How good are the videos from the Insta360 One R?
Today, I'll put it to the test using the 360 build
and 4K build in a variety of different shooting conditions.
The one-inch build isn't ready at the time
of making this video, but it will be in a few weeks.
So, I'll be sure to make a dedicated video
about the one-inch when I get it.
That sounded wrong, but whatever.
I've been traveling for the past few weeks
and I haven't had as much time to edit as I'd like,
but I've gotta say the speed I've been shooting
and editing cool looking videos with the One R
has been really impressive.
Take this shot, for example.
I literally pressed the record button,
walked in a straight line
through the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco,
and then stopped the recording after 30 seconds.
Then in Insta360 Studio, which is their free desktop app,
I was able to reframe and export this 360 video
at 4K with a high bit rate and nice looking colors
using the Color Plus feature in under 10 minutes.
That's quick.
And there are more cool shoots to come in this video.
It's still early days, but overall I've been really
impressed with what I've been able to do with the One R.
Okay, so this first shot looks pretty good.
The clarity is good, the sharpness is good.
There is one imperfection I'm noticing straight away,
and that's the red dot of doom on the right-hand side.
If I pause it there, what this is, is a lens flare,
and it's something that's pretty inevitable
when you're shooting 360.
The lenses are going to face the sun
and they're going to cause that red dot.
The camera has only been released a week at this point,
so they clearly need to spend a bit more time
getting rid of that red dot somehow.
They seem to have done it with other cameras,
so no doubt with the next few filmware updates,
they'll work on getting rid of this.
Aside from that, I'm actually quite happy
with this shot in bright sunlight.
It looks good, the colors look good.
I give it a pass.
Now the One R is supposed to have, quote unquote,
"next level flowstate stabilization."
So of course you know I had to put it to the test.
Here I am walking over some rocks and yeah it's good.
It's not that much better than the previous camera,
the One X, but that's okay
because it was really good already to begin with.
This is a massive advantage
of using a 360 camera, by the way.
It almost doesn't matter how much you shake the camera,
it's going to be really steady later on
once you edit the shot.
Now one of the big talking points of the One R
is the protective lenses, which go over
the normal lenses of the camera.
No doubt, this is a really good feature
and will keep your camera that extra bit safe.
However, will they actually work in your footage
without being seen?
Well, again, it's early days with the firmware
and from my only sample I've taken so far,
they're not working out great.
As you can see, there's a very obvious lens bubble there,
and this footage is unusable.
It is a big lens and the camera has a big body,
so they are going to need to work on the stitching algorithm
a bit more before you can use those with all of your shots.
Now speaking of stitching, here are some of my friends
who took the camera while I was going to the bathroom
and decided they would do a closeup stitching test
without me knowing, and here's the results.
Yeah, it's not good at close distance.
As you can see, their faces are getting cut in two
and this is with stitching optimization on.
Here I am in a restaurant doing another stitch test,
and my hand starts about a foot and a half away
and slowly moves closer and closer
until I'm touching the camera.
And my fingers seem to be getting shorter,
and now I'm turning into some kind of mutant.
And yeah, that's not good.
From all of my close range tests so far,
it seems the One R isn't going to stitch very well,
if any important items are within
one foot of the sides of the camera.
If you can keep the camera away from you, however,
like in this shot, you're not gonna notice anything.
Here I'm holding the One R on a selfie stick
about three feet in front of me
and I'm not noticing any stitching issues whatsoever.
This looks great.
So basically if you have some degree of control
over where you orient the stitch line with your footage,
you should be able to avoid getting
noticeable stitching errors with most shots you take.
Oh, and this footage is looking pretty sharp as well.
I edited and reframed this one in probably like 20 seconds.
Now here's a combination of a few things I just
talked about, stabilization, stitching, and sharpness.
And it's passing in all three categories here.
The camera is probably two feet in front of me
and now I'm raising it above my head on a selfie stick
and doing a digital zoom into the Golden Gate Bridge,
and that was pretty smooth and seamless.
And again, it took me 30 seconds to do this.
I found the dynamic range to be
really good with well-lit exteriors.
Here's my girlfriend and I walking across
the Golden Gate Bridge, and this looks pretty cool.
Aside from that red dot,
I'm not seeing too many imperfections here.
In the past I've had issues with the colors
coming out of Insta360 cameras, how they look
a little bit too flouro or overexaggerated.
Here, yes they are vibrant, but they're not over the top,
and they're not too flat either.
Look, they're not perfect, but they're the best I've seen
from a point and shoot Insta360 camera
straight out of the camera.
And again, I'm using the Color Plus option when I export.
It's time for a slow motion test, and the Insta360 One R
shoots 3K, 100 frames per second.
And this shot is looking pretty slow and smooth.
You could totally use this for 360 slow motion shots.
