I have been working with the Ricoh Theta S for the last several days since it was delivered. I want to share what I have learned about what it can do. As for these 360 degree cameras, it's funny, I regularly see people referring to 360 cameras as "3D VR" cameras. There also seems to be a general nomenclature ambiguity about VR surrounding the format and whether certain VR experiences are 3D. I will discuss in a future post the different flavors of reality capture, among them and along a spectrum: 2D panoramic, 360 panoramic (still 2D), 3D stereoscopic, and real 3D (like you experience in a game engine). For now, it is enough to note that the Theta S generates a 360 degree two dimensional photo sphere permitting you to simply take a picture and afterward look in any direction you like. It can take still images as well as 1920 x 1080 video.
I'll start by noting that I agree with the folks saying that 360 pictures and video are a fad. That said, I see the Ricoh Theta S and other inexpensive 360 degree cameras as being a relevant part of the transition phase during which we need VR content but don't yet have an easy, affordable way to create 3D content.
I'll start by noting that I agree with the folks saying that 360 pictures and video are a fad. That said, I see the Ricoh Theta S and other inexpensive 360 degree cameras as being a relevant part of the transition phase during which we need VR content but don't yet have an easy, affordable way to create 3D content.
A friend of mine recently asked me if I had seen the Lytro Immerge. I have seen it and I love its styling. It looks amazing and I immediately wanted to see what it could do. Like all new technology, the first picture gets the heart racing and the mind thinking up all of the cool things that you want to be able to do with this new tool. And surely, you think, this will be the one that finally makes capturing 3D content attainable. And then you read on and find out that it is aimed at professional studios who want to create high end VR content and is expected to cost in the "hundreds of thousands" of dollars. Inevitably you come back down to earth and realize even Moore's law tells you you're not getting your hands on this cool new piece of tech for several years. So, we keep looking at 360 2D cameras.
And that is where I think the Theta S is. It is the next step along the path toward where we really want to be -- 3D photo realistic reality capture. But to take full advantage of the Theta, you can't start with that as your ideal, you need to see how far they have brought us from conventional 2D cameras and videography. A 360 degree field of view, while complicating filming (for example, there is nowhere to hide "off stage"), does open up a number of interesting new possibilities to allow the viewer to decide where to look. That will take some innovative thinking by those who produce content, and the Theta is generally a good tool to help start that thinking.
One place the Theta S works right now is to provide content for the Google Business View application (basically Google Street View for looking inside a business) that adds a "See Inside" view for retail locations. I was at the Ryland Inn (a terrific restaurant in Whitehouse Station, NJ) recently so I just popped the Theta S on the bar and took a good, representative picture of the entire bar area, all in a couple seconds. You can see it at the Theta S Gallery: The Ryland Inn. Pretty cool how quick it was and if you look closely you can see me pressing the shutter release on my iPhone. That is one of the really useful features of the camera, it allows for preview on your phone and it lets you get out of the picture if you want to via the wifi link and shutter release capability between camera and phone.
The other place the Theta is useful is that it is so cheap and fast, with a decent enough resolution (a 14 megapixel photo sphere), that it can easily create a pretty good walk-through tour for real estate agents. I took some pictures of my house and put together a simple walk-through using Kolor's Panotour software. See Jon's house tour here. I would be surprised if the Theta S didn't push aside the current $4,500 Matterport cameras in the near term as I understand from a few realtors that they are not willing to pay that much for the camera, especially when an alternative exists that is simple, inexpensive and adequate for what they need.
So the Theta S can produce a pretty nice photo sphere. How does it do at video? I thought for my first video experience I would pick an absolutely scintillating subject matter. What better way to see what a 360 video camera can do than to walk the first hole of my local golf course? Here is the 360 video up on YouTube. While it won't win any awards for cinematography, this clip does give you a pretty good idea how this works.
As you can see, the camera is on my head, actually on a GoPro hat mount which works surprisingly well (but makes you look like a unicorn/dork). The major problem with this configuration is that without stabilization, you see every step that I take. How to stabilize this camera is not immediately obvious (when I uploaded it to Youtube they said they would try to stabilize it automatically but it turned it into a static, flat image instead). Many camera stabilization rigs actually go around the camera, but that doesn't work when the camera captures everything around the camera except a very narrow swath underneath it. While I was pleasantly surprised with how little of me the camera sees when wearing it on my head, for videos in which I move I'm going to have to break out my son's Swagway to keep things steady (and stop taking videos on grass).
