- Hey guys, my name is Matt Johnson
and today I want to talk to you about this little camera,
the Insta360
ONE X
and I want to answer a question
that I've been asking myself for a while
and that some of you may be asking too.
Is it time to purchase a 360 camera
for filming weddings or even commercial work?
Today, I hope to answer these questions
and I'm going to do it in two ways.
First, I'm gonna show you the real world usage
for how I use this camera at a wedding
that I filmed a short while ago.
Second, I'm gonna tell you the strengths
and weaknesses that I found while using this camera
at that wedding.
And just as a side note, here,
I've been planning on making a video about 360 cameras
for a long time, now,
and then recently, Insta360 reached out to me
and said, "hey Matt,
"do you want to try out one of our cameras?"
and I said, "yes, that's perfect,
"because that lines up with exactly
"what I've been wanting to do."
So, yes, I did accept this camera for free,
I just want you to know that before we jump into this video.
So, let's get right into it.
Leading up to the wedding day I had all these ideas
that I've had for years about how I could use
the Insta360 on a wedding day
and I was finally able to make some of them happen.
For me, the first choice was obvious.
I've made many behind the scenes videos over the years
detailing exactly how I film a wedding
and that usually involves me hiring and bringing along
a third shooter that films with a third camera,
everything that I am doing on the wedding day.
This has worked great,
but, I've always had the thought,
what if I couldn't hire a second shooter,
what if it's a destination wedding,
what if it's a last minute wedding
and I still want to film a behind the scenes about it,
but, I do not have a third person.
Well, what if I had a camera that was wide enough
that I could then film literally everything that I'm filming
and also myself while I'm filming the wedding.
A camera like the ONE X.
So, I bought two accessories to make the ONE X work
with my current shooting setup.
First, I bought a tiny camera hot shoe accessory mount,
so, I could mount the Insta360 on top of my camera.
I've seen other people do this with a GoPro
and I've been wanting to do it myself,
but, whenever I think about it,
the only way that you could really improve over
a GoPro would be instead of just shooting
what's directly in front,
shoot everything in 360 with a 360 camera.
Pretty cool.
Also, the image stabilization of the ONE X is super good,
so, even handheld, everything looks very smooth.
The second accessory that I bought
is a dual handle grip for my Zhiyun Crane 2
that comes with an accessory mount.
This way I could mount the ONE X to the side of my Gimbal
because if I added it to the top with a hot shoe mount
and my battery grip that I use with my a7S II,
it would be way too top heavy.
Both of these accessories gave me
an awesome amount of versatility and enabled me
to capture a wide variety of behind the scenes shots
that I wouldn't ever have been able to capture
in a BTS before.
Plus, you can zoom in really close on my bread in 360,
which, is cool.
I'll link to both of these accessories down
in the video description.
The hot shoe mount works with any camera that has a hot shoe
and the Crane 2 dual handed grip actually works
with a Ronin-S, as well.
So, for you Ronin-S users that want a dual handle setup,
it's a good option.
Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, "Matt
"are you going to stop hiring a third shooter
"for your behind the scenes videos
"and just use the 360 camera?"
No, definitely not.
I have every intention of still hiring a third shooter
because I really value those extra wide angles
that you can get from a third person,
but, I can definitely see myself using the ONE X
as another camera angle that I can use whenever I'm cutting
to different angles in a BTS.
Also, if I have a destination wedding
and I cannot afford to bring along a third shooter
for behind the scenes, this is a great option.
So, that's one use case for you.
If you want to film a behind the scenes of a wedding
or a commercial shoot, or basically anything else
that you want a BTS of, for that matter,
having a ONE X and just tossing it on top of a hot shoe
or on a Gimbal or basically anywhere else
that you want an ultra wide angle view of everything
that's going on in a room,
I think this is a great camera for a BTS.
Now, we need to take a minute to talk about
the image quality of the ONE X
because I'm sure there are some of you
that are thinking, could I mount the ONE X
on top of my main camera and then use it as a second angle?
And to that, I would say,
I would equate the ONE X image quality to be pretty close
to an earlier model DJI drone or a GoPro from
a few generations back.
When you keep the ONE X wide, it looks good,
but, when you zoom in on the image
it starts to fall apart quickly.
You also won't be getting any depth of field
from this camera's small sensors, but, honestly,
in 360 you wouldn't really want depth of field anyways.
Keep in mind that the ONE X records in 5.7K resolution,
which, is very impressive for a camera of this size.
But, that resolution that is quite high
is paired with
a 120mbps
bit rate,
which, is comparatively low for that high of a resolution.
The camera also shoots in the H.264 video codec
and I can't help but feel, if it recorded in H.265
or at a higher bit rate, that it would look much better.
360 cameras are one of the few areas
where I feel like we really benefit from having
a massively high resolution camera.
Resolutions like 8K, 12K, 16K,
that is actually viable whenever you
are shooting something as wide as 360 video.
There are currently 360 cameras that record
in these much higher resolutions,
but, they also come with a much higher price tag
than the 400 dollars of the ONE X.
