So you've decided you want to shoot virtual tours and you're looking for a 360
camera with that purpose in mind. When shooting a virtual tour a lot of things
don't apply that I talk about in my other videos, things like video things
like stabilization things like a low-light because most virtual tools are
shot during the day so I have the 4 best contenders in front of me now I
want to put them side-by-side to figure out really which is the best camera you
should buy if you want to make money with virtual tours to be perfectly
honest with you the best 360 camera choice is using a DSLR. I know what you're
thinking.. DSLR? What? They don't shoot 360. Well actually they do back in the day
panoramic photographers would use a DSLR with a nodal head and they'd point the
camera in all directions capturing a mega high-resolution 360 panorama which
they then stitch together into an awesome-looking 360 they still do this
today and this is still the best option but that takes way too long
who's got time to download all those files stitch them together photo by
photo by photo I want to be able to do it in minutes which is why in this video
we're going to choose the best point-and-shoot 360 camera
so the two things you should look for in a 360 camera for shooting virtual tours
are 1: resolution and 2: dynamic range these are crucial because all buildings
you might be shooting in will have an interior and an exterior that is
significantly brighter than the interior which is why dynamic range is so
important you need a camera they can capture both of them harmoniously in the
same photo and not completely blow out the background or underexpose the
interior and this can be achieved in two ways the first way is just shooting in
HDR mode some cameras like this one have HDR mode so you can do it right there in
the camera which is really handy because it means there's less post work later on
the second way is shooting in RAW a lot of these cameras now can shoot in RAW
which means you have a lot more control over your highlights and your shadows in
post so if you like editing in Lightroom or Adobe Camera Raw you can really
recover any detail that might have been under or over exposed next is resolution
and when you choose a 360 camera you need to make sure you choose them with
just a base level of resolution resolution isn't everything but it's
something I would prioritize exposure over resolution but if you have about 15
megapixels or more you should be okay don't settle for some cheap crappy
camera found on eBay it's worth getting the name brands that you might have seen on
my youtube channel because they will deliver so now I'm going to put these
4 cameras to the test in a high contrast room that I've got here really
strong lighting coming in through the windows and we have shadows inside so
this will be a good test of which of these four cameras is the best for
virtual tours now i will be shooting RAW when I can which is with 2 of these
cameras and i will be shooting in HDR mode for the cameras that also allow HDR
and you know what I'm gonna put the samples from all of these photos that
I'm taking today down in description if you want download with them and pixel
peep them yourself if you want to edit them and see exactly what workflow works
best for you i'll make them available for free check
the description
so here are the photos I took with each
camera I used the settings that produce the best overall look exposure dynamic
range and so on so the photos in front of you are as good as they possibly can
look with each camera I color corrected them in Adobe Camera Raw I will show you
the original images a little later with the Xiaomi Mi Sphere I shot in RAW and I
found that looks slightly better than auto exposure the Mi Sphere is always
super contrasty so I found that helped a bit again the Insta 360 One looked
best in RAW I shot this in DNG RAW stitch it in Insta 360 Studio and I must
say I'm pleasantly surprised at how good it turned out here's the Theta V and I
shot this in HDR rendering which is a setting within the app and damn I'm
happy with this I don't know what else to say
finally here's the Fusion and this photo was taken with RAW on and ProTune on
however this isn't a RAW photo you can't yet stitch RAW within the GoPro app so this
is just plain auto exposure so here are the things that are important to me when
shooting a virtual tour
now I want to address all of these things one by one
to see how the cameras stack up against each other
I'll give them ratings and see which one wins overall taking a look at the
sharpness and straight away the Fusion draws my eye as the sharpest of the 4
followed by the Mi Sphere and this is from a wider perspective when we punch
in I think that all but confirms that Fusion #1 Mi Sphere #2 believe it or
not the Theta V comes in 3rd and Insta 360 One 4th and this is really
interesting because the 2 cameras on the left have a higher resolution and
the 2 cameras on the right yet the Theta V and Fusion are beating the
Mi Sphere and One respectively so why is that well the answer is lens
quality because the 2 cameras on the right are the most expensive they are
designed the best and the lenses are engineered in a way that despite having
a lower resolution they're able to capture details in a way that makes the
resolution look higher than it actually is
moving on to dynamic range and looking at these 4 images here I think
they're all totally acceptable and I'd be happy shooting a virtual tour with
any of these if I had mixed lighting I know they'd all do a pretty
good job first I want to look at the highlights and when i zoom in super
close on all 4 images they're all looking extremely different the Theta V
is no question handling at the best hey the Insta 360 One is doing a really good
