- Cool!
Laundry, power..
Toiletries, gym supplements
Selfie stick, selfie stick, tripod,
camera gear, more camera gear.
Camera bag,
all the goodies in it.
Ha ha
Starting with the cheesy popcorn.
Drone, drone accessories.
More 360 cameras and camera accessories.
Theta Z1
Laptop, iPad.
And I've already dropped popcorn under the seat cushion.
How good is, wait a second.
I can't believe I'm actually here.
I wanted to visit this place my entire life.
Since I was a young boy,
I've wanted to set foot in this country.
Ooh and I've been to one more country since my last video
which was shot in Qatar and that was Ireland.
I spoke at the IVRPA conference in Belfast.
I spoke about social media and personal branding.
That went well and when you're traveling,
it's a good time to reflect on stuff
and I've had some good reflections going on in here
that I wanted to share
and the big thing I've been reflecting on is 360,
the state of affairs you might call it.
Where we're at and where 360 is going.
It's funny because over the years,
so many people have called 360 a gimmick, a fad,
a phase that is going to die out but it kind of hasn't
and not only is it alive but
it's growing bigger and bigger and bigger.
But with that said, you may have noticed
I don't really post any 360 videos on my channel,
what's up with that?
Well I'm going to be honest,
the reason I don't post 360 videos
is because they get low engagement.
People don't actually like watching
a long form 360 video on YouTube
and believe me, I have tried it.
Over the years, I've posted a few 360 videos,
the numbers have been really low
and I believe that's because YouTube is a long form platform
and 360 videos are much better suited to short form content
and not posting 10, 20, 30 minutes of 360 video,
it's just too much.
It becomes physically uncomfortable
watching a 360 video for that long.
Having to look around the entire time,
just constantly left, right, up, down
and don't get me wrong, it is possible
to create engaging 360 videos on YouTube.
I even made a video course about this.
It teaches 360 video in depth
and how to really harness that short attention span
but the key is, it needs to be super interesting
the whole time and you can't do that in a longer format.
Like you really need to think it out
and understand what your viewer is going to do
and that's good, there is a time and a place
for viewing 360 videos as 360
and I think the best one personally is in a headset,
in an Oculus Go, Oculus Rift,
Oculus Quest is the latest one but in a headset,
you get the fully immersive experience
of actually being there because
it blocks out your surroundings and you look around
as if you're looking through your own eyes.
On a phone though, it's not really the same experience.
Without a doubt, a VR headset is the best way
to immerse yourself in 360 content
but it's kind of cumbersome.
It's big, it's a little bit annoying, it's not ideal.
It feels like this is the step in between other steps
and the final step is probably going to be
viewing 360 fully immersively without needing a headset
and then when we go to a museum, we'll see the Oculus Go
and the Oculus Quest and we'll look at them and laugh
hahaha I used to have one of those.
However I'd say this isn't strictly where 360 is going.
With the introduction of 5.7k all in one 360 cameras,
we're now able to reframe and get a proper perspective
with an adequate amount of resolution
which kind of means 360 cameras are moving
into the action camera territory
and not only are they action cameras
but they're doing a lot of things much better
than action cameras have ever done.
I feel like we've been in the experimental phases
of 360 video for so long and now with widespread adoption,
we're realizing that 360 cameras are better reframed
as a normal flat 16:9 video
with the advantage of having so many extra cool things.
I spent this past week in Dublin
and I got some really cool shots
with my One X like this
And this
Whenever something gives value, it sticks
and 360 gives value because
it solves a genuine problem of never missing the shot.
All you need to do basically is turn your camera on
and press the record button
and you're capturing everything at once.
You can choose from 100 different angles later on
and if you're not happy with the first or the second,
you can try a third or a fourth.
It could work better, it could work worse
but you've got that option, nothing is locked in.
It helps us get awesome shots that just wouldn't be possible
with traditional action cameras
or any kind of camera for that matter
and the first reason for that is the stabilization.
Never until now have we had stabilization
so amazing from an action camera.
Because this is a 360 camera
and it has a lens on either side,
it's capturing everything at once
and due to advanced stabilization algorithms,
the camera is able to compensate for any kind of movement
because it's seeing everything.
