If you want to get shots that look like
this, then keep watching. This is a
long-term review of the Xiaomi
Mi Sphere 360 camera but most
importantly, it's gonna change the way
you shoot videos forever because you'll
discover how you can capture cinematic
shots that you never thought were
possible. Most of all you'll be
having fun doing it thanks to an
invisible flying camera. Hi my name is
Mic and you're watching 360 Rumors, the
resource that 360 shooters trust for
in-depth camera reviews and innovative
techniques. This summer, we went to
Hawaii for the first time. We went to the
Big Island, and it was more beautiful
than I imagined.
My favorite part was when we went
ziplining over Umauma Falls. I loved
it because it was exciting and it was
something we got to do as a family and
we'll never forget it for the rest of
our lives. The funny thing is we
almost didn't go because the day before
we were supposed to go ziplining,
there was a forecast for a hurricane.
It was just going to hit one island: the
Big Island. So I called the zipline
company and they said, "Oh don't worry
about it.
The hurricane's on the other side
of the island." So, well, we decided to go
anyway. When we were driving there
the first part of the trip was pretty
cool. The weather was nice and
there was hardly any wind. But about
halfway through then we started to get
rain and fog. The fog was so thick it
looked like cars were popping out from
nowhere. To me, that was maybe the
scariest part of this whole experience.
But we kept driving and we
made it. But that wasn't the end of it
because when we got there, my daughter
threw up. Then it started drizzling.
My wife was worried that
the kids would get cold and get sick. You
know how moms are. I was afraid
they'd cancel which would suck because I
really wanted to do this as a family.
Well, fortunately we did go ahead with
the zipline. For us, this was going to
be an epic experience that we probably
wouldn't get to do again in a long time
or maybe not even ever, so I wanted to
make sure to capture it the best way
possible.
I wanted a cinematic view and I didn't
want to miss a thing. I've seen
zipline videos from action cams with
selfie sticks and helmets and they're
cool and in fact we got the video
package with our zipline. But I wanted
a cinematic view and I didn't want to
miss a thing. Could I get a third-person
view without the third person? It's
almost as if you'd need an invisible
flying camera... Good thing I had one on me.
It's called the Xiaomi Mi Sphere. Most
people don't know about it yet.
It takes 4k videos, 7k photos.
Uh Mic... got news for you: it's NOT
invisible! Well, wait till you see the video...
Here's the forward view and now
watch this. See what I mean by invisible?
What I love about this is that it
looks like a third person view, as if I
had a cameraman following me down the zipline,
which you know would be pretty much
impossible with a regular camera. But
wait... we didn't get a good look at the
waterfalls! Well let's do a replay with a
different view. There's the view
looking down. Was it scary? Yes.
Was it fun? Absolutely! Remember what
the guide said? [Guide: I promise, the views are better backwards.] Well let's check it out!
He's right! With 360 video, some
people get confused because they don't
know where to look
but that's okay. You can choose the view
for them just like what I did with those
videos. On the desktop, there's this free
app called Insta360 Studio and I
choose the view that I want. Then I click
on the keyframe button. And I just keep
doing that. Then when I hit "export,"
voila -- I have an overcapture style
non-360 video!
I got a tutorial for using Insta360 Studio
if you want to check it out.
If you use Adobe Premiere, there's this free
plug-in called GoPro VR plugin that
works exactly the same way. There's a
lot of pretty fancy editing that you can
do with that, like this.
Something I wanted to emphasize is
that all those shots came from just one
camera, one video, one take. Not only
can you get b-roll while you're shooting
your main video but there's an endless
variety of shots that you can do from
just one video, so you'll never run out
of b-roll. Now you get why 360 is
so awesome. It's great for 360 videos
but when you use it for NON-360 videos,
it's incredible! Welcome to the next
level of action cams! For the artists
and creators, your minds are probably
exploding, thinking about the
possibilities with this kind of camera.
For the engineers and scientists and
left-brained guys, you're probably wondering, "How
does this work?" There are three
things that make it possible. First of
all the Mi Sphere is a 360 camera so
it captures everything. Second it's got
stabilization. But unlike a gimbal where
you use motors to stabilize the video,
with the Mi Sphere, it rotates the 360
sphere electronically so that's why you
can hold it at any angle and the video
will remain level. Third, the
Mi Sphere captures everything except the
space between it. So if you have a thin
monopod or selfie stick like this, then in the
video, it looks like an invisible flying
camera! All I have to do is press the
shutter and I can record it any angle.
You can also connect wirelessly to
your phone to get a live view. when
you put all these things together what
you get is a third person view that you
can capture by yourself, while staying in
the action. If you're thinking that
the best thing about the Mi Sphere is
the amazing flying camera view, well
that's not absolutely true. Because
there's one thing that I think is
better than that. Because normally when
I'm shooting with a non-360
camera, I'm thinking about the shot, and I'm
thinking about the angles, and trying to
think about how to frame it. So my mind
is on the camera not on what I'm doing.
Not on the activity. Now when I was
shooting with the Mi Sphere, I was having
fun! I didn't have to think about the
camera or the shot. I could just focus on
enjoying the moment. You can focus on
what's important -- enjoying the time with
your family.
After shooting, sharing your photos
and videos is really easy.
