Choosing a high(er) end 360 camera

Contributing and equipment 360° cameras
1

Hi all!

Our team is looking for a new 360 camera to use with Mapillary. Our price range is about 2-3000 USD.
The cameras in this price range are not at all straight forward to use, that’s why I’m looking for your input and experiences.

The cameras we have considered so far:

  • DETU F4 Plus (this seems the best option for us at the moment)
  • Z CAM S1
  • Insta360 Pro
  • GoPro Omni

If you have any experience with these or similar 360 cameras please feel free to comment, your thoughts are needed and valued!

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I only have experience with low end spherical cameras, but I do have experience with professional cameras and lenses.

I would go for the Insta360 based on specifications, because it can produce raw images.

The images take up a lot more space, but enables you to adjust e.g. exposure significantly after the images was taken. I have never seen an auto exposure that get it perfect and they usually are very wrong when there are a lot of clouds that are lit by the Sun.

3

Followup:
After lenghty research and many mails exchanged with support teams we have decided to go with the GoPro Fusion. It’s in the 800 USD range, but basically it’s either the GoPro or the Insta360 Pro for 3000+ (plus accesories) USD, there is not much inbetween that would justify it’s price for Mapillary use.
According to our research almost all the cameras in the 1000-2500 USD range are failed or half-assed kickstarter projects or 1st generation products from companies that might not stick around to support their product. Also there are a couple cameras that are focused on other qualities other than still image quality.

Note to the mapillary team regarding their list of 360 cams:

  • The Panono seems to be available for purchase now (it wasn’t a couple weeks ago as far as I can remember) but it starts around 2100 EUR rather than the mentioned 1500 USD
  • The sphericam kickstarter project failed due to some component sourcing problems, there is a sphericam 2 on their website which looks good but it’s not available for purchase.

Also it would be nice to add the GoPro fusion to the list, and maybe the Insta 360 Pro.

4 Likes
4

would like to know your results of the gopro, especially if you are capturing on a vehicle at speed.

5

you can look up some threads on here from people using the Fusion: in short it’s probably the easiest for Mapillary workflows, image quality is ok, can overheat in warm climates

6

I have bought the cheap LG 360 cam. But I think I want to “gear up”… when I read this review I tend towards the One X?

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if you don’t mind bothering with either an external gps link through a phone (which I think you had trouble with?), then Insta360 is a better choice. Then again, people on here would say if you don’t need internal gps you might as well get similar image quality with a cheaper Xiaomi/MadV camera

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I am very happy for my Xiaomi Mi, whic as @4004 says does not have internal GPS. It gets the coordinates from the phone, so you don’t have to do it afterwards. It can do JPGs with just a bit more than 2 sec between and also raw images with an interval of 8 sec. Hand tuned raw images can get up to quite high standards compared to a camera on full auto, but you have to spend more time in order to get the result.

1 Like