Yes, I know, you want to find out which is a better RAW DNG 360 photo camera in 2020.
Ricoh Theta Z1 or the brand new Qoocam 8K?
This video will answer that question and teach you a full HDR workflow for professional virtual
tour photography from your Boi Hugh - the REAL professional.
Let's roll the cinematic trailer.
Hey, what's up, everybody.
It is your boi Hugh here from CreatorUp.
First, let's take a look at outdoor under the sun - the most common scenario - well
if you are in sunny California.
Winter here is still sunny and we don't really have weather.
From left to right, we have Ricoh Theta Z1 DNG ungraded, Qoocam 8K DNG ungraded, and
Qoocam 8K DNG8 ungraded.
They are all in ISO 100, Shutter Speed 1/2500.
Z1 is in aperture 2.1 and Qoocam 8K is 2.0 - so they are similar.
Let's quickly compare DNG8 and just regular DNG in Qoocam.
Let's zoom in my face to 200%.
You see the regular DNG is really noisy around the shadow area and also not as sharp as the
DNG8.
We know for sure, DNG 8 is always gonna be better than just DNG.
So if you own Qoocam 8K and you want to take pictures, use DNG 8, NOT DNG.
DNG 8 takes a longer time to process - but the quality increase as you see here, it is
well worth it.
So now, let's focus on comparing Theta Z1 and Qoocam 8K DNG8.
On close up, if you look at the chart, they are mostly the same.
Qoocam is a little bit more saturated - but in a good way.
The first big difference is the dynamic range.
As you see, the Theta Z1 is better in shadow.
You can see more in the celling right here.
Flip to the sunny side, you can see it better.
The highlight of 2 camera is exactly that same - but the Shadow Z1 is a lot better without
compression artifacts.
Zoom in 200% so you can see it better.
This is clearly the benefit of a larger sensor.
But the bigger issue is sharpness in distant objects.
Let me show you.
So the Qoocam take 8K photo - in theory, it should see better in distant objects than
Z1, which is 6K.
But it is not.
Look at this focus chart 6 feet away from the camera.
If you can not see it clearly, let's zoom in 300%.
Now, let's have an eye exam.
Put on your glasses.
You can clearly see at least 3 E on the Z1.
On the regular DNG of Qoocam 8K, you can only see the biggest E. On the DNG8 - the sharpness
is improved - like almost double.
But you can only see the second E, and it is very fuzzy.
You certainly can NOT see the third E.
So there you have it.
In normal sunlight, the Ricoh Theta Z1 is better.
Not by much, but it is better - no double it.
What about Virtual Tour?
Which one is a better Virtual Tour camera, especially for an indoor situation with very
complicated lighting?
Here we have a typical scenario - outside the windows is really bright but inside the
room is really dark.
We actually took HDR bracketed photos.
But to make things easier, let's just pick the middle picture in the selection.
Here in Z1, we pick the ISO 100, shutter speed in 1/640s in 2.1 aperture.
It is on the dark side, but the windows are not overly blow out.
Here is my processing.
I hit auto just to get a ballpark of my adjustment.
Then I up the exposure to 1.51 in lightroom classic.
We gonna go extreme here to save the highlights - so we drop it to 100% and lift the shadows
to 100%.
Pay attention to this crazy color noise.
B/c later on, I will show you why DNG 8 is better in this particular scenario.
I am just gonna do my standard thing here - texture, clarity and dehaze to 30 and Vibrance
to 40.
Don't forget to remove chromatic aberration - necessary step for all 360 camera.
That is - I am not going to add any of my personal settings here for comparison purposes.
Export in lightroom and pop up Ricoh Theta Z1 stitcher.
Here you can recalibrate to make a perfect stitch.
Something is def missing compared to Qoocam studio.
There is no camera just come out and has a perfect result - you need to make it better
in post-production.
Z1 is certainly not a consumer camera - same as Qoocam 8K, if you want to get a great result.
You use PTGui to stitch.
For those of you just expect to hit a button and have a perfect result - sorry to tell
you, that never happens.
If that is the case, it will put all of us professionals out of jobs.
Okay.
Now we are doing the same with Qoocam 8K DNG8 - we use Adobe Camera RAW just to show you
a different workflow - but it is exactly the same as Lightroom classic - you can use both.
So make sure you have the exact same processing as Z1.
But now you see when I pull down the highlights and raise up the shadow - it is a lot clearer
than Z1 - there is almost no color noise or no noise - which is crazy.
This is the power of Qoocam DNG 8 that none other cameras have.
Let's make the final comparison.
Left, we have Z1, and right we have Qoocam 8K after the exact same processing workflow.
Z1 is unusable b/c of the noise.
Qoocam 8K DNG does stand out this in scenario.
But, in the professional world, we always take HDR.
Here is the workflow on how to take HDR photos with Ricoh Theta Z1 mobile app.
Open the app and hit the gear icon, and choose multi bracketing mode.
You see I have 8 steps here.
- with different shutter speeds.
I can go in and adjust each individual shutter speed setting to have an even spread in exposures.
Then, I hit the capture button and try to stay absolutely still.
That is the one bad thing about HDR - there can not be any motion there.
So for outdoor low light situations - which I will show you next, this is impossible.
Finally, we take a look at Low Light shot with both cameras.
Here we are in Santa Monica Pier at night after 11pm - so
is really dark.
You see, the Ferris wheel in the distance is constantly spinning.
To capture the clear image of the Ferris wheel - we can not have a long exposure low light
photo - it is not going to work.
So here for the Z1, we decide to keep ISO 100 and shutter speed to 1/6s.
Same as the Qoocam 8K in DNG 8.
Here is the dark side of me.
As you see it is noisier in Z1 - look at my pants.
But Z1 does look clearer in distance objects - you can clearly read the text right here
but not so much in Qoocam 8K DNG 8.
In conclusion, I personally think Ricoh Theta Z1 is still better.
But Qoocam 8K is a great cheap alternative with an impressive result and easy to use
workflow.
What do you think?
Comment below.
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