also happen in moving trees and any outdoor situation with movement. So,
Insta360 X4 HDR does have its advantages, with a faster shutter and changing ISO capture.
I think one thing is actually very important is besid 360 photo you need a actual camera
to capture 360 video in today's world video is more important than photo so
8K video is actually a value add to your client especially webXR on Apple Vision
Pro now can support 8K 360 video so a lot of the Virtual Tour software is actually
supporting web latest web XR so it's 8K 360 video so your agent can walk around show people's
houses you know look all around show them nice couches right here nice couches uh nice places
all around with a very immersive tour and I think this a better way to show house anyway just boring
just in photo again photo is necessary for like you know upload on Virtual Tour software but I
think this is one of the advantage to invest into a camera like this is the ability to
capture both really high quality to see photo and to see video all the way up to 8K
At the time of recording, there is no DNG option for Insta360 X4 - so it is
not really a professional camera for 360 photographers. I am sure
they will release an update to fix that tho, consider even X3 has DNG options.
I provided all the 360 photos in this video free for download; the link is in the description. In
conclusion, X4 is definitely better than X3 in virtual tours. But it is not as good as Insta360
One RS 1-INCH. And def no match to Theta Z1 - a 4-year old camera. If you never want to
touch Adobe Lightroom or Photoshop, or even a computer. Then X4 is the best you can get in any
1-shot 360 camera with internal AI processing, as you see in this video. If you know photo editing,
then Insta360 One RS 1", Qoocam 3, or Theta Z1 are better choices. For 360 video, well,
none of them can match Insta360 X4. And our next video - which 360 camera to buy for 360
videos will tell you all about it in immersive 360 format. If you are new here, don't forget
to subscribe to support us. There are not many honest reviewers out there in the 360 category,
unfortuntely. So, support us by sharing and liking this video. Kimchi and I will see you next time.