[Serkevan]

To me it makes as much sense as putting Ricoh office machines in the database.

Then the now-Ricoh-branded tough compacts, the GR series and the Thetas should be kicked out?

It's a compact camera. It just uses a different image format.

And I think it will sell - Instax saved Fuji's neck and that one is much more of a replaceable, almost-useless gimmick. The Vecnos MIB Thingy is something I'd actually consider bringing on a trip, and at 300 bucks it's fairly inexpensive.

---------- Post added 09-18-20 at 02:59 AM ----------

I can't shake the idea that Vecnos is an independent startup/spinoff because Ricoh doesn't want to be associated with something that is destined to be a failure. There is no denying that putting this functionality in such a small device as the IQUI is impressive and it has that "beautiful design" look, but who is going to pay $299US for something that will grow old the third time it is used?

I am considering it and such a small 360° camera is great for travel, as you can very easily document the trip for friends and family. I'd say the main reason for spinning it off is that the market moves much faster than the bureaucracy of a large conglomerate can react.

[house]

Brands can only contain certain things. Ricoh as a camera brand is brutalist stuff. Pentax is Cameras with capital C.

This glitter pen of a camera doesn't fit into either category. They wouldn't reach the right people under either of the existing brands.

[thibs]

Brutalist what?
Where does that come from ?

[texandrews]

Brutalist what?
Where does that come from ?

I think it's a reference to Brutalist design, best known in architecture.

[thibs]

I think it's a reference to Brutalist design, best known in architecture.

Oh, thank you. Will look it up then.

[bobmaxja]

Vecnos is part of the ADN of Pentax, going outside the define road like today they stay in DSLR. Vicnos should be part of the Pentax forum

[house]

Oh, thank you. Will look it up then.

texandrews was correct I was referring to the style. In the US you might be familiar with Boston city hall though it's not a very good example of what I was aiming for. Brutalism is a direct type of architecture. Materials are used for what they are and often rough or hard contrasted against timber or other warmer materials. Have a look at:

- Sigurd Lewerentz: Flower Kiosk, Östra Kyrkogården - #SOSBRUTALISM and
- ? Maisons Jaoul - Data, Photos & Plans - WikiArquitectura

The GR with it's sand paper finish, simple design and direct controls made me connect the two.

[Serkevan]

texandrews was correct I was referring to the style. In the US you might be familiar with Boston city hall though it's not a very good example of what I was aiming for. Brutalism is a direct type of architecture. Materials are used for what they are and often rough or hard contrasted against timber or other warmer materials. Have a look at:

- Sigurd Lewerentz: Flower Kiosk, Östra Kyrkogården - #SOSBRUTALISM and
- ? Maisons Jaoul - Data, Photos & Plans - WikiArquitectura

The GR with it's sand paper finish, simple design and direct controls made me connect the two.

I actually had a cursory wiki look and was surprised to see that Brutalism was originally a British style. Somehow I had always associated brutalism with socialist countries - for example Western City Gate - Wikipedia in Belgrade. It's a very interesting way of building IMO.

[texandrews]

I think that it's sort of an interesting observation about the Ricoh cameras, in contrast to other cameras I'm thinking of. The Sigma Quatro maybe qualifies, and the original Sony A7's did I think, maybe the RX1. Not sure the Thetas quite qualify, but they're close in a way.

There was a significant Brutalist building in my home town, the Morris Mechanic Theater, and I work in one, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden. and I stayed in one for a couple of conferences at Christ Church College, Oxford. This latter is a blight on the college and the town, IMO. I think Prince Charles has it mostly right when he speaks of context in architecture. I don't hate them all, but they are often very bunker-like.


They are controversial buildings, and many have not aged well. They can also be quite difficult to modernize/rehab due to the way they were built and the materials used, which are pretty unforgiving.

[johnmflores]

I've been shooting and sharing 360 content since the Theta SC, and one of the things that I'v learned is that sharing 360 content is cool and fun but shooting 360 and then framing and sharing as flat images will get more views. The image quality is pretty bad - I'd never print with a 360 image - but it's certainly good enough for an iPhone or a Samsung Galaxy, which, if we're looking at the data, is where most content is consumed these days.

For example, this was shot with a 360 camera (Insta 360 One X) and then edited in Adobe Premiere Pro:

You Tube

You Tube

What's increasing popular is taking a 360 photo and framing it in an usual way:


The road to Paso de Futalefú by John Flores, on Flickr

Or, with an app, turning a 360 photo into a short animated video that's perfect for Instagram, Tik Tok, etc...
(not sure if this will work...)

https://www.instagram.com/p/B6i7xN1nlEa/

The key is workflow - getting the photo from the device to the phone and then onto social media needs to be as easy as possible or else the product will fail. Trouble connecting the device to the phone, slow transfers, slow apps, buggy apps, etc... will surely kill the product. The Theta app is good in some ways, bad in others. It needs to be improved. Instant connectivity would be a game changer too.

If they can do that with Vecnos, they might have a small hit on their hands.

[Mistral75]

IQUI's availability has been postponed from the 1st to the 15th of October:

On September 16, Vecnos announced that its ultra-compact 360-degree camera IQUI would be available for sale in the US, UK, France, Germany and Japan on October 1, 2020. Today, we announce that we must delay sales of IQUI to October 15, 2020.

Vecnos decided to delay sales of IQUI to better ensure excellent user experience. The current version of IQUISPIN, the app necessary to connect IQUI to smartphones, needs further development to properly function in the latest version of smartphone operating systems.

Thank you for your patience as we work to provide a better quality user experience for future IQUI owners.

Source: Notice of Delay of Sales of IQUI to Oct. 15, 2020 | IQUI by vecnos

The return of the revenge of the '...or later''.

[BigMackCam]

IQUI's availability has been postponed from the 1st to the 15th of October:

Source: Notice of Delay of Sales of IQUI to Oct. 15, 2020 | IQUI by vecnos

The return of the revenge of the '...or later''.

That's amazing... So whatever necessary further development is required can be performed, along with full testing and production readiness approval, in just 14 days?? Man, oh man - things have changed since I last ran an IT development group

[Kunzite]

That's amazing... So whatever necessary further development is required can be performed, along with full testing and production readiness approval, in just 14 days?? Man, oh man - things have changed since I last ran an IT development group

Lol. They didn't say they're just starting, though... just that it should be done 2 weeks from now.
Nothing unusual here.

[BigMackCam]

Lol. They didn't say they're just starting, though... just that it should be done 2 weeks from now.
Nothing unusual here.

Ah, OK... So a two week slippage on delivery rather than a new two week development push... That makes sense

[Serkevan]

Ah, OK... So a two week slippage on delivery rather than a new two week development push... That makes sense

I suppose that Marketing was hoping that the app would finish development in time and kept holding on to the release date. If it's "only" a bug with a specific OS version they might not have caught it until very recent, but once squashed it would take basically no time to upload the new version of the app to the online stores. I wouldn't be surprised if the cameras are already distributed and simply waiting for the green light on the software to avoid launch issues.

Which, to their credit, is more honest than the average video game... they keep releasing on the date the suits insisted was firm and then it takes a week of daily patches to somewhat salvage the mess .