Insta360 One XRS 360 Camera Review
With a slick app experience and great low-light performance, the Insta360 One XRS is the camera for the serious filmmaker. It’s also a good choice for anyone who wants a 360 camera that has a big screen for easy editing and viewing.
A few things stand out with this camera: it’s inexpensive, it has a lot of features, and it’s pretty rugged.
Camera
The camera itself is essentially a tiny pod with dual 1-inch CMOS sensors and lenses. It connects to a base piece that includes a USB port and 1/4″ tripod mount. A 1.3-inch touchscreen is built into the base, along with the main core with a USB-C port and a hard-to-reach microSD card slot.
The app offers a suite of simple controls, though it does not allow you to change settings on-the-fly during capture. It does, however, offer a 3- or 10-second self-timer that can be used to avoid extreme distortion from the camera’s lenses. It also enables you to turn off one of the cameras, making it possible to shoot a flat photo or video.
Videos are recorded at a resolution of up to 5K in the highest quality setting and can be played back on your phone’s screen, a VR headset, or with a dedicated viewer. The app has a number of editing options, including the ability to split 360 clips into smaller ‘windows’ for individual handling. This makes editing a lot easier than it could be with a raw equirectangular image, although it does take some time to load each window into the app.
Low-light performance is poor, as with most small sensors, and the camera struggles with dynamic range when exposed for a bright sky and dark foreground. It also lacks a GPS EXIF tag that would let you track a clip or photo.
App
Before modern smartphones came out, capturing genuine spherical panoramas was a complicated process that required specialized equipment and stitching software to bind multiple photos together. Now, you can easily do it with your smartphone and an app. These apps can help you capture high-quality panoramic images and videos and share them privately or on social media platforms. They also provide you with a virtual reality experience and are easy to use.
Among the most popular 360 camera apps is Google Street View, which lets you create high-quality panoramic pictures and videos by using your smartphone. You can view the pictures and videos battery security camera in virtual reality using a Google Cardboard device. You can even add sound to the video and view it in 3D.
Another good choice for a 360 camera is Photo Sphere Camera, which is free and allows you to take 360 photos on your iPhone. It automatically stitches your images to form a panoramic image and allows you to instantly share them on Facebook and other platforms. It also features a news feed where you can follow other photographers.
You can find a number of different 360-degree camera apps on the App Store, including Google Street View, Photo Sphere Camera, and Photaf. Each has its own unique set of features and capabilities, so choose one that meets your needs. Some of these apps offer in-app purchases. Others are free to download.
Controls
A 360 camera requires a different approach to shooting than conventional cameras. It takes time to learn how to use them, and they are not always easy to handle if you need both hands on the wheel or when you’re hiking or cycling for example. Make sure that the camera you choose is comfortable to hold and can easily be used with one hand. Some also come with a handle or holder to help you grip it better.
The camera should be able to display images in several views to give you the option of what best suits your needs. The view modes include Overview, which shows a hemispherical image, and Dewarped views that reverse geometric distortions caused by fisheye lenses. You can also select a Dual or Quad view, which are split-screen images that show the rearview and surround-view views simultaneously. This is particularly useful when maneuvering your vehicle into a tight spot or parking garage, as it helps you see any nearby obstacles.
It’s a good idea to avoid doing any global adjustments or optimizations of the images after they have been stitched together. This ahd 360 camera can cause visible seams and ‘cat butt’ vortex effects to the top and bottom (zenith and nadir) of the resulting composite equirectangular image. For this reason, it’s generally recommended that you do all of the editing work before you stitch and create a video.
Storage
Unlike most other 360 cameras, which use multiple lenses to take photos from different angles, this model has just one lens and it spins around to capture a sphere of images from every direction. The images are stitched together by software into a single, high-resolution image.
This camera features a wide 1.0-inch back-illuminated CMOS image sensor, which is one of the largest for consumer 360 cameras. Its high resolution supports a maximum ISO6400 sensitivity, enabling it to shoot in dim indoor settings and other challenging conditions.
Battery life is respectable, with the manufacturer claiming 60 minutes of recording on its interchangeable unit. At its highest quality setting, the Rylo records at a rate of about 1GB per minute, meaning you’ll need plenty of free space on your mobile device to copy over the recordings.
The camera also includes the option to upload to a cloud service, which provides seven days of backups for your clips—an extra layer of security in case you lose or break the camera. But setting up and using this feature is confusing, and the camera doesn’t offer any clear instructions for how to get started.
It’s also possible to store recordings on a NAS device, but the process is clunky and requires a separate app. You can check your storage space on your NAS by opening the SD Card menu in the Camera Settings or via the Insta360 ONE X app.