How good are the photos from the Insta360 ONE R?
I've been traveling a lot over the past few weeks,
and I've been testing this camera out
in a wide variety of shooting conditions.
You've probably already seen my previous video
covering the videos from the ONE R,
so today is part two,
where I'm going to focus on the photos,
and answer the all-important question:
is it any good for 360 photography?
I started shooting with it
at the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco,
and the lighting here was really harsh and contrasty.
Now here's the very first shot I got with it,
and this was shot in 3 stop HDR with DNG RAW.
I haven't touched this photo yet,
I haven't color corrected or done anything to it.
This is what it looks like straight out of the camera.
And yeah, that's looking pretty good.
I'm pretty impressed with the contrast here.
The colors look decent, although not 100% accurate,
that sky is not the same shade of blue
that I saw when I was actually there.
And also, I'm sure you've noticed it,
there's chromatic aberration there,
and all around the photo.
You can see those little purple fringes.
And to be honest, I was expecting this.
This is a super high contrast location,
and most cameras would produce some kind
of chromatic aberration.
At this level of zoom,
the clarity actually looks pretty decent.
If I go in closer, it starts getting a bit softer.
Let's look up, and yeah, that's not super-sharp,
although it's sharp enough for a social media type post.
I took a bunch of photos using three stop DNG HDR,
and I'm really happy with these results.
However, the results are only good
because I composed the shot in a way
that there would be minimal errors.
As you can see, my head is in front of the sun,
and that has stopped massive exposure imbalances
affecting the image.
Here's a single shot DNG I took
with the monopod raised above me,
and I deliberately put it in line with the sun
so I would get this problem.
And to be honest with you,
I really don't like this image at all,
and even though I did shoot it in RAW,
there's only a certain amount I'll be able to recover,
because I've lost a lot of detail
in those blown-out highlight areas,
and this image is just too contrasty.
But you know what, that's okay,
because I don't recommend shooting like this anyway.
If you're in a situation like this,
it's better you use HDR mode
so you can really get the exposure right
across those dark shadows
combined with those bright highlights.
Now this is the same shot as before,
just with bracketing,
and as you can see, we've got better color there overall,
but that sunspot is still not good.
So at this point, I can't rate the ONE R super highly
for high-contrast situations.
This is the final shot I got at the palace,
and again, when I'm covering up the sun,
it returns to normal, and it looks like a normal photo
that is properly exposed,
so I'd say if you can avoid direct sun in the camera,
if you have dark shadows in your scene,
then you should be okay.
You could also just place the camera there in the shade,
but I want it to be right in the middle for symmetry,
so I just cover it up with my hand instead.
I definitely do rate the shots I got
at the Palace of Fine Arts,
and after some quick color correction,
these photos are really good.
Next stop was the Golden Gate Bridge,
and here's my girlfriend and I
stopping for a quick selfie.
And this photo's looking pretty decent.
The colors are nice straight out of the camera.
Again, this is in HDR mode,
but this time we have less contrast in the scene,
and as you can see, the exposure is pretty good all around.
There isn't too much overexposure or underexposure.
If we zoom in again, there's a bit of chromatic aberration,
that is pretty easy to remove in Photoshop,
but also noticing a bit of ghosting there,
so when you're shooting in HDR mode,
it's taking three shots at once.
And with most other cameras,
it's going to ghost much worse than this,
but Insta360 cameras, particularly the ONE X
have been known for being able to shoot
good handheld HDR without ghosting.
I'm also noticing it a bit on the horizon there,
maybe I wobbled the selfie stick a bit too much,
it was pretty windy here on the bridge,
but yeah, there is that small amount of ghosting.
When zoomed out from this perspective,
you can barely notice it.
It's only when you zoom in that you're going to see that.
Otherwise though, this is a pretty cool shot.
I'd say the maximum level of zoom
you'd use with ONE R photos would be about this,
you don't wanna go in any closer,
or it's going to get noticeably soft.
So there's Alcatraz island,
and yeah, you can barely see anything at all.
Which is why I think this is actually
a really good social media camera.
I was able to shoot this in two seconds,
and it looks like that.
I haven't touched this photo yet.
Here's a silly photo where we put our faces
as close to the camera as possible,
and you can still see every last nose hair in my nose.
Here I am at the Grand Canyon,
and this is a single shot JPG.
I do not have good memories of the Grand Canyon,
I got food poisoning the night before,
and I vomited my way across the Grand Canyon,
so I'm not going to be revisiting this photo anytime soon.
But I've gotta say it's actually done decently
handling this high-contrast situation with one single shot.
I don't ever advocate for using single shot JPG,
but sometimes lighting conditions can be challenging,
so you need to try all the options out there.
However, I'm pretty sure there are a bunch of other cameras
that would've taken this a bit better than the one I did.
Now here I am in Viva Las Vegas,
testing out HDR mode to the extreme.
Here I've set up a nine shot bracketed DNG HDR 360 photo,
and this is looking really good.
The colors are vibrant, the contrast is nice,
and it's preserved the sense of atmosphere really nicely.
When look up into the sky, yeah, it's not perfect,
but at least it's not super-noisy,
because it easily could have been.
It handles the hot spots pretty decently,
I found any kind of neon light
produces this outline around it,
but that's only if you zoom in pretty far.
This is about the standard level of zoom.
And as I look around,
there isn't anything that disruptive about this image.
So if you're shooting with the ONE R at night,
I've gotta say, using HDR with three, six, or nine stops
is definitely going to be a great option,
but it will just depend on the type of environment you're in
as to which settings you use.
So we haven't talked too much about the stitching yet,
and here's why.