After that first cinematic tour de force, I moved on to 360 video of my son's football game. Here is a short video clip. Note, your video may start out looking at the wrong field (operator error), you can turn the video around. You can also zoom a little using your mouse wheel. What I notice is that the video quality of the guys on the bench (which is about 4 or 5 yards from the camera) is pretty good. However, by the time you get to the boys playing the actual game which is variously 15 to 60 yards away, the video quality plummets. The low quality down range video quality is much more noticeable in a sporting event than in my walk on the golf course. I haven't done any scientific analysis of the usable range of the camera, but clearly you need to keep the subject of the video near the camera for this to be a viable video experience.
In terms of sports photography, I think that basketball may be where the Theta S has the best chance to excel. By placing it in the middle of the court hanging from the ceiling or a steel girder, you will be able see everywhere on the court and it should let you feel like you are pretty close to the action. It's coverage and field of view may well be as good as multiple video cameras.
I have already scouted out our local school and both gyms have a metal girder at or near half-court. With a magnetic camera mount and a telescoping pole with a ring/carabiner set-up, I think I can raise and lower the Theta S without much difficulty. I am configuring the set-up and will update when I have some basketball video footage.
The main benefit I see of using 360 video with basketball is that you can use it to teach kids by allowing them to see what they do even when they don't have the ball. They can follow themselves wherever they are on the court. And you will never miss anything that happens on the court! It will also be way easier to video a game since once you set it up, you don't need to follow the action (other than to turn it off and on to conserve the battery/data storage). The main concern here will be the fact that you can only capture about 25 minutes of action (for battery and data storage reasons), so if you wanted to capture an entire basketball game, you would need either a couple of cameras or change them at the quarters/half which may not be all that easy as a practical matter.
Since my oldest son is a high school pitcher, I have been trying to figure out the best place to set up the camera. I assume that behind the plate will be okay, but then you are really only using about 120 degrees of the camera's view which fails to take advantage of the camera's unique abilities. My guess is that a conventional camera may still be the way to go with baseball. As I just got back from a middle school hockey game, I now have a brief video of what a hockey game looks like using the Theta. I love the coverage, I just wish the resolution were better. The coverage makes it a set it and forget it camera for parents, but the grainy resolution makes you think that this will be really cool with the next generation Theta.
Concerts or the school musical with this camera might be fun, but how much time you want to spend looking at the audience will likely dictate whether you use this camera or a traditional video camera. What all of this tells me is that 360 degree video will really deliver it's best results when you can actually place the camera at the center of ( and perhaps above) the action.
In a completely different vein, I like the idea of sticking one of these cameras on the hat of one of the civil war reenactors at Gettysburg (preferably one that doesn't die in the first few minutes), where you could really take in the entirety of the battle scene and appreciate what might feel more like a more immersive experience than traditional videography. Additionally, digital travelogues using the Theta S might well allow the remote "traveler" to choose where they want to look rather than where the videographer dictates.
As for the fit and finish of the Theta S, I really like how it feels in my hand. It is a beautiful product in the same way the first iPhones were. I like just looking at it. The rubberized black body makes it look great and feel nice. It has a nice weight to it and feels solid. I can update this after I have worked with it more to see how it holds up, but overall, I really like what Ricoh has done with this next generation of the Theta and think they are on the right track. It feels about right for the price ($350) and will enable many people to start exploring what it means to shoot in 360 degrees for VR. While there is certainly more one can hope for from a 360 camera, I am already starting to see its utility and think it will be the perfect tool for figuring out some of the challenges and opportunities of being able to capture universal video coverage.
And that is where I think the Theta S is. It is the next step along the path toward where we really want to be -- 3D photo realistic reality capture. But to take full advantage of the Theta, you can't start with that as your ideal, you need to see how far they have brought us from conventional 2D cameras and videography. A 360 degree field of view, while complicating filming (for example, there is nowhere to hide "off stage"), does open up a number of interesting new possibilities to allow the viewer to decide where to look. That will take some innovative thinking by those who produce content, and the Theta is generally a good tool to help start that thinking.
One place the Theta S works right now is to provide content for the Google Business View application (basically Google Street View for looking inside a business) that adds a "See Inside" view for retail locations. I was at the Ryland Inn (a terrific restaurant in Whitehouse Station, NJ) recently so I just popped the Theta S on the bar and took a good, representative picture of the entire bar area, all in a couple seconds. You can see it at the Theta S Gallery: The Ryland Inn. Pretty cool how quick it was and if you look closely you can see me pressing the shutter release on my iPhone. That is one of the really useful features of the camera, it allows for preview on your phone and it lets you get out of the picture if you want to via the wifi link and shutter release capability between camera and phone.
The other place the Theta is useful is that it is so cheap and fast, with a decent enough resolution (a 14 megapixel photo sphere), that it can easily create a pretty good walk-through tour for real estate agents. I took some pictures of my house and put together a simple walk-through using Kolor's Panotour software. See Jon's house tour here. I would be surprised if the Theta S didn't push aside the current $4,500 Matterport cameras in the near term as I understand from a few realtors that they are not willing to pay that much for the camera, especially when an alternative exists that is simple, inexpensive and adequate for what they need.