So if it moves like this,
it's always capturing a 360 degree field of view.
Meaning the software basically moves up
to where up should be,
down to where down should, left and right and so on.
I used to work as a videographer.
I shot with a Canon 6D DSLR
and a lot of my shots were handheld.
I thought I had really steady arms
and now when I look back at my footage from years ago,
I'm like dude that is so shaky.
How can you even publish that,
I'm feeling sick just looking at it
but now that's only because I'm used to
such amazing stabilization that
anything less just isn't good enough.
So 360 cameras solve the problem of firstly
not needing extremely steady hands or needing a gimbal.
You don't need a gimbal for your camera anymore
because 360 cameras with six axis stabilization
like this one, there are a whole bunch of others,
they solve that problem because they stabilize for you.
Another massive advantage is
360 cameras are really portable.
So when you're out shooting in public places
where DSLRs or video cameras wouldn't be allowed,
you can just pretend you're a tourist
that doesn't speak English with your GoPro
trying to get a good selfie
but really, you're getting awesome 5.7k video that you're then
going to reframe as the most the amazing shot ever.
Also fits in your pocket.
They're also a game changer with workflow
You can now do almost everything you need to do
to reframe your 360 video on your phone.
Who has time for lengthy post production
when you can get an awesome shot like this
in 30 seconds, that took me literally 30 seconds
to edit on my iPhone just now.
I mean you can't do everything yet
but you can do a lot of things on your phone.
All these things make the video production process faster
and better and who doesn't want those two things.
I gotta get my mind out of the gutter.
I mean look, there will always be a place for professional
level photography and video equipment, no question
because every time consumer level cameras get upgraded
so do professional level cameras
but 360 helps us get a wider variety of overall shots
meaning you never miss the angle, you never miss the moment.
As long as your camera is rolling, you've got it,
assuming you've charged the camera
and your memory card hasn't run out
and that's it, you've got amazing b roll shots
and when resolution goes up even further,
maybe to 8k and beyond,
you'll be able to use 360 cameras
as your main camera in a lot of situations.
And look, even I still use other cameras.
Right now, I'm filming this on my Sony A7R II.
I love my DSLR, it helps me get high end YouTube videos
which I just couldn't do with a 360 camera right now.
It also helps me get a shallow depth of field
but I have found on my travels so far,
I've been using my 360 cameras more and more
to get myself more coverage.
To be honest with you, this is the first time I've used
my Sony A7R II in two weeks of being away from home
because my phone has been doing a good amount of my video
but also my 360 cameras have done
the majority of my video shots
and when you're traveling,
you don't always want the hassle of setting up
a bulky DSLR and lenses and tripods and accessories.
So anyway, that's what's on my mind right now.
I think reframed 360 videos is going to be a massive part
of point and shoot video production from this point on.
Anytime you think GoPro or DJI Osmo
or any kind of action camera,
you're going to be thinking of 360 cameras very soon.
I'm already thinking it now.
I would say there is an exception to the whole 360 isn't
really engaging thing and that is with 360 photography.
One of my big goals for being in Europe over the next month
is capturing a whole bunch of really cool immersive
360 photos that I then post to Facebook and elsewhere
and I've noticed so far,
they've been getting crazy good engagement.
There's just something psychologically about a photo
as opposed to a video because I guess
the viewer has their own time to look around it,
it's not going to change shots, there's no sound,
they're usually higher resolution and have better exposure
so they're more pleasurable to look at in 360 mode
and of course, they'll always be fun as tiny planets.
If you want to see some of my 360 sample photos,
check out my Facebook page just there.
I'm on the best country on planet Earth for 360s right now.
I know I'm going to get amazing shots over the next week.
Oh wait, did I actually tell you where I am?
Come here.
Welcome to Iceland.
I've wanted to visit this country my entire life.
Words just can't describe how excited I am right now.
So yeah, that's all from Mr Ben for now.
Hey, where do you stand on the reframing versus 360 debate.
Let me know down there.
It's bedtime, it's almost midnight right now.
Yes the sun's still out,
that's just how it works in this part of the world.
So with that, I bid you goodnight.