The Xphase Pro S is a 360 camera the size of a golf ball...
that has 25 lenses and can shoot 134 megapixel 360 photos.
That's six times higher quality
than the average 360 camera right now!
But, is it a serious competitor in the 360 camera market?
Or is it just a gimmick?
Well, I've taken some of my sharpest
and best 360 photos yet, with it.
I know earlier in the year 360 Rumors and I
made a video comparing the XPhase
with three of its closest competitors,
and it didn't come out on top.
However, a lot of time and firmware updates have passed
since making that video,
and the XPhase now stands as one of the best options
for 360 photography in 2020.
Just wait until you see the photos.
The design is pretty interesting.
So it's a 360 camera with an inbuilt handle.
And in here you can find the battery
and on the head of the camera, you'll find all 25 lenses.
Most of them can be found around the sides of the camera.
However, there's also two right there on the top
and two there on the bottom.
It's only got one single button.
If you long press that it will turn on the camera,
but it does take 30 seconds, which is kind of annoying.
Come on.
When you turn the camera on the wifi also activates,
so you can connect it immediately with your smartphone.
Now here's something interesting.
It's got a one quarter inch tripod thread there,
right on the bottom, and you can also unscrew it
to reveal the charging point
as well as the removable memory.
Yeah, this has got a removable micro USB,
and it comes with an inbuilt 32 gigabytes.
You can replace this with a lot more memory,
but you will need to check the compatibility
because not all micro thumb drives
will fit inside the XPhase.
Kind of feels like a weapon.
It's not super heavy,
but it's heavy enough that if you did drop it,
I think one of those lenses would definitely break.
By the way, I found the inbuilt battery
to perform pretty average for a 360 camera.
I've been shooting for an hour and beyond,
keeping the camera on and it's been okay.
Battery life has not been an issue in my experience.
It's just a weird camera design, isn't it?
You've got a handle that's built in.
You can't even remove it.
It does make it easier to take selfies by the way.
But yeah, otherwise weird spaceship looking,
bludgeoning weapon thing.
Now, let's take a look at the XPhase's photos.
And this first shot is a 6-shot HDR
taken with the XPhase, right around sunset.
And welcome to Mr. Ben headquarters, by the way.
Here's my brand new photo wall and YouTube background.
That's looking awesome.
And when I zoom in, I'm still seeing a lot of detail.
I can see so much color, contrast, clarity on display
with every single one of these photos.
And this is something you just don't get
with the majority of point and shoot 360 cameras.
Whenever you zoom into this level,
if you started back here and you zoom into this,
you're gonna start getting some soft edges.
There's no way you would see every last bit of graffiti
in Leake Street tunnel here in this photo.
So that's the first thing you notice right there,
is the sharpness is just incredible.
I can look out the at city, that's relatively sharp,
the window pane is sharp.
And to be honest, it's actually kind of shocking,
because I'm not used to this level of detail.
And I don't know if I'll be able to go back
to the softer quality of the other cameras.
So yeah, I think we can say the XPhase
has done an excellent job with this photo.
It looks fantastic all around.
That is until we look up.
So I found the Xphase
doesn't always stitch the roof perfectly,
and this is one of the better results I've gotten from it,
but still it looks like there are marks on the roof
and these color spots around the lights
are really distracting.
This has been common in my experience with the Xphase.
Because it has so many lenses, it produces lens flares
on, I would say at least nine of the 25 lenses
whenever exposed to a bright light source.
And here can see a bunch of them have flared
and it's caused that patchy red area.
I did color correct the JPEG of this image by the way,
but I didn't have enough time to fix this
'cause it would take a bit of work.
And that's not always something you have time to do
or want to do with every single photo you take.
Look, it's definitely a minor complaint
and viewers tend to look around the horizon
and then down before they look up in 360 photos,
but it is something that will be there,
whenever you've got a bright light source in your shots.
Here's another sample this time I'm having my morning coffee
and I can zoom right in again,
and I can see the reflection on my eyes.
I can see the wall pretty clearly.
I can see most details around this scene
that other 360 cameras simply wouldn't pick up.
Again this was shot with 6-shot HDR
and overall I think the dynamic range is pretty decent here.
The lighting was a bit tricky,
especially around these areas,
but as a whole it's exposed this image well.
And again, this is after color correction.
So for the most part, I'm really happy with this image.
