This is what a $15,000 360 camera looks like.
It's got eight lenses, eight micro four thirds sensors.
It shoots 11K 360 video.
Meet the world's most expensive bowling ball,
the Insta360 Titan.
Okay, so I don't cover
a lot of pro level 360 cameras on my channel.
But I have had the question every now and then,
about what the pro market looks like,
when it comes to shooting high-end, high quality 360 video.
And while I probably won't be making
any more videos like this in the future,
you can consider this your glimpse,
into the pro world of 360 video cameras.
Now you're probably wondering what this camera can do,
and who would pay $15,000 for a 360 camera?
Well, I'll do my best to answer that,
by the end of this video.
This video is sponsored by Insta360,
who also loaned me the Titan.
So thank you very much, Insta360,
and I promise I won't break it.
Die, seagulls, die!
Okay, so let's talk specs.
In terms of resolution,
it shoots up to 11K flat 360 video
and 10K 3D video at 30 frames per second.
It shoots 10 bit high dynamic range 8K, 2D and 3D video,
as well as 5.2K slow motion at 120 frames a second.
For photos, it shoots 56 megapixel,
high dynamic range RAW HDR 360 photos.
Well, I'm exhausted just saying all of that.
At the time of making this video now,
the average 360 video resolution
is around 4K to 5.7K.
So this is 11K.
So clearly it's only for really high end productions,
where you need that extremely large resolution
to be viewed back in headsets,
and viewed back at full quality.
And inside of it,
it comes with eight micro four thirds sensors.
And check out how big these lenses are.
Here's my ONE X2 for comparison.
They are like full on DSLR lenses.
And something interesting about this camera setup,
is you're going to have to use a lot of SD cards.
It comes with not just one, but nine SD card slots.
So aside from just buying the camera,
you'll have to buy a lot of SD cards,
and a lot of SD card readers.
So I went out shooting with the Titan in my backyard,
and got some pretty cool results.
Okay, so I definitely do rate the Titan footage.
It's not only sharp, because of the 11K resolution,
but it's got great dynamic range as well.
And that's definitely going to make a big difference,
when you're viewing this footage in 360.
So, maybe you're shooting specifically with the intention
of viewing this back in a VR headset at full quality.
When you're working with 11K 360 video,
suddenly there isn't any noticeable softness
or a low range of colours.
And this is something that has become synonymous
with 360 video.
When you look at a shot like this,
you may be thinking, "What's the big deal?
This looks similar to my GoPro."
Well, the big deal is this shot is captured in 360.
So not only do we have this perspective of the Opera House,
but we have the equivalent of roughly HD to 4K,
in all directions.
Because when you combine the innovation of 360 cameras
with enough resolution to make it worthwhile,
then we're looking at a really exciting future
of shoot first, point later.
And, while the Titan
certainly isn't a consumer friendly camera
when it comes to price,
it is a good glimpse into the future.
Hey, who knows?
Maybe one day we'll have 11K 360 video in our pockets.
I'm sure that day isn't too far away.
The Titan performs really well in low light as well.
Here's a sample shot I took on my balcony,
and it was dark here.
The sun had just gone down.
And typically, with a shot like this,
you'd be seeing quiet a lot of noise
from most other 360 cameras.
Whereas I got to say, the Titan is performing really well.
When you look at any smooth surface or colour,
there's a tiny bit of noise, but not much at all.
So this is definitely a camera
you can rely on at night time.
So the Titan is also a 3D or stereoscopic 360 camera.
Meaning because it has eight lenses,
it's able to capture depth and playback 3D, in a VR headset.
It's kinda hard for me to show you
without you watching it back in a headset,
because that's the only way to view 3D.
But I will say that I've watched it back myself
and it's very impressive.
So if you're someone that's shooting 360 content
specifically with the purpose
of watching it back in a VR headset,
you have the option to shoot in 3D
at these resolutions here.
Although to be honest,
most people watch back 360 content in 2D.
So I would consider that its primary feature.