It just takes three steps. Step 1:
connect the mI sphere to your phone
wirelessly. Step 2 is to copy
the files from the camera to your
smartphone. Step 3 is to export
the photos and videos. Make sure that
when you're doing that, you turn on
the stabilization, unless you really want
to turn it off. After exporting, there are
many ways to share your photos and
videos. Here are some of them.
Here's a tip: if you're working
with a lot of 360 videos it's
a lot faster to work with it on the
desktop.
there are just three steps step 1 copy
the files from the camera to your hard
drive step 2 open the files in the me
sphere app step 3 export the photos and
videos hey that's not so hard I can do
that of course it's easy and it's
actually fun even if you're a
photographer not a videographer
now speaking of photography now me
sphere is great for videos but it's
excellent for photos so as of August
2018 it's still the most detailed
consumer 360 camera for 3 C photos in
fact it's so detailed that you can take
out a non tasty photo from it and you'd
never know that it's actually just a
small crop from the and just like videos
when you're capturing keeps the photos
on the me sphere you don't have to take
the shot you can shoot it at any angle
now experienced photographers will also
appreciate the test full manual exposure
with the me sphere I gotta take a shot
of one of the most beautiful things we
saw in Hawaii which was the night sky so
you can see purchase there's Cassiopeia
there's Andromeda Aries now you may have
noticed that the image quality is not as
good as it's a video from a DSLR for
example that's because the me sphere
uses small sensors like these compact
cameras in fact this LX 5 has a larger
sensor than the noosphere
second even if it's 4k you're actually
only viewing a small crop out of the
whole Vista video at any given time
so don't expect super high image quality
now is that a fatal flaw well let's talk
to the experts first let's talk about
gear
gear doesn't matter
let me explain let up behold into any
certain kind of hardware or any certain
quality of hardware it's what I have
access to your personality is more
important than doing fun things like
jumping out of a plane or doing fun
things like ripping a Lamborghini around
a racetrack in Monaco take the vlogger
out of those fun scenarios and all you
have is just an emotionless commercial
that you just flip through on TV so my
takeaway from what Casey Neistat and
Peter MacKinnon said is that image
quality is not the be-all end-all there
are more important things such as you
and your sport so if I had shot the
zipline experience with a regular camera
I would have gotten much higher image
quality but I would have been too busy
buying shots choosing aesthetics
thinking about the framing it'll be hard
to enjoy the experience so you would
have been gutting a detailed video feed
being distracting and I would have
missed out on what's for me a
once-in-a-lifetime experience so before
we wrap up I want to talk about these
downsides of thermosphere so first of
all the battery is not believable so it
can record up to around an hour and a
half if you have a fast micro SD card
also the stabilization is not as good as
your 360 cameras in 2018
and also there's no external housing the
tercel competitors there's several but
here are what I think are the top five
competitors for the genre Easter first
is the 2017 gear 360 and this is a good
competitor because it's got decent image
quality for photos and videos it even
has a built-in HDR and most importantly
it costs under $100 but there are a
couple of issues for this first of all
is compatibility not all phones are
compatible with the gear pieces in 2017
and not all desktops are either for that
matter the other thing is for from a
practical perspective it's super slow to
stitch your videos so if we go go out
and like shoot videos with it then that
night I'd be stitching the videos on my
phone overnight and sometimes the next
morning it's not get done because it
crash Midway so it's not really
convenient
next is the instance I see one now this
has great stabilization like really
incredible stabilization
and the app is probably the best apps in
the industry right now but the one big
issue with the existing one is that you
don't get live view when you're shooting
wirelessly another competitor is the
Ricoh theta P so this is easier to use
than the least ear and the image quality
hmm a little bit similar like a little
better for video a little worse for a
photo but this also has like manual
exposure just like a sphere now the
biggest issue for me with the theta P is
that the memory and the batteries are
not removable so the memory is making
gigs or about 48 minutes after that your
stuff until you transfer those photos
and videos so one of the new competitors
is the canned out bootcamp this has
great stabilization and it's cool trick
is that it can convert into it ace 3d
180 camera now the problem with this is
that the photo quality is not that great
the resolution is limited to about 4k
compared to 7k for the mix here so the
noosphere has almost almost four times
as much detail performance not only that
but right now the crew cam doesn't have
man works
mimosa finally there's the GoPro future
this actually won the best consumer
pieces of canvas but it's $6.99 and it
requires a dedicated graphics card for
your desktop now that's not an issue for
you then this is Ashley honestly our
better option for than Denise fear I'll
post a link to other alternatives so you
can check out your advantages and
disadvantages
so for this canvas there are plenty of
options but for most people the me
sphere is probably the most practical
choice because the three Steve videos
are good stabilization is also good the
photos are excellent and it's also water
resistant and it's one of the most
affordable stabilized resistant cameras
on the market as of August 2018 so so
far I've shown you a lot of
non-traditional over capture style
videos from the me sphere you can check
out a 360 video sample from the me
sphere it's actually my review from last
year which was just in three speed video
format the only thing is that all the
issues that I mentioned in that video
have already been fixed so check out the
new sphere group on Facebook right now
it's got almost 9,000 numbers I've also
got a link to a discount page so
whenever they're discussed I'm gonna
post them on that and for more detailed
information about the mystery check out
my written review and my fact file so
thanks for watching and I'll see you in
360