That is, until I look down and zoom out a bit
and you can see it that's what it's done to the nadir.
So with the XPhase,
it struggles with stitching
anything within three feet of it.
And because I've placed the camera on the table here,
it's struggling with the lines in these tiles a lot.
Sometimes it's just a plain stitching error like this,
and sometimes it tries to connect the two together,
but it results in a wavy line.
I've noticed this issue consistently
with every shot I've taken with it.
If there's any important details
within three feet of the camera
prepare for stitching errors.
Whereas if we go to this sign, which is maybe six feet away,
there's no issue at all.
Next, let's talk about the highlights
and XPhase definitely struggles with these.
As you can see, firstly, the highlights are white.
Yep, part of that is user error
and I've clearly overexposed this image.
But if I wanted to get the exposure right
in the rest of the image,
unfortunately I had to sacrifice the highlights here.
And what I'm noticing is a lot of weird stuff.
The light is kind of bleeding in on the straight lines here
we have like, it looks like a mold or fungus
coming through the windows.
And that seems to be a consistent theme
with all bright highlights of this image.
You're probably thinking Mr. Ben,
can't you just use bracketing to solve this?
Well, yes you can.
And here I've done exactly that.
However I found when merging to HDR,
it's not as easy as it is with other cameras
to get the perfect shot you are hoping for.
It's going to take us a lot more editing.
So while I've found manually bracketing with the XPhase
to overall improve the dynamic range a bit,
it also presents a new range of issues
mostly to do with color banding.
So with this shot, when we look at the ceiling,
we can see pink and a bluey-green.
And that seems to be a consistent thing with the Xphase,
is the shots turn out a bit too pink and purple sometimes.
And when you overprocess them,
you start getting banding quite a lot.
So this is no easy task
and definitely not for a beginner
who doesn't know Photoshop inside and out.
So for me personally, the better workflow
is just waiting until the light was a bit more even,
and I could use the 6-shot inbuilt HDR
to get a single shot photo
that I didn't have to edit as much as manually bracketing.
Although I have seen the XPhase Facebook group,
there are people getting a lot more technical,
doing a lot more post production
and as a result, getting much better results
than I'm getting here.
By the way, the issues I just talked about
are all present inside,
but when you go outside, it's a different ball game.
When I look around this, the shots are a lot better
because there's more light, everything is clearer,
there's less overall imperfections and yen.
Very little stitching error as well.
This shot looks awesome.
This is as much detail
as my iPhone would probably take from this perspective
and I've taken it with a 360 camera.
So in terms of outside shots,
I would totally rely on the XPhase
and I think you could potentially
even get around the stitching issues.
Yes, I'm still seeing some of those highlight issues,
but as a whole, this image looks great.
Here's the view from my balcony at sunset
and that skyline, yeah, it's looking pretty good.
While I know all the cameras
would definitely get the exposure here better.
You wouldn't see those blown out highlights,
some of the shadows might be a bit lighter,
but you're not going to get the detail there.
So with the XPhase, it's a trade off.
It's dynamic range and ease of editing
versus really high resolution.
Another flaw I see is the horizons.
Yes, it does technically have horizon leveling,
but it often gets it wrong.
Most of the time I've found,
if I don't shoot with the camera directly vertical,
it gets the horizon off,
even with horizon leveling on.
Which adds one more step to the workflow,
you're gonna have to fix that wavy horizon later on.
That's yeah, a bit annoying.
Now I wanna talk about what it's like
to shoot with the XPhase.
And it's not the easiest process in the world.
There are quite a few steps.
It's not a fast camera.
It takes 20 or 30 seconds to start up
and getting used to the workflow takes time.
You know how with cameras like the ONE X,
you can turn it on and start shooting straight away.
You don't need to spend hours learning the camera.
It's all pretty intuitive.
Well with the Xphase, it's not intuitive in the slightest,
and it takes quite a bit of getting used to,
the shooting and editing
of these really high resolution photos.
I don't really see this as a selfie, by the way.
Here I am in my building's elevator.
And yeah, it's clearly got motion blow
because of the autoexposure.
It just wasn't able to judge this scene well,
it slowed down the shutter speed and it blurred the shot.
And the camera really is too much work
for everyday happy snaps.
This is the kind of camera that you would use
in wide open spaces.
So the best use case for that is virtual tours.