And speaking of 3D and stereoscopic capture,
I wanna talk about where you can actually put this camera,
so it's 3D friendly and stitching friendly.
Because with such a big camera body
with lenses actually relatively far apart,
this is something you will need to consider with the Titan.
Because unlike the consumer cameras,
the Titan has a much higher margin for error,
when it comes to stitching, because,
look at the difference between the lenses.
When you see the ONE X2 and the Titan, as you can see,
there's quite a bit of distance between the lenses.
This means it has a minimum stitching distance
of 1.5 metres.
Get any closer than this,
and you're putting yourself in the danger zone.
Which isn't ideal, I know.
We always wanna get up close and personal
with the 360 camera,
but with the Titan,
you'll have to keep a 1.5 metre distance.
Unless you want to use a paid stitching software
like Mistika VR.
Now the Titan does have a mobile app,
which is actually really similar
to the other Insta360 app for their consumer cameras.
And surprisingly, it's just as easy to use.
I picked up the app in 60 seconds, which is kind of cool.
Because when you look at a camera like this,
it looks big and complicated.
But in reality, it's actually pretty easy to operate.
Titan also has a feature called Far Sight,
which basically means it's a really long wifi connection.
So you can go really far away from the camera.
Because you're shooting all that resolution,
it's going to see you hiding if you're in plain view.
But with Far Sight,
you can move up to 300 metres away from ground to ground.
And one kilometre away,
if you attach the Titan to a drone.
Which is risky business. But hey,
some people like living dangerously.
To be honest, though,
I kinda prefer just using the menu.
It's really easy to learn and pick up.
All you do is turn it on,
go into the mode you wanna use, whether it's video or photo,
and then you choose your resolution.
Simple as that.
And yes, the fan does make a bit of noise.
I don't know if you can hear that.
Let me put my mic up to it.
(whirring sound)
There you go.
So the fan is pretty strong.
You can disable it, but I wouldn't do this for too long.
Now, all of this begs the question,
how do you shoot with a giant expensive
360 camera in public?
And, I don't think I have the answer.
Because this thing is so big,
firstly, you feel like it's so precious,
that you can't go too far away from it without freaking out
that it's going to tip over or blow over in the wind.
And every time I set up the cameras so far today
and when I've been shooting with it,
I have been terrified that is going to fall over and smash.
So that's the first thing.
The second thing is,
if you're shooting in public anywhere,
there's usually security around
if it's a highly popular place,
like that one over there, the Sydney Opera House.
I always get approached by security guards.
So there's just no chance I could get a 360
of the Opera House with a camera like this.
If it was a smaller camera, it's not gonna be an issue.
But this is clearly a professional camera.
Now they are also marketing the Titan as a 360 photo camera.
Which is a little bit strange,
kind of big and overkill, if you ask me.
But, are the photos any good?
Here, I took a photo in a virtual tour type situation
and this shot looks fantastic.
I took it in nine shot bracketed RAW,
combined the shots together
in the Insta360 stitches software,
edited in Adobe camera roll within Photoshop.
And this result, it's really fantastic.
And probably better
than every other consumer camera available right now.
The photos are around 53 megapixels,
which is really high for a camera with such a wide variety
of shooting and editing flexibility.
The shots have really good colour depth,
and it handles contrast extremely well.
Would I use this for social media type shots,
like this one here?
Probably not.
It's kinda too big and expensive for shots like this.
So I'd only use it for photos
where a professional output is important.
Also due to the stitching limitations I talked about earlier
you also need to be careful
with shooting 360 photos with the Titan,
because anything within 1.5 metres,
will probably produce stitching errors.
Okay, so would I buy the Titan just for photos?
Hell no.
I would buy it for 360 video,
when I might be shooting a little bit of photo on the side,
but this is not it's primary purpose, it's overkill.
If you're looking to up your 360 photo game,
invest in a DSLR and a Pano Head.
But at the same time, these photos are really good.
So if you're in an environment where it's safe to shoot,
I definitely would shoot with it,
because you can't argue with those results.
