HikeArizona.COM

Anyone get one of these? After a lengthy period of hiking laziness (if you look up the last time I logged a hike, don't bother telling me because I'd rather not know for sure), it's a 360 camera that's finally gotten me back onto the saddle again. Example below from a Samsung Gear 360.

(Admins, any way to allow this to be posted as an embedded image?)

https://kuula.co/post/...

@neilends
Sorry, embedded code is an open door for malicious minds!

Not that it helps sharing easy but kinna cool is any Android 4.2+ has Photo Sphere, I read it's available for iOS now too. When you post they are viewed on Google Maps Street View.
example: drag the yellow pegman here and you should see a faint blue dot near the red crosshair. Drop the pegman on the blue dot and you will see "See Spring Canyon" last autumn. Yeah I didn't do great. That is Bruce or at least part of him...lol
Simply click "Google" in the lower right of the HAZ Map for a direct link.

Great to hear from you! I stumble across your profile or triplogs on occasion.

@joebartels I think you can count on more 360 fanatics like me. 2017 is the year, because Ricoh and Samsung have produced consumer-priced 360 cameras. Apple will get involved sooner or later. So will a flood of HAZers. That's my official prediction!

For now I will have to stick with Kuula because there aren't any great 360 hosting sites. Google Street View hasn't adapted yet. So no embedding for me but no big deal. The nature of a 360 requires one to click on the outside link to actually navigate it anyway.

I've been an on-off HAZer since 2008. I was away and only just today learned that you've been temporarily benched. Best wishes for a strong and swift recovery.

joebartels wrote:That is Bruce or at least part of him...lol

Poor Bruce.... hope he's feeling better.

@AZLumberjack
I wasn't quite all myself that day.
Joe says sometimes I have a split personality.
I have myself back together in one piece now .
Thanks for the concern..

neilends wrote:So will a flood of HAZers.

Depends on how you define 'a flood of HAZers'... personally, I wouldn't bet on it.

My 'main' camera died a few days ago so I thought it was time to look into various alternatives, which is when I came across a mention Garmin's VIRB-360. Being unfamiliar with the term '360 camera' I spent a few hours in research and quickly realized it was NOT the camera for me. My gut feeling is 360 cameras will very likely to be another 'flash-in-the-pan' idea that grabs attention along with a surge in sales but dies off to become a niche item once the novelty is gone.

Yeah, maybe cool to try but I'd rather put my money into a higher quality camera that better suits my needs/wants. For my typical use, if I had a 360 camera I'd end up carrying two cameras..
1. The 360 for the few '360-views' like on summits
2. And another camera for photos of everything else, including rattlers, gila monsters, desert tortoise, javelina, deer, bighorn sheep, flowers, butterflies... in those instances, I want the focus solely on the subject of the photo.

The biggest draw-back for me is how to display the results in the photosets on my website. I 'tell the story of my hike' through the order of the photos, and having to exit the photoset a number of times to view each 360-photo (on a separate page? or in a separate app?) returning to the photoset each time will leave a very disjointed experience.

Now if I had extra money just waiting to be spent, I might try it for the novelty... Oh wait! Who am I kidding?
1. I won't ever see extra money waiting to be spent.
2. I'm not into the 'buy it because everyone else thinks they need to' mentality. I buy what best suits my needs for the long term, and I stick with whatever it is until it wears out or fails.
(Or, like my Cherokee, when I simply couldn't afford to keep it from leaving me stranded somewhere far from home.)

On the other hand, I DO stick with things that last without continually draining my wallet.
Case in point... The leather slippers I sewed together from a kit when I was 14 years old served their purpose admirably for 51 years, whereas the replacements aren't likely to last 5... in less than 2 I've already worn out the insoles.

/Soapbox off
(What? No more soapbox smiley?)

Cannondale: All good points. But some interesting issues here. One issue: different levels of expertise.

The VIRB is $800. Yikes. No thanks. My Samsung cost me $130. It's not professional-grade imagery but see my linked image above: it's good enough for this amateur hobbyist. It won't satisfy someone with your level of seriousness for now. But the cheap Samsung is good news for you: the VIRB people are seeing the Samsung and realizing that their quality had better go up and price down in their next version, or they're going to be extinct in a few business cycles.

Prior to 2017, I literally could not take a 360 degree photo without expensive equipment, software to stitch together multiple images, and hours of time for labor to do the stitching and processing. The Gear lets me post a 360 on Facebook for $130 and about 5 minutes worth of time per shot, and it hit the markets about a month ago.

Yes, the websites haven't caught up yet. Facebook permits 360s but the resolution is pretty bad, and Google Street View is just beginning to adopt 360s but the process is pretty clunky. Check back in 6-12 months. Kuula.co does the trick for now. (Vimeo and YouTube also allow 360 videos now. They're all in the beginning stages.)