When you've got lots of space all around you
and nothing really needs to be super close to the camera.
So that's just something to keep in mind.
This isn't an everyday 360 camera, like the ONE X,
and you're going to have a lot of trouble using it
in everyday situations.
If you just wanna capture what you're doing in 360
or you're traveling,
then there's inevitably gonna be a ton of stitching errors
for anything up close.
You can shoot in auto mode
as well as manual exposure with the XPhase.
However, one massive inconvenience
is it doesn't allow you a live preview in the app.
You have to basically guess your exposure
if you're shooting manually.
And I do see the XPhase a camera you might buy
when you're not at beginner level anymore.
You wanna move up into intermediate and advanced territory,
and get those really high quality results.
And often setting in your exposure manually
comes hand in hand with that.
Well, it's really hard to do that without a live preview.
Yes, you can do it, but you have to guess
and get it wrong a lot,
before you eventually get it right,
three or four photos later.
The app really is so simple
and I don't mean that in a good way.
It just feels really underdeveloped
with the no live preview,
and it's not obvious where you're going to find
each setting of the camera.
I mean, yes, you can get the perfect results
you were looking for
once you spend enough time in the app
searching for the right settings.
But again, it's not something that's going to be intuitive
and prepare for a lot of trying and failing.
I probably don't see the XPhase as a camera you would use
if you don't have a lot of time to shoot.
I found on average, I've needed a few minutes
to set up each individual shot.
And in a virtual tour type environment, that's fine
because you've dedicated that time
to get your setup and your exposure
and get everything right.
Whereas purely for happy snaps,
it's just gonna take too long to use this camera.
I've also found the wifi to disconnect a lot,
sometimes immediately after I take a photo,
sometimes after taking a few photos,
but one thing for sure is it happens a lot
and it's really frustrating.
It makes me wanna smash all 25 of those lenses
on the concrete you stupid..
Okay, maybe I'm being a bit dramatic.
One final thing to add
is when you use autoexposure with the XPhase,
it favors the highlights.
So here I've shot a hotel room
and everything is pitch black.
Outside is definitely really good,
but if you were to take the average exposure
within this scene, it's not this.
It's probably going to be like this wall here.
Yet for some reason, the XPhase has favored this
as the exposure to prioritise with autoexposure.
And since you don't have a live preview of your images,
it will take several minutes
before you're even able to see what it's done
in autoexposure mode.
And then if you choose to shoot manually,
it'll take a few minutes more to guess the exposure,
download your shot, see if it looks okay,
then change the settings. Try again and so on.
Yes, look, that's super annoying.
But to get this level of clarity, it's the price you pay.
If you prefer the inbuilt single-shot HDR workflow,
you might find this comparison interesting.
Here I have two 360 photos side by side
in the exact same situation.
On the right is the Xphase
on the left is what I deem to be the best 360 camera
for virtual tours right now, and that's the THETA Z1.
With both cameras, I've used the inbuilt HDR mode.
And let's take a look across the image.
And the first thing I'm observing is the colors
and the exposure are way better with the THETA Z1.
Everything is more or less perfectly exposed,
whereas with the XPhase, the shadows are really dark,
and also the highlights compared to the THETA Z1
are much more blown out.
So in terms of overall dynamic range
the THETA Z1 wins hands down.
To make it more even I had to colour correct the XPhase
and still the THETA Z1 looks better uncolour-corrected
compared to the XPhase colour corrected.
There's also more lens flare at the top of the XPhase,
as there was a light above the camera,
and you're not getting that as much with the THETA.
I was able to bring back the shadows a bit,
but it still needs work.
Those whites are looking a bit too blue
and the colors aren't looking super accurate
to what I was seeing there as I was sitting in the cafe.
But aside from that, let's zoom in
and see another big difference.
When I take a look at this mural up close,
hands down, the XPhase is so much clearer.
In fact, I can keep zooming
and it's still sharper than the THETA Z1
even when zoomed out.
And to reiterate the most obvious point about this video,
this is the XPhases x-factor.
Get it, nevermind.
But yeah, it's that sharpness.
It's that clarity when you zoom in really far,
you're still getting clear lines, no pixelation
and very little softness.
I zoomed in quite a bit, by the way.
Here's the original photo and zooming, zooming, zooming,
still seeing details with the high level of zoom.
And yes, this also begs the question.
How much realistically is your audience going to zoom in?