I have also seen some of my friends on Facebook,
who own the Titan,
and they're using it for Google Street View capture,
because it's got an interval mode
and it does integrate with Google Street View.
So, if you want really high quality,
really high dynamic range photos to upload the Street View,
it's got that option as well.
Hmm, what else?
Oh, it live streams,
not at 11K but at 4K,
which is okay, I guess.
All right, now let's touch on workflow.
Now, what kind of computer will you need
to edit with the Titan?
A very expensive one, is the answer.
With as much RAM and as much graphics card and CPU and GPU,
as you can afford.
So if you have a beginner to intermediate computer,
it's just not gonna be good enough.
You need a high, high-end computer.
And I'm sure they've got
the recommended specs on their website.
I don't wanna give you numbers
because I don't know exactly what they are.
It does work fine with my iMac,
but I have an iMac that is specked out to the max.
And how you edit with the Titan;
is firstly, you insert the nine SD cards
into nine SD card readers.
You then open up the Insta360 Stitcher desktop app,
and you get that to stitch and process your footage
and files and convert them into equirectangular files.
It doesn't take that long
and the files are actually surprisingly small,
for what you would think a camera like this would create.
But maybe that's just me.
I would have taken,
I'm gonna say 30 to 45 minutes of footage with it,
and I didn't even fill up the 64 gigabyte SD cards.
And yes, that's S plural,
because it splits it among the nine SD cards.
Just keep in mind though,
that it's really hard to edit 11K 360 video
because Premiere doesn't support it.
I'm sure there's some kind of editor out there,
that supports 11K.
But it's not going to be super easy to edit 11K footage.
So you won't always necessarily wanna shoot in 11K.
You may decide 10K or 8K,
whatever workflow works best for you,
your computer setup,
and your editing program that you use.
The final thing to mention about workflow,
is it has a feature, called Crystal View.
Which is basically when you're watching back
high quality tightened footage in a headset,
and by the way, not all headsets
are compatible with 11K 360 video.
In fact, very few of them are.
So you'll definitely want to do
your headset research in advance.
But anyway, there's this Crystal View feature.
Where, what it does,
is when you're watching back
a high quality 360 video in a headset,
instead of using all the data of that massive 360 file
to continuously display high quality 360 video
all the way around,
what it does is it renders it bit by bit.
So if you're only looking to the right
it will render this sphere here.
And then maybe you turn to the left,
suddenly it'll render this,
but it's not rendering the back.
And maybe you wanna turn all the way around.
Well, same principle.
This can be done in the Insta360 Moment app,
which is an app in the Oculus Store.
So who is this camera for?
Hmm, well,
this is not a consumer camera.
Clearly you wouldn't buy this if you're going out
shooting for social media or just for fun.
You would buy a camera like this
if you're shooting professionally.
And I mean, high-end work.
Maybe you work in videography
and you've expanded into 360 services.
You offer 360 for clients,
and you're starting to scale your business up.
Because, Insta360 also have other professional level cameras
like the Pro and the Pro2.
But this is even higher end than that.
It's 15,000 US dollars.
And that is a lot of money.
So the kinds of things
I imagine you would shoot with a camera like this,
would be high-end corporate staff,
maybe big fancy events.
I could definitely see my wedding being filmed on this.
But, the more likely thing that you would use this for
would be studio work.
So if you're creating high-end VR content
for use in headsets,
maybe you're shooting for a brand,
and you need that insanely high 11K 360 video quality then,
this is a camera you should definitely consider.
As you saw, the footage looks fantastic.
And right now, this is one
of the best professional cameras you can buy.
Definitely check out Insta360's website.
If you wanna find out more about the Titan.
There's heaps of things I didn't mention in this video.
If you have any questions about the Titan,
let me know down below.
Hope you enjoyed the video,
and I'll see next time.
But secondly, the stabilisation is not on the level
of the LiDAR cheaper cameras with only two lenses.
Hey, you, be quiet.
Hey, stop talking over me.
Die, seagulls, die!