This is the KANDAO QOOCAM and in this
video I'm going to tell you everything I know about it so far. This is the longest
360 camera I've ever seen, look how big that is, and it's made of metal, it's very
solid, and it's kind of heavy, but not too heavy. We have two lenses on the front,
and one on the back. There's a button there which is on/off, and turning on
Wi-Fi, and on this side, we have another button which is for taking photos and
videos. On the bottom there's a standard 1/4 inch tripod thread and you'll notice
it's not in the middle, it's on the side, this is so they can fit more battery
into this thing. The Qoocam has a battery about this big making it one of the
biggest batteries on any 360 camera. On the side we have a microphone, a micro SD
tray, and a micro USB slot which is actually super hard to open, I don't have
nails and I'm always at war with this thing. Ok that took
me about 10 seconds to open it and I scratch it a little bit, but you can wipe
that off. I'm thinking of ripping this rubber thing off, because it's just a
major pain. And now, for the final and perhaps the coolest design feature, the
Qoocam flips into a 180 camera. 180 essentially means 3D where it uses these
2 lenses to get 3D 180 perspective which means the Qoocam is 2 cameras for the
price of one. This is the lens cap by the way, and I like it a lot, this is the lens
cover that the Insta360 One should have had, and it makes it easy to protect the
camera's lenses without putting them at risk of damage or heavy smudging, so
basically, it looks like a massive... Now how cool is this backdrop looking by
the way? This is one of my many YouTube sets, and welcome to my camera shop.
I think it is, it's about 10 million 360 cameras. VR headsets, we have 360 camera
gadgets, drones, and my favorite selfie sticks, how cool is it? Too bad it's all gonna
be out of focus because most of my shots have blurry background, that's just the
way I roll. By the way, I want to make something clear, this is not a review.
It's still too early to make a review about the Qoocam, because it's only been
available for a few weeks and so much is going to change about this camera. This
is more of a 'first impressions' video of what the camera is like in August, 2018.
Here's the resolution and it's nothing groundbreaking, all the other cameras we
know and love have 4k resolution and they have higher quality images, so the
Qoocam doesn't really compete with the other cameras on the resolution front.
Now let's take a look at some samples and I'm going to include a free download
link in the description in case you want to download a bunch of samples, stitch
them for yourself, I'll include 3D 180, I'll include 360 video and photo, so
feel free to check them out. Overall, I described the Qoocam's photos
as good and possible as social media content. The only issue I have really
aside from the resolution of the colors, this is especially noticeable in the
highlight areas of the image where the Sun blows out the colors, and it turns
the sky into a lighter shade of blue than it actually is. I know they're
working on this, but accuracy of color is an issue for me right now, everything
that applies to photos also applies to videos, this is looking pretty decent, not
amazing but, I would say average or just above average compared to all the other
360 cameras. Note that you're going to get better results stitching on desktop
instead of mobile in basically all areas, stitching color, and what-not, so try to
stick to desktop if you can.
The stabilization is really, really, really good.
Will I call it the best, maybe I would, this is just as good as Rilo or
Fusion, if not, a little bit better. I honestly don't see how it could get
better than this, this is, dare I say it, perfect stabilization. Could you imagine
getting a head strap for this thing and riding around testing the stabilization?
Now there's a way to spend a night in jail.
So a round of applause Kandao for that awesome stabilization. Next, I want to
talk about 180 mode, and 180 is becoming more and more popular, I know it doesn't
sound as good as 360, but it does have the added
benefit of producing the 3D photos and videos, because the two lenses here line
up with your eyes, so when you watch your back with the headset, you can actually
see depth within the 180 photo, whereas you just don't get that with 360 photos and
videos. It's kind of hard to explain, and it's even hard to show, I can't show you
a 180 photo or video without you actually putting a headset on to view it.
But when you do view it, it's absolutely incredible, it's so immersive, it's like
the next level of immersion, even more immersive than 360. However, it's just
so hard to set up, and share around, and view, I still haven't viewed a 3D photo
from the Qoocam yet so, that's about to change.
Let's do it, here are the glasses that were provided in the box and I've
entered 180 mode on my phone as you can see here, I'm going to snap my phone into
the viewer. Alright, let's take a look. Wow! Oh wow, that's really cool.