If you were to ask me, I'd say it would be about this
since this is more or less the perspective
a human eye sees.
And still even a bit more zoomed out,
obviously the XPhase is still much sharper
than the THETA Z1.
So between these two cameras,
I really do see it as a trade off
between extreme sharpness and really good dynamic range.
Think about it,
which one of these two is more important to you?
Because that will determine which of these cameras
is better suited to you.
Personally I find the really fast workflow
and ease of editing with the Z1 a bit more appealing
than having that extra resolution of the XPhase.
However, for places like Facebook,
where you can zoom in really far on 360 photos,
that resolution is also really tempting.
So if you ever needed one really high-quality
sharp 360 photo of a location,
and you're willing to put up with the editing time
and yes, it can take up to half an hour or even an hour,
depending on how bad the image was to begin with.
It still could be worth it.
However, for shoots like virtual tours,
where you're going to have more than five photos per shoot,
this editing time is going to become significant,
and significantly take away
from that X factor of that high resolution,
when it takes so much of your time
to get it in a properly exposed photo.
So while I know for sure
I will be using the XPhase a lot in the future,
and it's only gonna get better and better from here,
there's no way I'd use it as an everyday camera
because it's just too much work to get the exposure right
and to get the editing right.
So I think we've established
that the XPhase does require a learning curve
and nothing is obvious.
I spent so much time going through the manual,
searching through the XPhase Facebook group,
as well as 360rumors.com
to find out exactly how this thing works,
because it's just not obvious.
When you turn it on, connect it to the app
it doesn't really guide you through what you need to do.
And you just have to go through a lot more steps,
and there's a lot more learning
compared to the average 360 camera.
Oh, and here's an interesting one.
It doesn't shoot video.
It's a photo only camera.
Don't ask me why.
Now, since these photos are enormous,
naturally the files are going to be as well.
I've found when shooting with the XPhase
file sizes have varied a lot
and they can be anywhere from 10 megabytes
to 800 megabytes for a single 360 photo from this thing.
So it chews up memory really, really fast.
And yeah it's got replaceable memory, which is good,
but it's something to keep in mind later on
because when editing really big files,
it affects your ability to do that quickly within Photoshop.
I've got some really good specs on my iMac
and it was struggling big time to edit these XPhase files.
And Photoshop was freezing all the time,
even when doing simple things like removing the tripod,
doing a bit of color correction
and any kind of manipulation to these files.
So if you're thinking about the XPhase,
you're going to need a fast computer.
That's a non-negotiable.
I would recommend at least 32 to 64 gigabytes of Ram
and ideally an eight to 16 gigabyte graphics card.
What do you think of the XPhase?
- All right, Ben.
So I think the X phrase is a really good camera for experts.
Like, you know, it's super detailed,
more detailed than an average DSLR panoramic set up.
But for me, I've had a lot of trouble editing it
in some conditions.
Like outdoors it's totally fine.
Very smooth, colours are great.
Indoors, sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not.
And when it's not, it's very hard to edit it.
It's great for experts.
If you know what you're doing, if you know how to edit,
then great!
If not, it's not for beginners.
I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.
- [Ben] Okay, I have one more question.
Can you shoot the XPhase in your mouth?
- Sure .
- [Ben] Okay, go for it.
- I mean can you bet...
Do you wanna bet that I can't do that.
- [Ben] I bet you 10 bucks.
I'll PayPal you right now.
Okay, ready?
Three, two, one.
Oh, cheater, cheater, ah-ah.
- The XPhase has come a long way this year.
It's made by a small company called Stabilizer Pro
and yes, updates have been slow
and they will be in the future.
But I do see at the time of making this video,
this camera is good enough to buy,
and the images you can get with it,
can be absolutely incredible, if you're patient.
I see the XPhase as a great camera for the 360 photographer,
whose main priority is really high resolution,
but also isn't ready to shoot 360's with a DSLR.
This camera is a great option for virtual tours
and it's only going to get better.
If you're a patient person
and you value really high resolution,
then I would say go ahead and buy it.
If you prefer a speedy workflow though,
go with one of the other cameras I talk about on my channel,
like the THETA Z1 or even the Kandao Qoocam 8K,
which will be my next video,
and that's the camera that's had some much needed updates.
So if the XPhase isn't for you consider those two.
Oh yeah.
And that's it.
Catch you next time.