So, to sum up the image quality of the ONE X,
I think if you keep things wide, they should look decent.
But, I would hesitate to mix the footage from this camera
with my a7S II, for example,
unless I had a very specific use case.
Speaking of specific use case,
this camera does have one super cool specific feature
and that's called Bullet Time.
Insta360 also sent along this selfie stick that spins
that basically makes your footage look like the Matrix.
When I was preparing to use this camera at the wedding,
I had an idea of how cool it would be
to pair the Bullet Time effect with a colored smoke bomb,
where I could have the couple spinning the camera overhead,
while the smoke swirled around them.
I think the concept itself is sound,
but, both the camera and the environment I choose
to film this in, were working a bit against me.
There was way too much wind on the day before the wedding
that I tried to film this with the couple.
In an ideal world,
I would have been able to setup the smoke canister,
then hide, so, I wasn't in the 360 camera shot
as the smoke built up all romantically around the couple
and the camera spun around them through the smoke.
It was going to look so cool.
Unfortunately, the wind kept changing directions
so, I had to handhold the smoke canister
and constantly move
so, the smoke kept going over the couple.
I am confident though,
that if you were to try this on a less windy day,
you would have much better results.
Oh, and I would also try this in the shade, too,
because while this camera is capable of removing
the selfie stick from the shot,
it cannot remove the shadow of the selfie stick
which, was definitely visible in the sunlight.
The other thing working against me when trying
to get this shot was the ONE X itself.
First, it doesn't let you reframe your shots
whenever you're shooting them in Bullet Time mode,
so, you have to trust that the camera
is recording things correctly.
The first time I tested this,
the cameras was wrong and it began flipping
the Bullet Time shot and I had no way of correcting it.
Thankfully, I tested this beforehand,
before using the smoke canister,
but, if you're in a hurry,
this is something you could miss and cause an issue.
Another issue with the ONE X in Bullet Time mode
is that the resolution drops to 3K,
so, it can shoot at 100 frames per second.
While that frame rate and resolution is very impressive
to me, especially in a camera this small,
the bit rate is still not high enough,
so, the image starts to fall apart quickly,
Also, speaking of the image quality falling apart,
let's talk about my last idea for how to use
the ONE X on a wedding day.
I had this vision in my head for how cool it would look
if as the couple was exciting their wedding reception
with sparklers lighting them up on either side
they could hold up the ONE X with the selfie stick
and get a Bullet Time shot of themselves kissing.
What's cool is that I managed to pull it off,
what's not cool is that the image quality
and the low light performance made
the camera footage barley usable,
and also, as a side note for those of you that are worrying
that I hogged the exit all to myself,
I spoke to the photographer beforehand
and told her, "hey, I've got this selfie stick,
"Bullet Time, 360 camera thing,
"is it cool if we try this?"
And she was cool with it, especially because we had
the couple go through the exit twice
so, they walked down once with the sparklers
and we filmed them normally with our cameras,
then, they went back and they did it with the selfie camera,
so, nothing to worry about there.
I did not hog the entire wedding exit.
Also, the groom was six foot five
and with the selfie stick above his head
it was like almost eight feet,
so, I wasn't really worried about him hitting anybody.
I felt pretty safe about it.
But, if you are trying to replicate
this shot at a wedding,
I would definitely make sure that you are safe about it.
I really love this shot and the concept,
but, like I said, the image quality definitely began
to fall apart whenever I maxed out the ISO of the ONE X,
at ISO 6400.
For comparison with my Sony a7S II, the exit looked great,
but, that's also because I was shooting it f1.4
and ISO 10,000.
It was definitely dark outside.
So, if you are thinking about doing
a shot like this at a wedding exit,
don't let the noisiness of my shot dissuade you.
I am sure that this was as dark as most wedding exits come
and if you have a brighter exit with more venue lights,
if maybe the sun it setting,
if there's more light than just moon light and stars,
you will probably have a better image
than what I was able to record.
So, in conclusion, is it time to buy a 360 camera
for use at weddings, or commercial shoots,
or anything else, for that matter
or are these cameras really just a gimmick?
Well, I would say, it really depends
on your use case and scenario.
If you have a specific use for this camera,
such as, filming a behind the scenes
where you know you're gonna be using
this camera many times and often,
then, I would definitely recommend picking one up,
but, if you have a smaller concept,
like a Bullet Time smoke effect or one wedding
that you want to try it on,
then, I would probably recommend renting
a camera like this instead of spending 400 dollars.
I also want to look to the future
because if companies like Insta360 keep innovating
with higher resolution, better battery life,
a higher bit rate, better low light, maybe bigger sensors,
I really question whether I would ever purchase
a GoPro or and Osmo Action over something like a ONE X
because why would I settle for filming one angle
if I could film all of the angles?
Pretty cool concept.
With that, thank you so much for watching.
Also, if you're interested in seeing how your computer
can handle editing some 360 footage,
I have a link down in the description
to download some free Insta360 ONE X video clips
that I filmed.
Leave me a comment and let me know if your computer
is actually capable of editing them. (laugh)
Thanks so much for watching and have a great day.
(upbeat music)