You just need to mindful that 3K really isn't very sharp,
especially in 2020 and beyond, and if you zoom in
even a little bit, you're going to see noticeable pixels.
So, if you don't need it to be this slow,
then it might be better shooting at 4K, 60 frames a second.
The camera does have a HDR video feature,
but it's still in it's early stages
and I'm not impressed with this shot at all.
Maybe I stopped it up somehow, but it just looks too flat
and that light looks really blotchy around the sun.
And these colors are banding quite a bit.
So to be honest with you I probably wouldn't
consider HDR video to be a strong selling point
of the camera at this stage.
They do recommend you only use a tripod
when using it, so if you do decide to use it,
you will want to experiment with it first
and see if you can get it to work.
Here I am at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, and every 15 minutes
they have an amazing water fountain show where
the water spouts shoot and light up in sync with the music.
No question, this was one of the most memorable things
I saw in Vegas.
And looking back at this footage, which was shot with
the One R handheld, and it's looking really good.
While I am seeing a little bit of noise,
I'm not seeing too much of it, and it's not taking
my attention away from what's going on here.
I can reframe and do a full 360 around the environment
and I'm still seeing sharpness, good colors,
and it's doing a really good job of capturing
that sense of atmosphere that is unique to Las Vegas.
Well that's my interpretation anyway,
because I don't drink or gamble.
I just go out making camera tests, so this is what I saw.
Overall for low light, I'd 100% give the One R a pass.
Next, I wanna take a look at the 4K build and test out
exactly how good the video is straight out of the camera.
Will this camera really be able to rival a GoPro,
or will it be a complete fail?
Well, here's my first shot.
And if you're watching this in full screen, you'll notice
it's pretty clear and the dynamic range is pretty darn good.
The light was really harsh and contrasting in this shot,
yet it picked up every detail of every shadow,
and every highlight.
Here I am back on the Golden Gate Bridge,
moving around a bit this time, and the stabilization
is almost as good as it was in 360 mode.
I'm really taking no care whatsoever with trying to
keep this camera steady, and it looks as if
I'm holding some kind of gimbal underneath.
So I definitely do see the 4K build as a genuine option
for shooting locked off 16 by nine video
if you want that 4K resolution in one direction.
Hello, testing one, two, three.
This is a sound test.
Can you hear me?
It's extremely loud right now on the Golden Gate Bridge.
So if you can hear me, I will be extremely impressed.
So these are the two cameras you'll get when you buy
the Twin Edition on the Insta360 website.
You'll have the ability
to do both 360 and regular 16 by nine 4K.
Would I personally use both of them?
Yeah, I probably would, although it's probably going to be
assembled as a 360 camera in like, 98% of situations.
One thing I forgot to mention in my previous video
is that the body, which is the module on the right,
can be used in both directions.
So if you want your screen to be front-facing,
you can do that, or it can be back-facing,
depending on the type of content you want to shoot.
While I'm not in love with the idea of using
a modular camera, I've gotta say I really like this feature.
Oh, and if it wasn't obvious by now, the One R
has a USB-C type connector,
which means the camera will charge a lot faster.
They say the battery lasts around an hour,
and from my use of it so far, I can say that's about right.
I was also hoping to show you guys the one-inch edition
in this video, however, it's just not ready,
so make sure you hit that subscribe button so you can
be the first to see my in-depth review of the one-inch model
as soon as it's ready in the next few weeks.
And the next video on my channel will be
part two of this one, where I'm going to
focus on photo phases and see how good of a result
I can get in many different types of lighting situations
with the Insta360 One R.
By the way, quick shout out to the mobile app,
it's really good.
I'd even say it's better than the Insta360 One X app,
and I can basically get all the reframed effects
I just got in this video in the app as well.
I just personally prefer using the computer workflow
because it allows me to export at 4K.
So I've got to give it to Insta.
They've got a pretty darn cool camera here.
Is it better than the One X?
Yeah, I'd say it's slightly better,
and it can do a few more things that the One X couldn't.
Should you upgrade from the One X?
Hmm, that's a good question.
And I'm gonna say, probably not.
It's not enough of an upgrade because it has
the exact same specs as the One X, and you're probably
itching for significant upgrade outside of
the cool features I talked about in the previous video.
I mean, don't let me stop you.
I'd say the video is probably 10 to 20% better than
the One X, but it's not an obvious upgrade at this point.
If you own another 360 camera that you know
is inferior to the One R,
then I think you would actually be a really good upgrade,
as well as if you're considering this
for your first 360 camera,
because it's pretty beginner friendly, easy to use,
and you can get great results straight away.
So if you have any questions or there's anything
you want me to test out, let me know in the comments.
Also, I'd be curious to know,
what do you think of the video from this camera?
Are you impressed and are you considering buying it?
You can find the link to the camera in the description.
And that's it, bye.