@CannondaleKid

"The biggest draw-back for me is how to display the results in the photosets on my website. I 'tell the story of my hike' through the order of the photos, and having to exit the photoset a number of times to view each 360-photo (on a separate page? or in a separate app?) returning to the photoset each time will leave a very disjointed experience."

Kuula just added an easy-to-embed feature. I don't use it so I can't offer specifics.

https://kuula.co/blog/auto-rotate-kuula-360-embeds/

neilends wrote:Kuula just added an easy-to-embed feature.

The embedding appears to work much like YouTube's which is fine but it won't work with the JetPhoto Server software I use on my website. As with YouTube embeds, I have a separate page for each video, otherwise it would be a one huge mess on one LOOONG web page.

I don't like stitched-together panorama photos, which is why I take 8 separate photos for my 'panorama' shots. After taking a look at numerous 360 photos on various sites (including your linked photo) I just don't care enough for the look to spend even $100 on a 360 camera.

In fact, when I visited the link in last post, it not only gave me a 'fish-eye' appearance, I actually began to feel dizzy as it turned.

As you stated in your second post, there will be a number of folks who like the capability of 360 cameras and I don't mean to dampen their enthusiasm, in fact I urge those with an interest to check them out. They simply don't hold any appeal to me.

Personally, I find viewing 360 photos totally annoying and 360 videos totally confusing. I guess I'm a curmudgeon.

Is this a new technology? Do you need a special camera for it? Doesn't the camera just use software to piece the photo together? Software can be run on any device.

I took these with my iPhone 4S back in 2013. They don't look a whole lot different from what I see out there today. And the problem of embedding/linking is the same today as it was four years ago.

Three very cool 360 photos from each of the peaks 4-3-2. The Browns one got washed out because the sun was too low in the sky:
Amethyst: http://on.bubb.li/aql376wv8qyr18vvp/
Sister: http://on.bubb.li/atrhz1gx1fj6nq4vr/
Brother: http://on.bubb.li/ay23s1vapw4xvmy84/

chumley wrote:Is this a new technology? Do you need a special camera for it? Doesn't the camera just use software to piece the photo together? Software can be run on any device.

Well, kinda but the 360 cameras only use 2 very-wide-angle lenses. Solves the problem of having to circle around and clip a bunch of stuff. Just push the one button and you are done. You can capture people moving, for example. Only very small areas get "clipped" due to the 2 lens coverage.

The thing that people maybe are missing here is that these aren't really that great for still photos as we typically consume them currently (although I think the tiny planets are cool.)

They really excel in 2 areas, in my opinion:

1) video. You can walk down say, the Bright Angel trail and shoot a video 360 around you the entire time. Can't do that with a smartphone. Then you can play it back and scan around the video at your leisure.

2) VR. They really are made to go hand in hand with VR headsets, to get the most out of them. I know, I know, geek loser stuff. Why not just get out of your chair and go see the world? Well, because for one thing, there are large numbers of people in the world for whom that is not an option, be it economic, geographic, or maybe a physical limitation. For someone who will never get the chance to climb out of the Grand Canyon, 360 cameras and VR headsets allow them to at least get a taste of the experience.

Anyway, that's just my 2 cents. Yes these consumer ones are kind of limiting, and the current technology is very niche. I wouldn't recommend one to someone as their only camera by a long shot.

But here we are what, 10 years since the first iPhone came out - did we imagine we would be able to post real time, high res Instagram photos of our adventures back then? I think 10 years from now the technology will be quite a bit more advanced and it will be interesting to come back to this thread and see what has changed.

Edit - disclaimer - yes I own one, yes I paid around $100 for it. I just like weird tech things.

chumley wrote:Is this a new technology? Do you need a special camera for it? Doesn't the camera just use software to piece the photo together? Software can be run on any device.

360 cameras for consumers were not really a thing until 2017. Pros have been using these cameras that range up to $8000 and beyond for years. Other pros have been manually stitching together professional-grade images, also for years, which takes a lot of time. The consumer cameras are not trying to be those guys or that equipment. Professional 360s amaze me and I really enjoy viewing them. But that's not what I'm trying to achieve.

The Samsung 360 and Ricoh Theta (I believe Samsung is superior) allow decent-quality 360s images for less than $200, a single click of a button, and it does the stitching for you automatically. I think it's hella cool. Here's a fave that I took on our family trip to Paris:

https://kuula.co/post/7llgw

Some dude in Norway took this one (he did not use a consumer camera for this one):

https://kuula.co/post/7l7yJ

What was used for GC South Kaibab footage as many scenes in Street View are simply incredible? They even have great shots of the Boat Beach water faucet and emergency phone. One can really get a good idea of what to expect as you can literally walk the trail from your computer either up or down to Phantom.