(woman screams)
I've turned myself into a cyclops
for the sake of science.
What I've done is I've placed the camera
with the stitch line oriented towards my face,
and I'd say was about 20 centimeters from the camera here,
and as you can see, that's not good at all.
And I'm sure my girlfriend wouldn't be too flattered
at that stretch viewpoint of her.
It's actually not terrible on her side,
I'd say she was about a foot and a half
away from the seam line,
but if you're going anywhere near the seam line,
then expect to turn into a cyclops like Mr. Ben.
I said it in my previous video, I'll say it again,
the camera is not great at stitching around the seam lines,
so don't put any important objects or people
in the seam line area.
When I turned the seam line the other way,
there's no issue at all,
so it's here in this photo.
And yes, there is a little bit of cutoff here on that glass,
but it's not noticeable because it's not close enough.
And this wall is okay too.
Now I'm in Winnipeg, in Canada,
and look at this snow.
It is just as cold as it looks.
And this first shot I got was really good.
This is a great location for 360,
and I got a really cool 360 photo with the ONE R
tucked in to my jacket.
Again, this is using three stop HDR,
and I haven't touched this photo yet.
The dynamic range is actually pretty decent,
and it's preserved the sense
of atmosphere here really nicely.
I am noticing stitching problems again,
this is because the camera was just above my face here,
so the seam line was relatively close to my body.
When I held it on a selfie stick,
the problem more or less went away.
Enter night view mode.
And night view was added to the Insta360 ONE R
to help make shots cleaner,
and with less noise at nighttime.
So I used night view mode here,
and when you zoom in, look, there's no noise.
This is low light, and there isn't any color banding
or noise, or any issues
that are symptomatic of most cameras
and 360 cameras at nighttime.
What it does is it essentially takes
nine equirectangular photos simultaneously,
and then stacks them together,
so all of the imperfections, let's say in this area,
are combined into one,
and that more or less flattens them out,
because when they're all together,
you don't notice them,
it's only when you see a little bit here,
a little bit there, a little bit there that you do.
So while I'd say there isn't
a super high degree of sharpness in this photo,
the colors are actually really pleasant.
I'm mean yes, these hot spots are overblown,
but at this point,
you can't edit the night view modes too much,
not to the degree of a bracketed HDR RAW shot anyway.
But you know what, this is looking good,
and I'm happy with this photo.
Here I am in slightly lower light,
and again, this is night view mode,
and this shot is looking pretty good,
I barely had to do anything
other than set up night mode,
put my camera on a monopod,
activate the self timer, put it in my pocket,
and there you go, I've got this photos.
It's not perfect, but it's pretty darn good
for something that just came out of the camera
with minimal editing.
You can use night view mode during the day as well.
Here, it's about 4:30 p.m.,
and I've used it here for a similar purpose,
to minimize the noise and imperfections in the image.
While it's done a good job,
there is motion blur here,
and the settings you can change in night view mode
are minimal at this point in time.
It's now two weeks after release,
and at the moment you can't change
too many manual settings with it,
so you may get motion blur and ghosting like I've got here.
I actually don't mind this too much,
it's cool seeing the car being really sharp,
and then we've got motion blur on the road there,
and then more motion blur on the horizon.
It has a cool feel to it.
I wish I could say it was intentional,
but it wasn't.
While I wouldn't say you should buy this camera
just for its photo features,
it does have enough options
that you can normally get a good result
no matter where you are.
What you're looking at right now is a pinball machine,
and if we turn it around,
there's some creepy guy looking down at it.
And this is actually just
a single shot RAW photo that I've taken here.
I've placed the camera
against the glass of the pinball machine.
And this is an epic photo.
It looks so cool in 360,
and it's just one single shot
where I've deliberately underexposed it
to get these lights looking really cool.
So in this situation, that was the right approach.
In other situations, HDR would work better.
So do I recommend the ONE R for photos?
Well, kind of.
If your primary use of a 360 camera is social media content,
then it's good enough.
If you wanna use one professionally,
then it is going to be lacking in clarity,
and the colors the camera captures
aren't always the same colors you see in real life.
However, it does offer a good amount of flexibility in post
to fix most issues you have with it.
If you're looking for a 360 camera to just do 360 photos,
then I'd say you should consider something else,
like the Theta Z1, or Kandao Qoocam 8k.
If you're looking for a 360 camera
that's just quick and easy 360 photos,
and you're also interested in 360 videos
and reframing those 360 videos,
then yeah, this is a good camera,
it's going to be one of the best options in 2020.
I've gotta say, it also did really well in cold weather.
It was minus 30 degrees here,
and my hands were frozen solid,
yet the camera was still operating fine,
and the battery didn't drain any faster
than it would if it were in normal warm conditions.
By the way, all the photo modes I used here
also apply to the 4K edition,
so night mode, HDR, manual shooting, RAW, everything.
I put a link in the description
to where you can pick up both modules.
By the way, I've also uploaded a bunch of these samples
to my Facebook page, as well as my Instagram.
If you wanna interact with them as 360 photos,
or see them as reframed tiny planets.
In my next video, I'm going to be comparing the ONE R
to it's two closest competitors,
the Insta360 ONE X, and the GoPro Max,
to see which is the best 360 slash action camera
in early 2020.
I still don't have the one inch mod,
but I'll be getting it this week,
and I'll be sure to make an in-depth review of that
as soon as I get it.
So, that's it.
Overall, I give the photos from the Insta360 ONE R
a pass, just, especially for social media type content,
I think it's going to really shine.
For anything more professional,
you should consider a more professional 360 camera.
And hey, let me know your thoughts,
was it a pass or a fail for the ONE R for photos?
Let me know, see ya.