Hello, I'm Martin Dorey and you're watching AdoramaTV.
Now, a little while ago I reviewed the Theta m15 360 degrees camera and I loved it.
And today I'm going to be reviewing this. The Theta S. I've been out and about taking
a few shots and making a few videos and you know what, I still like it. First
thing I noticed about this camera when I took it out of the box was that its black.
Unlike its predecessor which came in an array of fun colors this only comes in
black like a Model T Ford and as we know black is a serious color and should be
taken seriously. So does this camera mean business?
The Theta S is the same shape as the original but it's slightly heavier and
slightly thicker and to me that tells me there's more stuff inside which is quite
exciting. It's also got a completely different finish. It's got a rubberized
finish which makes it feel quite substantial like a decent SLR. I quite like that.
Does that mean it's better? Let's take a look.
OK, for a start, this camera has got double the internal storage at 8GB. It will
store 1600 images at full res as opposed to 1200 and a lower resolution
on the previous version. That's got to be worth something. It will also record video at
1920 by 1080 with a maximum storage of 65 minutes and 25 minutes being the
maximum length of a single shot. The battery has, so they say,
also been improved and will take approximately 260
shots as opposed to 200 with the previous version. The Theta S still uses two
fish eye lenses at F2
to take two images that it then knits together and then very cleverly, the software
as you'll see later, turns that into a 360 degree view of the world. It's still
as bonkers as it was before but the image quality is undoubtedly better and like
all gadgets and gizmos these days it's got every possible option imaginable. You
can shoot in ISO priority, you can shoot in shutter priority and you can also
shoot in manual mode as long as you use the app. Also, you can now shoot with the
shutter of as long as 60 seconds which is going to be amazing for night shots.
Oh, and it does live HD streaming too, which is going to be great if you want to use
Skype or perhaps for round the table meetings. You use it as if you would a
webcam. But the best way of controlling this camera is with the free Theta app.
Now I've already downloaded it to my smartphone and so it's time to go out
and about and grab some stuff .
OK, so here we are out and about. This is a great place
for taking the 360 with a camera like this, we've got lots of nice cover from
the canopy and this is quite interesting all around . So, as with the other camera, it's
very simple to use, basically. I switch it on, check that it's on stills mode and
press away. Now, this is in auto mode now so I don't actually have to do anything.
I can change it to video mode and then we're now shooting video. So, it should take video
of me walking through the woods which should be quite interesting,
we hope. It's quite a mad thing, this. And, of course, we'll manipulate that later.
And we've stopped filming but now the best way to get the most out of this camera is to use the app so
what I'm going to do is switch back to stills mode, switch on the wifi,
put it on the ground there, get into my phone, turn on the wifi. It's already
connected because I've paired it before.
Go to the Theta S app.
And then go into shooting mode. So, the great thing about the live preview is
that, actually, you've got total control over your exposure, your ISO.
The scene is really nice and dark.
And there's our image and there we are. That's quite exciting. So you know I really like it.
You have got total control. What we can do is we can change, quite easily,
the white balance, the ISO shutter speed, full manual. There's one thing to remember, actually,
which is that the way that the camera sees and splits the JPEG, it makes into a
long panorama, on this side, opposite the button, will appear in the middle of the
JPEG, so if you want to do selfies and you want to appear in the middle, I'm only saying,
make sure you use the button away from you.
So there's no point in not mucking around with this thing. In theory it's
going to take a picture of everything around, so if I want to be in the whole
picture, we've got to experiment a bit, surely. Let's see what we get.
Let's see what happens if I do this. I can lighten it up a bit because I know it's going to be dark
and there you are, that really is quite bizarre. Oh wow. God, that is amazing.
OK, now we've got some shots but there is one thing to be wary of and it's the
same with the m15 camera, as well as the Theta S, if you look at your shots on the
app before you transfer your shots to your PC
the quality will downgrade. Now, I don't know if there's a way back from this but
if you want your shots at the best possible quality and you want to
manipulate them later then I would recommend you download them to your PC
first and then look at them on the app. OK, so the possibility for looking at your images
is the same as it was with the Theta m15. You can look at them on your
app on your phone and you can also manipulate them in various apps on your
phone. You can also look at them as flat jpegs on your PC and you could also look
at them on the free Theta software and that's when you get the benefit of the
full 360 and the other thing you can do is you can upload them to the Theta
website and then you will get a URL and you can send that URL to anybody you
like on social media so they can go online and also manipulate them too.
You can also treat, select and muck about with your files on a Theta app. Now,
that's something I hadn't discovered before but it is very useful. It means that
you can crop part of the image, you can save part of the image, you can
treat it as if you would something on Instagram, something like that. Now that
is great for social media but the files are really small, so if you need
top-quality printing, for example, or web work, it may not may not be good enough but
it's progress and it's still useful. It's the same with video. You can watch two
spherical images side-by-side on your PC or you can watch on the app now that's
when you can really manipulate it at its best and as the video's running, you
can flick around and have a look around the room and have a look at
different things and zoom in, zoom out. It's really, it's just a bit too weird to be
honest and that's why it's a huge amount of fun. I love this camera because it can give me some
really wicked images. The next stage for me would be being able to manipulate
those images, choose sections of it, crop them, change the color, whatever and export it
at the same quality that it's been captured in. That's the next stage. Look,
but for now this is a really fun camera and it's definitely much better than the
last version. OK, that's all for now thanks for joining me on AdoramaTV
today. Don't forget to go to the Learning Center for more great hints and tips and
also please subscribe to AdoramaTV for more great videos and as usual please
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See you next time.
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