job normally it's not that great mixed lighting but with highlights it
does an excellent job Fusion comes next and the Mi Sphere is looking pretty
average taking a look at the shadows and it's a completely different story the
Theta V comes 1st again shadows are looking excellent I
would put Fusion in 2nd while the Mi Sphere puts up a strong case for 2nd
the texture of the Fusion is a lot better I can see quite a bit of visible
noise with the Mi Sphere whereas I can't with the Fusion finally with the Insta 360 One
it's just not a camera that's good at low-light or shadows so this
especially applies to mixed lighting it's not going to be great in the shadow
areas although it will be good in the highlights so here's how I see it
overall for dynamic range good old Theta V it's always been
excellent dynamic range and this is something I've said video after video
this is the best camera for dynamic range period end of story next is color
and if you haven't entered full screen mode yet then now is the time to do it
so you can really pixel peep these colors and straight away again the 2
cameras on the right to stand out more than the cameras on the left the Fusion
and Theta V are almost inseparable they both really really good for color
my skin tone definitely looks best on the Theta V however this video isn't
about that that's about photographing buildings I'm finding it really hard to
separate the 2 but I would probably just give it to the Fusion because the
colors are the most accurate to what I was seeing then in there with my eye the
Theta looks great no question and it's only 2nd by a hair Mi Sphere 3rd
One 4th for those of you who choose not to color correct your photo
you're going to need a camera that has an awesome look straight out of the
camera with very minimal post-production needed this is tech instruction the SD
cards and this is more or less the look you will get in most situations due to
the awesome dynamic range again the Theta V is going to take 1st place for
straight out of the camera look because it's just really well balanced there's
no overblown highlights no crushed blacks everything is looking a-ok
I'd put the Fusion in 2nd place followed by the Mi Sphere one thing you
will need to be careful about with the me sphere is sometimes the 2 lenses
create 2 different color temperatures and you might end up with a significant
blue streak around the seam line ultimately this can be fixed by the
method in which you stitch so you will want to be careful about this stitching
in the app is going to create the strongest seam line as you can see here
it won't always be there but it will sometimes so Mi Sphere goes into 3rd
place and bringing up the rear again is the Insta 360 One and while I do like
the images overall that it produces consistently I found it just looks
washed out especially where the highlights meet the shadows and there
always seems to be a lack of contrast and contrast is really important to
accentuate the architecture when you're shooting a virtual tour next is workflow
and this is something that will be vastly different for everyone but I'll
try to give you an idea of my workflow for each camera to get the best result
possible and how long it took for each here are my workflows broken up into
the general steps you don't need to read them all but this will hopefully give
you an idea of how many steps there is for each and even though they all have a
similar amount of steps with some cameras the steps away faster done than
others overall I found this Theta V has the shortest amount of time per step
normally it's about 30 to 60 seconds for most of them some of the bigger things
take a bit longer but overall in my experience the Theta V has the fastest
workflow followed by the Fusion, Mi Sphere and Insta 360 One look your workflows
probably completely different to mine and that might change but this is just
my personal experience and something to consider when choosing a 360 camera for
virtual tours now I'm going to add a category because there's something
that's more important than everything I've discussed that will influence your
buying decision and that is price you need the money to begin with to be able
to buy a 360 camera so I'm just gonna mention it here right now real quick
here they are here's the order and I will put links in the description to
where you can find them all for the best price possible so here's the final tally
what do you guys think do your numbers look the same as mine leave a comment
box below and let me know but otherwise according to my calculations we have
ourselves a winner here are the rankings excellent job to all
4 contestants but the Theta V has this battle 1 if you're thinking about
buying a 360 camera specifically for virtual tours you should pick the Theta V
over all other cameras this doesn't take away from the fact that the other
three are all excellent and they also excel and many other
things outside of virtual tours but if you're looking at shooting interiors of
buildings the Theta V is going to have your back it has a great look a great
workflow and an affordable-ish price there's no doubt that new amazing
cameras will be coming out in the future so if you're watching months or even
years after this video was released use this video as a guide for what you
should look for from a virtual to a 360 camera don't forget to hit that
subscribe button down there for more awesome 360 photo and video content coming really soon
hey there's gonna be some more Cupix videos coming really soon so you won't
want to miss those hit that like button if you liked this video hit the dislike
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more awesome daily 360 content until next time keep capturing your world in
360 this has been Ben and I will see you in the next video