Hey guys! This is Ben from Life in 360.
Today I'm going to show you how to use
the self-timer on the Ricoh Theta camera
here and the self-timer can be a good
option when you don't want your
smartphone to be in the shot
normally we might be shooting wirelessly
and we activate the Theta through our
phone which is a really handy tool has a
range of ten meters it's fantastic
however this often means that the phone is
actually in our photos so we have to either
hide it in our pocket or just have it in
plain sight
so this is where the self-timer comes in
really handy you can set up your shot
press the button hide your phone and
then pose so i'm gonna show you how to
use it, it's very easy.
The first thing you'll want to do is update
the firmware on your theta camera now
this is not done through your smartphone
app you'll have to plug it into your
computer either Mac or PC you have to
head over the Ricoh website and download
the official 'Ricoh Theta' program which
will allow you to update the firmware
through there- just go file > firmware
update this is an essential step because
this option is not available with
previous firmware updates
so once you've done that and followed the
prompts you turn your camera off and on
again and you're ready to start shooting
so there's two ways to activate the
self-timer the first way is through your
smartphone
ok so we'll connect wirelessly to the
camera as we normally would and let's go
into our Theta S app. So now you control
the photo like you would any other photo it's
very simple and what we want to do
is press the top right button which
brings us into our shooting modes and
there's it says 'shooting method' so we have a
bunch of options here there's normal
shooting interval shooting which is for
timelapses, a bunch of others, we want to
hit self timer which is the fourth
option there so once we press that
button in the middle there instead of it
taking a photo straight away it's going
to give us five seconds
alright i'm going to go ahead and hit
that bad boy in the middle and we can
hear it counting down so now we have
time to strike a pose
that's a really good easy way to do it
if you want it through your phone if
you're on the move and you don't have
time to connect your phone to your
camera then there's actually an easier way
the second way is to press the Wi-Fi
button on the Theta there in the middle
and then you press 'On' at the same time and
then you'll see the green light shows up so
we are now in self timer mode one thing
about shooting 360 in public is that people
stare at you like you're investigating
aliens so you must prepare for cold
death stares everywhere you go!
So we're gonna press the shutter button then we
have five seconds put the camera down
and strike a pose
and here we have it there i am
hands-free.. put my phone in that pocket
there and that turned out really well
the self-timer method is really
effective in adding to the mystery of
how the photo was taken
normally if you're shooting wirelessly
from your phone the audience can tell
you're probably doing something with
your phone that's causing the 360
effect if you can completely hide your
smartphone then it just kind of adds
that extra 'wow' factor about how the
photo was taken
it also minimizes the presence of camera
gear which essentially you want to keep
out of your photos as much as possible
even if it's just a phone you want to
get rid of every last little detail that
might be in your frame that doesn't look
as good so it's a really effective
little tool so i'd highly recommend
updating your firmware and trying out the
self-timer it's just a good way to kind
of cover your tracks.
Alright guys I hope you enjoyed this
tutorial if you have any questions feel
free to reach out to me on Instagram
Twitter YouTube or Facebook. If you own a 360
camera like the Ricoh here you've
probably heard of tiny planet
photography i actually wrote a book
about how to use a camera like this to
achieve the most amazing tiny planet
effects very quickly and easily and all
you need is a smartphone and a camera so
you might wanna check that out until
next time keep living your life in 360
and talk to you soon! 3.. 2.. 1.. *loud unrealistic explosions*
man down! man down!