The Gear 360 is one of many 360 solutions on the market, so what makes this the choice for you?
Well, this is a very feature rich camera for the price, it has a very good resolution able to produce still photos with a maximum resolution of 7776x3888 pixels and when recording a maximum resolution of 3840 x 1920 pixels.
In the box:
You get a licence to action director 360 for video editing.
You get a cloth case to protect your device.
You get a USB cable.
You get a 1/4" micro tripod
hardware
The great feature I have found with the camera is the standard ¼” camera mount which means all standard camera accessories fit, in the video linked here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9D4BmP781I
The camera is mounted to a car bonnet with a suction cup adaptor.
Streaming
Streaming to your phone, this camera being a Samsung device has some bias toward Samsung phones, as such Samsung limits the recording resolution to non S7 or newer phones however an unofficial app had been released which unlocks all features on any android device running android 5.0 or higher.
When you get the live streaming to work, it gives you live 360 video when recording or taking photos, strangely however you cannot watch a live view when taking a time lapse video which I found very confusing.
This aside, I found I rarely used the streaming functionality as I can operate the camera completely independently of the phone and with it being 360, I don’t really have to worry about where it is pointing.
Video leveling
The Camera has an inbuilt accelerometer which it can use to detect its orientation relative to gravity.
As such you should enable the auto level feature (only found when using the app) to make the camera always keep the video horizontal which is a video editors best friend!!
Camera menus
It has many operating modes and can be controlled from a smartphone or on the camera itself.
The shooting modes available from the camera interface are:
1: Time lapse.
2: Video loop recording (small 5 minute clips that loop).
3: Video recording (records until battery dies or storage runs out, splits clips into 4gb files).
4: Photos.
5: Settings -
5a: Switch lens (lets you select between using both cameras at the same time or the front / rear camera exclusively (a red recording indicator lights up next to the camera that is selected)
5b: Video size ( Options for Dual lens 360 video: 3840x1920 30fps, 2880x1440 30fps, 2560x1280 60fps, 2560x1280 30fps, 1920x960 30fps.)
( Options for 180 Single lens video: 2560x1440 30fps, 1920x1080 30fps, 1280x720 30fps, 1920x1080 60fps )
5c: Photo size ( Options for Dual lens 360 : 30megapixels or 14megapixels )
( Options for 180 Single lens : None, you cannot take 180 photos )
5d: Time Lapse Video size (1920x1080, 1280x720, 2560x1440 )
5e: Timer ( 2seconds, 5seconds, 10seconds, off please not if you have this enabled, when ever you start a recoding or click to take a photo, it will count down. )
5f: Auto power off after: ( 1m, 3m, 5m, 30m )
5d: Format storage
5h: About device (Model No, WiFi MAC address, Bluetooth address, Software version, serial No. )
Quick Tips (TLDR) :
Always align the blind spot of the camera to be parallel with the surface you are mounting it too.
Try to place the camera on a flat surface, if the surface is curved, try o elevate the camera a foot or so above it.
The above should remove stitching problems.
The camera will let you watch the live stream in video and photo mode however it will not in time-lapse mode.
From a smartphone, enable the auto level feature , this utilises the on board accelerometer which will make sure the video remains horizontal and the right way up no matter the orientation of the camera which I can assure you is extremely important when trying to edit video.
Cons:
One thing I have found plagues all 360 cameras is stitching issues, this is because there is not an actual sensor going 360degrees around the device, now this is a very situational issue and effects all 360 solution differently, in the case of the gear 360 it won’t happen for anything a metre or further from the camera, but anything closer can get slightly clipped.
This is because each lens has a 195 Degree Field of view (FOV) so they overlap but because they aren’t perfectly back to back, there is still a blind spot for just under a meter away from all the sides of the device In-between the two lenses.
Take for example the stand which is supplied with the gear 360, the camera cannot see it because it is in the blind spot, in the video attached to this review I am using a large selfie stick which you can only just see the end of it.
It is a shame that they do not utilise the full sensor resolution when filming because 4k stretched to 360 Degrees creates a slightly blurred image on far away objects when the lighting is low.
Also not supporting 60fps at full resolution is a shame, but I can understand why, the camera had a tendency to overheat when charging and recording at the same time at which point it would shut off.
You cannot delete files on the camera when plugged in via USB, only view them.
The large lens area of the camera makes putting it anywhere difficult as you risk damaging it, I would like to see a waterproof case similar to GoPro.
The slight blur in low light is a very minor point and I would recommend this over a multi camera solution because of the many benefits this camera contains.
Conclusion.
This camera is the cheapest 4k 360 device on the market, it is one of the only 360 cameras that features built in image levelling and it is one of the most compact 360 cameras with built in wifi and Bluetooth.
Adobe premier pro is your friend however the software included is action director, it is vital for stitching your photos and video together.
Once your files have been imported into action director, it stitches them and stores them in its own folder, to access those stitched files, right click on the imported clip and select open file location.
You then take those files and import them into Premier pro for more advanced editing, however you can use action director for more basic tasks.
A million in one features, more than just two cameras strapped together.