It’s almost a year ago that HDR function was released in a firmware update for Insta360 One X.
It’s a cool feature but maybe not a well-known feature, and maybe it’s not so clear when and how we can use it.
So let’s take a look at it!
Okay guys, it’s not as horrible as it seems at first sight.
But now, let me tell you the most important things and my own experiences about shooting in HDR mode.
If you are following my channel from a while
you could have seen a lot of 360 and overcapture videos shot with One X.
And in many cases I was playing around with HDR mode, because it can extremely boost dynamic range
and affect the quality of the video .
Just take a look at these scenes.
There’s such a huge difference between them.
Look at the details on the sky and look at the trees in the shadows.
It’s the same day, the same location, the same camera, and these shots look very different.
That’s because the Insta360 One X captures a true multiexposure HDR Video.
It means that it takes two exposures for each frame.
So it’s not only a trick playing around with tone curves to make it look better.
It’s really a whole different video mode.
And since Mic from 360 Rumors had shared his experiences with moving shots I was testing it, too.
So besides shooting with normal manual exposure
in many cases I also recorded HDR videos on the same spots.
It became obvious that when I put the camera on a tripod, HDR video mode works perfectly.
Outdoors it makes the Sun and the clouds look really nice,
while all the buildings and objects are perfectly exposed.
Although it leads to a little bit washed out look, this image is perfect for post-production.
It preserves so many details both in shadows and highlights.
If you are interested about how it looks like after color grading,
check out the full length 360 video in the right top corner.
But when we should shoot in HDR mode?
Well, I believe, using HDR mode is the best way to preserve highlights in high contrast situations,
like during daylight, or in a soft-cloudy day, when the sky can be easily blown out,
or even during shooting sunrise or sunset.
I’ve found that these situations are the best, when HDR mode shines.
But we can also play around shooting in sunny rooms, avoiding really low-light situations.
But what about moving shots?
Well, in most of the cases they also look very well,
although Insta360 created this pop-up warning in the app,
saying that it’s still recommended only in static scenes .
But I’ve found that HDR videos are so much better than normal exposures
that I started to play around with them in various situations.
If you check out my GTA style video tutorial, you can see my HDR shots with a moving pole behind me.
Actually I was taking a lot of shots, and some of them were unusable in that project,
because the pole was too long or my steps were too shaky and the camera was moving so much.
But in the end, technically, they were fine in terms of stitching and stabilization.
In another shooting day, I was riding my bike with the same setup.
Riding a bike was less shaky for the camera than walking.
As you can see, there are small tailswings and bumps during the road,
but in most of the cases it looks really pretty.
But sometimes weird things happen.
And here comes the main problem with HDR mode.
As you could see it‘s fine in a lot of moving and even in really shaky scenes,
but actually it seems unpredictable whether it works or not.
It’s okay, when we are shooting tons of similar footages and then we pick up some of them.
But it’s a little bit annoying when it seems like we’ve got the perfect shot,
and then it turns out that it’s unusable because of these HDR issues.
During my camera tests I was switching between normal and HDR mode,
and watching the results, it’s quite unpredictable whether HDR video works in moving scenes or not .
It was the same camera, same SD card, the same road and the same mounting setup,
but somehow while one shot is fine, the other is not.
Another issue is that live preview doesn’t work in HDR mode,
so we cannot see the result in real time.
Of course, we can check it out right after shooting, but it’s a little bit time-consuming in certain cases.
So what can we do to get the best result during HDR shooting?
I started a discussion in a Facebook group about it, and my suspicion was confirmed by other users, too.
So it seems like, a lot depends on how we start recording our moving HDR shots.
We need to start recording with a still camera, before we start moving.
In these cases I pressed record on the go,
and in some cases the camera was swinging or shaking quite heavily in the very first moment,
and it affected these records.
So after all, if we want to minimize the risk of HDR video fails with One X,
the best thing we can do is to be a little bit more conscious about starting recording.
And then we can take the advantage of this really powerful video mode.
If you have further experiences with HDR recording, please leave a comment below,
and if you like this video, please thumbs up, and for further 360 contents and tutorials,
subscribe to my YouTube channel.
See you next time!