Holy crap, this has several layers of depth. My phone is the closest thing, the
peace sign is the second closest, then it's my face, then my body, then that lady
over there, followed by the man on the right. Finally, the Sydney Opera House is
the very back layer, but this is incredible. Wow! Oh my God, I wish I could
share this more easily, I wish you guys could see what I could see because this
is so immersive and it's actually a really good level of quality, it feels like I
can reach out and touch myself. Okay, that came across wrong but, you get what I
mean. It's kind of like those Viewmaster headsets that were popular back in the
80s and 90s where you put a little wheel into that headset thing. Actually I've got a
VR version of Viewmaster here, so it was like this and you would put a wheel into
it and you'd look through it, and you clicked this thing, and you'd see
different scenes of cartoons and I remember watching, there was a show
called The Dinosaurs, and i had The Dinosaurs disc, and it was just like watching what I
just saw, it was 3D and so immersive. I remember feeling like I was actually
there with the dinosaurs, I was even kind of scared that they're going to eat me,
that's how immersive it was and now, I have that once again but with my own
photos, this is really, really cool. I think
there is a way of sharing these online but it's really hard, so this is more the
kind of thing that you would take to a party, you'd take out with your friends
or family and show them your 3D photo, and pass your phone around, at the moment
it's just too hard to do it any other way.
This is made possible because the Qoocam has a feature called 'depth mapping' which
makes it possible to record data about how close and far things are away and
one awesome application of this depth map is the refocusing feature. So I have
another photo of me here in front of the Harbour Bridge, I'm going to tap 'Edit', and
now refocus, and all you have to do is tap to refocus so I can tap on the
background and now suddenly I will go out of focus or I can tap in my face and
suddenly the background becomes blurry. This is a simulated shot of the field
not the real thing obviously, but it actually does a pretty good job this is
simulating the Bokeh effect like the image you're looking at now where the
background's out of focus in I'm in focus, so it's essentially pretending to be a
DSLR. However one issue I really have with this is the quality isn't
there, if you zoom in even a little bit it looks soft and the colors are blotchy
and it's not really publishable at all. Personally I wouldn't use it for
anything other than viewing on a phone screen, when you bring it to a computer,
it's just gonna look terrible. So while this feature is really cool, the
resolution isn't there for photos. I think this is a great step forward
of depth map technology, imagine if that was super high resolution you
could change the focus later on. How cool would that be?
It would mean you wouldn't have to buy expensive lenses to get that shallow
depth of field effect anyway you went, you could do it all with a 180 camera
but, I think with only years away from getting decent quality refocused 180s
like this. So, I would definitely describe this as more of a video camera than a
photo camera, because the videos look really, really good as we saw before. The
final probably I want to talk about is the battery, and this battery lasts three
hours. Yeah, you heard that right, three hours, most other cameras last one
hour max, this last for 3, that's crazy. While I find the size of the body
annoying, this is one major plus to having all that space for battery, if you
want to record for a long time, you can with the Qoocam, and you put in 256GB
worth of storage, it was totally possible if you want to record three hours
straight without plugging into power at 4k and
360, the Qoocam is looking like your best option right now, but beware,
though because of the bigger camera size, you won't want to put it in your jeans,
because you'll get kicked out of any nightclub you enter. And now for the
issues. I want to start by taking a trip back about a year, when the GoPro Fusion
was released, it was a camera by GoPro, their very first all-in-one 360 camera,
it was released to so much hype and so much disappointment. The early backers
bought it and they had problem, after problem, after problem, they sent it back
to Amazon, they sent it back to GoPro, they complained anywhere they could
complain, and they basically wrote the GoPro off as a piece of garbage. However,
slowly but surely, week after week, month after month, they improved the GoPro
Fusion until it became the best 360 camera money could buy, it wasn't quick,
it took a while, even up to six months I would say, but it became the best with
firmware updates, app updates and software updates, Well I've got news for you, that's
where the Qoocam is right now, it's right at the beginning and people are
complaining.
Yes, you can make your way over the Qoocam Facebook group, you'll see these
complaints and more. So now I'm going to tell you the current problems with the
Qoocam or the features they haven't yet added to the camera.
