Originally posted by uday029 I totally agree. Ricoh Theta was a game changer for 360 photography. Samsung camera looks nice but it only works with Samsung phones, which kind of sucks for people with other brand phones. I am waiting to see how the LG camera works. I am hoping 360 photos become more common with all these new players. Right now it is a pain to process and upload them on web.
Hey there Theta-philes! As my name on this forum suggests, I've been shooting panos (360x180 a la Theta) for 16 years now. I also do a ton of HDR work, 3D modeling and rendering, and building "virtual worlds" for head-mounted displays.
Here's the deal; I also write for a little site called dpreview, and pretty soon I'll be writing a "primer" on VR for photographers, and then a bit later reviewing 360 cameras (incl. the Theta and others that have been mentioned). As expected on DPR, I'll push these cameras to their limits in terms of dynamic range, flare control (for spherical cams!), general controls, stitch quality, software support, and so on.
What you say above,
uday029, preps me for where Ricoh is at today, and what to expect from Nikon, Samsung, LG, and some others to-be-named-later. However, I then see you post fabulous long-exposures with light-painting!!?? Whatever little headaches are happening, the post-production is yielding great results. Heck,
severalsnakes is showing what looks like HDR tonemapping in the car auction panos! Was not aware these things were possible with "one-shot 360" at such a small, and reasonably priced, scale.