So the Theta S can produce a pretty nice photo sphere. How does it do at video? I thought for my first video experience I would pick an absolutely scintillating subject matter. What better way to see what a 360 video camera can do than to walk the first hole of my local golf course? Here is the 360 video up on YouTube. While it won't win any awards for cinematography, this clip does give you a pretty good idea how this works.
As you can see, the camera is on my head, actually on a GoPro hat mount which works surprisingly well (but makes you look like a unicorn/dork). The major problem with this configuration is that without stabilization, you see every step that I take. How to stabilize this camera is not immediately obvious (when I uploaded it to Youtube they said they would try to stabilize it automatically but it turned it into a static, flat image instead). Many camera stabilization rigs actually go around the camera, but that doesn't work when the camera captures everything around the camera except a very narrow swath underneath it. While I was pleasantly surprised with how little of me the camera sees when wearing it on my head, for videos in which I move I'm going to have to break out my son's Swagway to keep things steady (and stop taking videos on grass).
After that first cinematic tour de force, I moved on to 360 video of my son's football game. Here is a short video clip. Note, your video may start out looking at the wrong field (operator error), you can turn the video around. You can also zoom a little using your mouse wheel. What I notice is that the video quality of the guys on the bench (which is about 4 or 5 yards from the camera) is pretty good. However, by the time you get to the boys playing the actual game which is variously 15 to 60 yards away, the video quality plummets. The low quality down range video quality is much more noticeable in a sporting event than in my walk on the golf course. I haven't done any scientific analysis of the usable range of the camera, but clearly you need to keep the subject of the video near the camera for this to be a viable video experience.
In terms of sports photography, I think that basketball may be where the Theta S has the best chance to excel. By placing it in the middle of the court hanging from the ceiling or a steel girder, you will be able see everywhere on the court and it should let you feel like you are pretty close to the action. It's coverage and field of view may well be as good as multiple video cameras.
I have already scouted out our local school and both gyms have a metal girder at or near half-court. With a magnetic camera mount and a telescoping pole with a ring/carabiner set-up, I think I can raise and lower the Theta S without much difficulty. I am configuring the set-up and will update when I have some basketball video footage.
The main benefit I see of using 360 video with basketball is that you can use it to teach kids by allowing them to see what they do even when they don't have the ball. They can follow themselves wherever they are on the court. And you will never miss anything that happens on the court! It will also be way easier to video a game since once you set it up, you don't need to follow the action (other than to turn it off and on to conserve the battery/data storage). The main concern here will be the fact that you can only capture about 25 minutes of action (for battery and data storage reasons), so if you wanted to capture an entire basketball game, you would need either a couple of cameras or change them at the quarters/half which may not be all that easy as a practical matter.
Since my oldest son is a high school pitcher, I have been trying to figure out the best place to set up the camera. I assume that behind the plate will be okay, but then you are really only using about 120 degrees of the camera's view which fails to take advantage of the camera's unique abilities. My guess is that a conventional camera may still be the way to go with baseball. As I just got back from a middle school hockey game, I now have a brief video of what a hockey game looks like using the Theta. I love the coverage, I just wish the resolution were better. The coverage makes it a set it and forget it camera for parents, but the grainy resolution makes you think that this will be really cool with the next generation Theta.
Concerts or the school musical with this camera might be fun, but how much time you want to spend looking at the audience will likely dictate whether you use this camera or a traditional video camera. What all of this tells me is that 360 degree video will really deliver it's best results when you can actually place the camera at the center of ( and perhaps above) the action.
In a completely different vein, I like the idea of sticking one of these cameras on the hat of one of the civil war reenactors at Gettysburg (preferably one that doesn't die in the first few minutes), where you could really take in the entirety of the battle scene and appreciate what might feel more like a more immersive experience than traditional videography. Additionally, digital travelogues using the Theta S might well allow the remote "traveler" to choose where they want to look rather than where the videographer dictates.
As for the fit and finish of the Theta S, I really like how it feels in my hand. It is a beautiful product in the same way the first iPhones were. I like just looking at it. The rubberized black body makes it look great and feel nice. It has a nice weight to it and feels solid. I can update this after I have worked with it more to see how it holds up, but overall, I really like what Ricoh has done with this next generation of the Theta and think they are on the right track. It feels about right for the price ($350) and will enable many people to start exploring what it means to shoot in 360 degrees for VR. While there is certainly more one can hope for from a 360 camera, I am already starting to see its utility and think it will be the perfect tool for figuring out some of the challenges and opportunities of being able to capture universal video coverage.