The biggest complaint so far is the base plate is coming loose from the camera when people
are using a selfie stick, it's not stuck on well enough, and people are swinging
it around and just becoming loose and falling off. Hasn't happened to me yet
but there are a few people in the Facebook group that's happened to, no
doubt, no doubt Kandao are watching and they're like, "Uh oh, better fix that". In fact,
just as I edited that last line on the video, I noticed the CEO writing message
in the Facebook group saying he was going to deal with all the faulty units,
give the few people with faulty units replacements, and make sure it doesn't
happen again in the future. Next, the software and the app are still
in the beginner stages, they don't have all the features that were listed for
the camera yet, but they're coming within the next one or two months. Live
streaming hasn't been added yet, it will be soon, and it'll be desktop only to
begin with. There's no manual control of this camera yet, it's coming in September
but when it comes, it means we'll be able to fix those colors and those exposure
imperfections. Another thing that's coming is DNG RAW
it's not ready yet, but that will be another massive win for the Qoocam, so
that's all I can think of at the moment. Again, this isn't a review because it's
still way too early to release a review. I honestly think this camera has potential
to be amazing within the next few months, if not, by the end of the year.
If you're the kind of person that's likely to be outraged by the Qoocam not having all
the features that they advertised yet, then you should wait by the Qoocam, do not
buy the Qoocam, because i don't want to see you complaining in the Facebook group
I'm looking sick and tired of all the complaints already. I don't work for Kandao
they're not paying me, but all I know, is complaining doesn't really solve the
problem. I mean you have every right to be upset especially if there's issues
like the thread coming loose, but this is what happens if you're an early adopter.
If you want the new shiny toy before anyone else, it's not going to be fully
complete. I know, in an ideal world, companies would release their cameras
when they're fully complete, or would you rather have a 75% complete camera now or
a 100% complete camera in three months? I'll take 75% right now. So, my advice
would be, don't buy it if you're expecting a perfect camera from the
get-go because, it's not, and no 360 camera is. But they all get better and
better the older they get and the more firmware updates that come out, so if you
want it now, if you want to experiment with some of the cool features like
refocus, 180, the stabilization, the depth mapping, then I think it's totally worth
it. But if you're looking for a perfect camera from the get-go, do not buy the
Qoocam. I've got no doubt by Christmastime, 2018
this is going to be one of the lead contenders in the consumer 360 camera
market, it's not yet, and I'm definitely going to be using it between now and
then, because it's done some awesome things, and know it has so much potential.
I'm excited by this camera because it's the cheapest 360 camera that also
doubles as a 180 camera, so if your someone that likes taking lots of different kinds
of shots of 360, 180, 3D, then this is going to be a good option for travelers
bloggers or anyone just wanting different content. I'm going to include
some samples of the Qoocam with both 360 and 180 down in the description, so click
the link if you want to download them, try stitching them, try viewing them
yourself, and work out whether you like what it does before you go out and press
that Buy button. So if you're considering buying the Qoocam, my guess is, you're
probably someone that's ready to take that 360 skills to the next level. Let me
ask you a question, if you could learn everything I knew, everything that took
me years to study and master about 360 video, if you could learn that in three
hours or less, would that be valuable? Well, that's why I made "A BEGINNER'S
GUIDE to 360 VIDEO", which is a collection of all my best secrets and shortcuts for
achieving professional level 360 videos regardless of the camera you own, it's
one thing to own an amazing camera, it's another thing entirely to really get the
most out of it and get professional-looking footage as well as
finding an audience for that footage that then grows your personal brand and
helps you earn money from it. So if you're someone that strongly values
knowledge and you want to learn fast, then I'd strongly suggest checking out
my video course, I'll put a link to it down in the description. So that's it
for me guys, I'd be curious to know, what do you think of the Kandao Qoocam?
Leave a comment in the description, feel free to ask me a question about the
Qoocam, I'll do my best to answer. Again, I would strongly suggest you join the
Kandao Qoocam Facebook group, that was a mouthful, wasn't it? And, see what's in
there, you have other user experiences, you have all kinds of samples, it's all
there, so definitely check it out. And you can hit that subscribe button as well if
you want to find out about all the latest and greatest 360, 180, 3D, VR
gadgets, until next time, be sure to capture your world in 360, and Qoocam
and I, will see you in the next video.